What the heck? There are exactly four ways to amend the Constitution, consisting of two ways to propose an amendment and two ways to ratify it:
Congress, by 2/3 majority in each house, proposes an amendment.
2/3 of State legislatures together call for a Constitutional Convention to propose amendments.
A. 3/4 of state legislatures ratify an amendment proposed by either of the above.
B. In accordance with Congressional provision, 3/4 of state ratifying conventions approve ratification.
You have to have one from 1 or 2 and one from A or B to approve an amendment.
Second, the so-called “loose construction” of the Constitution (called that by people who don’t care to see it used to intrude on their arguably unconstitutional private preferences) says that the broad language of some parts of the Constitution can be extended to mean a variety of things not originally contemplated or spelled out in the document itself. But this means only in accordance with what the broad language itself calls for. In other words, the legislators of 1867 may not have thought that a man and a woman doing equal work should receive equal pay. But what they wrote was that all citizens should receive “the equal protection of the laws” which means that if Congress or the state legislatures say anything about pay at all, it has to be equally applied to both men and women. Because that’s what “equal protection” means. It means the court, using precedent, decides what’s “cruel and unusual punishment” because the Constitution prohibits such punishments but doesn’t define what they are. But it would be impossible to reason from the Establishment Clause or the Free Exercise Clause, even using the Due Process, Privileges and Immunities, and Equal Protection Clauses as well, to get to a conclusion that “churches must be sold for scrap.”
What you may be mistaking for persecution of Christianity is a principled refusal to give it government privilege to enforce its beliefs on others. If 50 people want to worship together, or form a church, government has to stay out of that. But if those same 50 people decide to become the majority in a small town, elect a local government, and require people to pray at the start of town board meetings or set up a monument of the Ten Commandments in front of Town Hall, then they’re using the government to enforce their religious beliefs. And that’s prohibited by the Establishment Clause.
You know Maureen if you are going to call the Christian Churches on every belief and tradition that was pulled in from other so called “Pagan Beliefs” what will they have left?
You know, back when I used to hang out a Christian message board, I lost count of the number of times my Christianity was called into question because of my liberal positions on homosexuality and abortion, among other things. I’ve now had the dubious privilege of talking with people who believe Catholics aren’t Christians, and I shudder to think about what they’d think of the Armenians or Zwinglians. Kanicbird, you’ve been hanging around this place even longer than I have. Surely you remember the debates we used to have around here a few years ago when we had some ardently evangelizing Fundamentalist Christians? I still remember the time I referred to the way kids in high school made my life a living hell in a debate on religion to point out that going to church doesn’t necessarily make one a good person and one poster said, “Maybe they’re not real Christians.” I pointed out to her that many of them were members in good standing of their church’s youth group and, if she was going to suggest that everyone who picked on me wasn’t a Christian, she’d just condemned most of the youth of a small town to hell, which is quite an accomplishment, in my book!
I’m Episcopalian. We have a very different way of doing things than people who say “Jesus” every other sentence. To a casual observer, we might look like peope who just sit in the pews on Sunday and go to church because it’s the socially acceptable thing to do. As a denomination, we’re pretty liberal, having even ordained a gay bishop. The lawsuit which prevented schools from having an official prayer before football games was brought by Episcopalians and Catholics, not Atheists, and I agree with it. We don’t look or act like Fundamentalist Christians, for the most part and it would be all to easy for someone to wonder what sort of Christians we are. Here’s what kind we are. We are the kind of Christians who give back to our respective communities by working quietly within the community, feeding the hungry, helping the sick, and comforting the dying. In the words of Polycarp’s favorite quotes, we “preach the gospel at all times! Use words if necessary!”
My point is, when you start saying “Well, maybe so-and-so’s not a real Christian”, I start to get offended, because it’s been implied that I’m not a real Christian because I’m not born again, supportive of evolution, opposed to homosexuality, etc. I’ve read too many threads in GD where people routinely say one can’t accept evolution and be a real Christian. I’ll be going to a museum today with a couple of Wiccan friends (I’ll tell H. Jay you said “Hello”, shall I, Polycarp?). I’m not going to try to convert them; I’m simply going to enjoy their company for the wonderful thing it is. My accepting of them alone would get me branded “not a real Christian” by some Christians.
Christians in this country aren’t persecuted. We’re the only religion in the country which gets one of our major festivals off. If pagans tried to get Halloween, aka Samhain, made a Federal holiday, there’d be howls of outrage. As it is, I’ll concede that Halloween, aka All Hallow’s Eve, is one holiday which people have been trying to strip of its Christian roots, but the people trying to do so are, for the most part, the same people who are complaining about the secularization of America and the persecution of Christians. My church, by the way, does celebrate Halloween and All Saint’s Day, the day after. We do so by holding a requiem mass for those who have died and honoring those who have gone before and the saints whose service to God we strive to emulate. Oh, yes. I mentioned “saints”. By some people’s standards, I’ve disqualified myself from being a Christian. I have ties to the local Pagan community. I’m aware of a few cases where Pagans have been denied visitation rights or not been allowed to practice their religion in their homes because they’re pagans. I’m not aware of any such cases involving Christians.
