Dred Scott was acknowledged as an error within a couple of decades. The courts have used SOCAS as a yardstick literally since the 1848. This is 150 years of time (ina country which is only 225 or so years old), and thus far, nobody has overturned it or made a ruling inconsistant with the principal within.
In fact, the only people who are screaming about how there is no SOCAS and it’s all a lie ARE Christians.
Why do you suppose this is?
**
The first part above, right until your theoretical leader starts proscribing it as good for the country and its people, is fine. Everything after that, however, is not what this country is about.
Your hyperbole about how the president cannot be a Christian who shows his faith is laughable and shows further that you do not get the issue.
The president is perfectly able to be any faith he or she wishes. However, you proscribe them touting their religion in an official capacity, and having laws which also make this one belief advantageous.
If you still don’t get the difference between the to, you really haven’t been paying attention.
**
And it is my right as an American to tell you to stick a cricifix up your ass if I am so inclined.
And it is my right as an American to have my government not show farortism or partiality to any religion.
**
It also tells you to pray in silence and not for the same of other men, but you don’t much seem to notice those verses.
**
Please point out to my how anyone’s religious rights are being infringed with anything anyone here said, please?
**
And if your staff did not want to pray? Or do you only hire staffers who are Christian?
**
What about PERSONAL morality?
Yer pal,
Satan
[sub]I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Three months, three weeks, four days, 17 hours, 2 minutes and 33 seconds.
4668 cigarettes not smoked, saving $583.55.
Life saved: 2 weeks, 2 days, 5 hours, 0 minutes.[/sub]
"Satan is not an unattractive person."-Drain Bead
[sub]Thanks for the ringing endoresement, honey!*[/sub]
I’m glad everyone finally understands how SOCAS was not the original intent of the Founding Fathers (regardless of how irrelevant original intent is–I don’t want to get into that argument), but:
In 1848, in the majority opinion of Reynolds v. United States, the exact term “a wall of separation between church and state” was used.
This put the matter to rest as to whether we were a “Christian nation,” as this has not been close to being broached in the subsequent 150 years and the phrase itself has since been used in over a dozen other court cases.
Well, it SHOULD have put the matter to rest, except for the fact that a bunch of fundamentalist Christians feel that it’s not enough to convert other people, they have to convert the government too, 150 years or precedent be damned!
Yer pal,
Satan
[sub]TIME ELAPSED SINCE I QUIT SMOKING:
Three months, three weeks, five days, 3 hours, 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
4685 cigarettes not smoked, saving $585.63.
Life saved: 2 weeks, 2 days, 6 hours, 25 minutes.[/sub]
"Satan is not an unattractive person."-Drain Bead
[sub]Thanks for the ringing endoresement, honey!*[/sub]
You quoted several statements you agreed with me on, then on one about someone praying with their staff. You said:
Actually believe it or not I pretty much agree with you on this one. I think what you’re saying is technically you could enforce this in a private business but not in a government setting. I would agree. I would also say you should still have the freedom to start the day that way, but if someone wanted to bow out because of their own religious convictions or some such thing, then they are exercising their freedom of religion.
In a government setting, you couldn’t require someone to be at your prayer meeting. Even in a business setting, it would just be smart to say “I’m going to lead prayer each morning over the decisions we will make. If you don’t want to participate that is your choice”.
Then you said:
This is where we disagree. You then said:
I disagree here too. I don’t see at all where the First Amendment bars the Office from endorsing a religion. It simply states that the Office cannot declare a religion mandatory or “official” for the country, and that the government should stay out of the hair of the church. Endorsing a religion is just that … endorsement. It cannot be enforced in any way shape or form.
John … I found your post quite intriguing. I’m going to list three of your quotes and then comment:
This last quote is the one I’d especially like to zero in on. Forgive me if this sounds too sarcastic but … where have you been?? I AM a minority!! “Most people are Christian”??? “Most people generally follow the beliefs that you do”??? Maybe back in the 1950s that was at least partly true, but certainly not today!
No I completely know what it feels like to be a minority! I said earlier all laws are based on someone’s idea of morality, be it Christian, Buddhist, or athiest. Right now American belief seems to be a mix of part Christian part New Age part Humanism. Throw into the mix born-again Christians and other religions and you’ve got quite a potpourri.