I serve Christ. I make no secret of that, and the bottom line is my relationship with Jesus is the most important thing in my life. Nevertheless, a few years ago, between the constant barrage I was getting from my born again brothers and sisters and Christ and a bunch of other things, I actually got to the point where I was starting to think I was not a proper Christian because of what I’ve experienced and what I believe, including the fact that I never had a Road-To-Damascus type conversion experience. It pushed me to the point of despair, to the point where I published this out at Cecil’s Place two days before Christmas:
A few days later, I started a thread in GD asking if I was “Less of a Christian?” I meant the question quite sincerely.
Frankly, in the unlikely scenario they do start setting up concentration camps for non-Christians, I figure that, despite how very devout and sincere my faith is, I’m likely to wind up in one myself, and not just because I’ll probably be working dead hard with the resistance movement! Please, kanicbird, could you lay off the business with the real Christians vs. fake Christians? It did a bit of damage to my faith a few years ago when I had very little going for me, and I could see it harming others. To me, sitting in the choir stalls at my church, looking down at the congregation and trying to separate the real Christians from the benchwarmers is a pretty un-Christian thing to do. It’s also a very good way to cause offense.
Not necessarily- he could just be an anti-religious bigot. The fact that Klansmen fear blacks & Nazis fear Jews are more a reflection on the Klansmen & the Nazis, not the blacks or the Jews.
back to ironing my Khristian Koncentration Kamp Kommadant uniform
I am not talking about any person being ‘judged’ a non-Christain by other Christains. Actually my sub-hijack-OP had to do with being judged Christian by non-Christians.
Um no, no one is required to pray, at the start of town board meetings - your statment is based on a lie.
The 10 commandments have historical value and is the basis for many laws in a civilized society, seems like in front of town hall would be a great place for it.
Gee, for someone who wasn’t talking about it, you were doing an awful good job a few posts back of discussing people who would, in your opinion, give up their faith, apparently because it isn’t “strong enough” by your standards.
A little elementary grammar lesson, to go along with the elementary logic, political science, and theology. An “if/then” sentence sets up a conditional situation, and describes a cause-and-effect or logical consequence or the opinion of the writer as to what the proper consequence of the conditional statement ought to be. The reason no one is required to pray at the start of town board meetings is that it’s been declared unconstitutional to do so, and people used to in many towns before that ruling came down. I set up a hypothetical situation about “those same 50 people” in my example to point that out. “If they did this, then they would be using the government to do that, which is wrong.” The statement, “If George Bush were to strip naked every morning and dance an Irish jig on a copy of the Constitution, then he should be impeached” says nothing about whether Mr. Bush in reality has a penchant for nude dancing, but rather expresses my opinion as to one circumstance that might call for his impeachment, if it were true.
OK. Nobody except the Jews prohibited adultery, murder, theft, false witness, before Christianity spread the Ten Commandments? Does the idea that “I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no other gods before Me” give you any clue as to the idea that it might be a religious statement, an “establishment of religion” in the strictest of senses?
::: wanders off to bang head against brick wall, with more hopes of moving it, and finding it a better use of brain power than arguing with kanicbird :::
I’d post a better rebuttal to the arguments in this thread than this Onion link, but the triage filter in my brain won’t let me think about it that much.
Siege, once again, you’re the shiksa of my dreams. Sigh. 8)
On preview:
No, he said, “if.” It’s not even an outrageous example; my grandmother had to recite the Lord’s Prayer every morning in public school. And by making me get all serious like this, you interfered with my flirt!
No I didn’t though I can understand how you can take it as such. I do draw a line between religion and faith. Faith is the personaly relationship w/ God, religion is of man. I don’t expect Christains to give up their faith.
Then I take back my statement about it being a lie and replace it as being irrelevant to this subject.
Again irrelevant, this does not negate the historical value of the 10 C’s.
This is part of the 10 C’s , it would not be appropiate to leave it out and display the other 9.
Should we also leave out the line that contains God when we teach and display the DoI:?
Should we edit out the speaches all public figures had made in the past which mentions God?
These are things that have happened in the past, they are part of our history, and important enough to still display them today.
So no I don’t see it at all as the state establishing a religion, it had to do more if the founding principals of the society at the time it was formed.
Also what religion does it establish, it is not unique to a single religion.
Hope you have some advil handy.
Ok this makes a bit more sense here, but I have to ask who made her? The schools or her parents? What I mean is that the parents have to responsible for what their children learn, more so back then. It would be their parents decision if this was OK or not - not the childs choice at a young age.
If her parents objected to the saying of the prayer, would the child be forced into saying it?
I’m OK with those items beign displayed, but don’t think if a town chooses to display one they have to display all. If a town wished to display the code of hammurbi by itself that would be fine with me, actually I would like to see more of that.
Also I would have no problem with a town with strong ties to their native american heritage displaying a totem pole in the town square, even if it displays their gods.
Yup. I was in elementary school when school prayers were still permitted. You damn betcha everybody was required to say them. Any parents objecting to it would have had to hire a lawyer, fight a nasty court battle against the school system, be ostracized by a significant segment of their neighbors, and see their kids get beaten up regularly by the other kids.
Does the name Madelyn Murray O’Hair ring any bells? “The most hated woman in America”?
Oh, and what makes you think parents had more control over what their children learned “back then”?
I think there is always a reason why someone is bigotted and paranoid. It might not be a GOOD reason, and their obsession may reach levels of the fantastic, but generally they don’t just arbitrarily choose someone to hate.
Yes, like some ignorant ass of a father feeding their hatred to their kids so they grow up to join the Clan or at least carry on hatred. I suppose that is a reason but not a reason that is of any value at all.
Grammy is no longer with us, so I can’t ask her for more details. Maybe her parents could have gotten her out of it, but being fresh off the boat from Europe, they didn’t know their rights, but I can say confidently that it was not their wish that their nice Jewish daughter recite an exclusively Christian prayer.
I’m simply saying that the ideas have a lineage. Something happens in one’s life to introduce them to the idea that “X” group is evil. I would assume that in Der Trihs’s case he was probably beat up by fundie christians. Or similarly harassed. Or the idea of him going to hell terrified him for many years, and then he finally gave it up and now is angry at them instead of terrified. I was similarly terrified of going to Hell for listening to Metallica, playing Dungeons and Dragons etc… until finally I decided they were all fools, but I grew up around rednecks who wouldn’t understand the finer points of Jesus philosophy and beat people up for not being Christian enough, so there was still a very real danger. However, their archetype is not limited to Christians, they are just bullies that like to beat up on people who deviate from the status quo, and they exist in most cultures. This is the main reason I do not identify as Christian, though Christ factors deeply into my beliefs. I have found much better ways to celebrate spirituality than going to church, which is really boring.
Anger and love are not mutually exclusive. You get enraged, heated up and passionated over the things which you value the most.
For Christ, the temple is important to Him. It’s the place of worship, but it has been turned into a place of commerce. It’s only natural of him to get angry. Actually, many would have been surprised at that. There were other issues for Him to get enraged over – Roman occupation, his disciples’ unbelief…but notably, in the gospel, Jesus seem to lost his cool about two issues - the temple, and hypocrisy.
And don’t ignore the other dozens of instances where Christ was compassionate and gentle.
“a la” means “in the style of.” Music in the style of Wendy Carlos isn’t necessarily music by Wendy Carlos. No doubt they’d find a straight Christian male who liked to synthesize classical music to do it for them.
I actually left the church at a young age, by age 10. I questioned much of its concepts as illogical and I could not take things on faith. Thankfully my parent never made an issue of it. I think they had only gone to church because that is what they were raised to do, not a real belief.
I can’t wrap my mind around Jesus as the Son of God but I can accept that the core of his teachings were very good and corrupted by the churches. The Pope is after all an office taken over from the pre-Christian Romans.
I suspect the Friends might come closest to Jesus’ teachings but I would not enjoy sharing in their life.
Unitarianism has always seems like a social club more than a religion and I can live without it.
I have never been to a Unitarian church, it has struck me kind of like that, as a secular answer to it. I dislike secularism, and see it as a necessary evil. I think that many thinks have been banalized and dumbed down in the name of secularism, and it irritates me. I think that art and music are missing from a lot of the churches around. I see kind of a limited sense of this art and music, and if it’s not some happy fluffy bullshit then it’s not allowed. Like you go to churches and everyone has their pictures of biblical stories, rather than allowing people to live their own story now. For some reason we should be enslaved to the lives of these people that lived thousands of years ago. I cannot get down with that. To me a church should be a place that foments spiritual progress, and should be on the cutting edge of everything it does, that it should be a friendly place that helps encourage people to find themselves, their path and enrich their talents. I’ve grown up in the party kid culture of the late 90s early oughts and a common fantasy many of them have is having a church where they can celebrate their art and music. This is something I would like to build. I would like to see a forum where a guest speaker talks about theology one night, and another is a guest speaker talking about quantum physics. A genuine community center that broadens people’s hearts and minds, and shows them a world full of magick and wonder, as well as illuminating them to it’s secrets. To me that’s what a church should be about, and I have yet to find one that really is fulfilling what I think that it should be.