A few of the things in your example of what a fictional son of mine might have to endure ARETRUE today!
Let’s look at a few examples. When I do have a son and send him to school, he will be taught …
That evolution is a fact, not a theory. The truth of how
the earth began won’t even be mentioned.
That as far as sex goes, you can’t help yourself anyway
so here, have a condom or two.
That there is no absolute truth. Everything is a matter
of personal opinion.
That you can meditate and ask a spirit guide to come into
your life and guide you (I realize not all schools do this
but you would be shocked at how many blatantly teach New
Age stuff openly).
That’s just a small sampling. So to answer your earlier questions … no I wouldn’t be happy to see God denounced in public life … which is what IS in fact happening!
The people have freedom to vote for whom they want to vote for. There is freedom of religion. Today, sadly, the religion of Humanism has pretty much won the battle for the hearts and souls of America. And no I’m not happy about it.
It makes me sad. But it’s what people have chosen!
Falcon said
Well, as a Christian, I don’t want the President endorsing the idea that oral sex isn’t sex. But the people elected the guy and he has the freedom to preach his message. He is using the bully pulpit, in my estimation, to preach a very damaging message to the country right now, whether cloaked in religious terminology or not.
Just because I don’t want the President endorsing something doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the right to do it!
Satan … I think I answered most of your comments in the responses I’ve just given, but I would like to quote this line:
I’ve never once said anything about laws. I’m specifically talking about endorsement.
As for what I meant by “legislating morality” … what I am getting at is this:
American law is and always has been based on someone’s idea of morality. You always hear people say, “We don’t want you forcing your beliefs down our throat”.
Well has it ever occured to you that I don’t want you forcing your beliefs down my throat either? The truth is, laws impose standards on society whether we like them or not. Whether I want it to be the case or not, it’s illegal for me to steal. It’s illegal for me to kill.
In the good ole USA we elect the people who make the laws. So if, as a nation, we want a society that feels comfortable with any and every form of sin, and has no laws against it, we’ll elect people who think like that to public office.
Today, the beliefs of humanists ARE being “forced down my throat” and I and many other Christians don’t like it. I’m sure many humanists didn’t like it in the 1950s when the beliefs of Christians were, in a sense, “forced down the throats” of those who disagreed.
So the real issue is this … whose idea works? Does law based on humanism produce a good society? What about Christianity? Is there another option out there that might do it?
Obviously you know what my opinion would be. I would fight hard for the standard of Christianity to be the basis for the law of the land (which, of course, includes freedom of religion as I’ve described it earlier). Today, the standard of Humanism has pretty much won as the law of the land. Christianity has lost.
And look at the lovely results. 40 years ago the worst thing kids in school had to worry about was chewing gum in class and getting caught whispering to each other. Now they have to worry about getting caught with drugs or getting shot.
40 years ago there was a healthy stigma on premarital sex. Today there is no stigma at all, and look at the lovely teen pregnancy and abortion rates, not to mention divorce.
This is purely and simply a battle of ideas. At the moment humanistic ideas have won. I hope people will see the incredible damage these ideas have wrought on society, and will turn en-masse back to God. I don’t know if this will happen or not, but I hope and pray it does.
… why do I have this funny feeling some of you won’t agree with me …
[QUOTE[B
All military branches of the United States government pay chaplains.
**[/QUOTE]
The Marine Corps has not a single Chaplin. The Chaplins that pray over us wear the uniform of the Navy. It could be argued that the Marine Corps is not a “brach of the military,” that its is only a department of the Navy where the Navy is a branch that pays Chaplins, but…I thought I’d share.
Although I fundamentally disagree with your basic stance, I do respect both the spirit and the fervor with which you debate. That being said, the following irks me…
Could you please:
Identify the specific laws that promoted school shootings, teen pregnancy, etc. I don’t recall those having passed.
Then please cite the specific phrase(s) in those laws that say “this here law is a Humanist Law”, or conversely, “this law is an anti-Christian law”.
Now I say that with somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but my point is this:
I’m going to take a WAG and say that over the past 40 or 50 years (just to follow your time-limit) the majority of the members of Congress would be self-defined as Christians. Now I don’t recall that SOCAS says you have to actively vote on issues opposite or against your religious beliefs if you are an elected official.
So if you follow this logic, the majority of elected members of Congress have been voting for issues that fall within their religious/ethical/moral beliefs. Which are predominantly “Christian.” (yes, I know that members must also vote the way they feel their constituents would want them to, but their constituents voted them in probably knowing full well they were Christian). Therefore, over the past 40 or 50 or even 200 years laws have been passed that are formed from the Christian POV.
The problem is that the laws don’t happen to fall within your defined version of a “Christian” law. Which is perfectly fine, and I applaud your desire to get out and vote and debate and whatnot. But the way I see it is that we are a country where the majority of the government has a “Christian” belief or background (and remember too, it is these people who are appointing/approving the Supreme Court members), and whether you like it or not the laws we have reflect that. So to gnash your teeth and wring your hands that we are no longer a nation whose government follows Christian principles is not entirely accurate.
Now before I get flamed for cite, I did say that it was a WAG about the composition of the government vis-a-vis self-defined religious denomination. Anyway, that’s just me rubbing my two pennies together.
I don’t know if I’d call a stigma against premarital sex “healthy,” particularly in light of what we know about mental and emotional health.
The lovely teen pregnancy and abortion rates have more to do with the stigma against contraception than they do with the (former) stigma against premarital sex. And part of the reason the abortion rate appeared lower 40 years ago was that abortion at the time was for the most part illegal, so most abortions went unreported.
And whenever one of you people mentions the increase in the divorce rate as an indicator of how our morality has declined, I really want to punch you in the nose. 40 years ago, there was no such thing as a “no fault divorce.” You had to prove “grounds” for divorce to the judge, such as adultery or cruelty or insanity. How many unhappy couples back then were forced to spend their lives locked into a repugnant marriage from which they had no escape? Just the fact that plenty of them were willing to lie on the witness stand, and claim that they were having extramarital affairs when in fact they were not, just so that they could be “granted” a divorce, indicates that the whole system stank. The “spiralling” divorce rate in modern years merely represents what the divorce rate would have been 40 years ago had no-fault divorces been legal. There is no credible evidence, none at all, that couples who had sex together before they were married tend to get divorced more often than couples who didn’t.
Ummm…haven’t there been several presidents who declared themselves “born-again”? Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton(!)…I believe both Al Gore and GW Bush call themselves born again. Bill Clinton even stated that he considered the presidency to be his “mission”.
The point is that a president can be an active christian, can be born again, etc. etc. And of course that’s going to influence their personal life. If they want to pray and pray and pray, they can do so…remember Nixon praying with Kissenger during his last days?
To me there’s no strict dividing line between a politicians private life and public life. It would be wrong to say that a politician can only pray or invoke god where no one else is can see them. I don’t mind if a president asks for our prayers for the brave boys and girls in such-and-such crisis. The first amendment gives every politician the free exercise of their religion.
But there is a big difference between saying, “Let’s pray for the soldiers in the Persian Gulf” during a TV address, and using tax money to build religious shrines. If Christians want to have nativity scenes in public places they can certainly do so. The churches can fund such things. But it is not right for the government to take tax money from me by force and use that money to celebrate christianity, any more than it is right for the government to take tax money from me by force and use that money to fund crucifixes suspended in urine. Both are equally wrong.
It is also wrong for teachers to lead prayers in public schools. I have absolutely no problem with students gathering before school to pray together, even on school grounds, and the courts have agreed. I have no problem with Bible Clubs meeting on school grounds. I have no problem with schools renting facilities to community groups like boy scouts, or environmental groups or church groups, as long as there is no religious requirement.
But if you believe that the government should promote christianity, what does this mean in practical terms? Teachers leading prayers in public school? Government built churches? Making atheism a crime? Throwing out science textbooks and teaching Genesis as the only science we need? You all seem to spend a great deal of time trying to deny SOCAS, but why? What would you change if there was no SOCAS? Sure, you wouldn’t establish a national church, or require religious tests for public figures, or prohibit the free exercise of religion, but what would you do?
Minor nitpick. Under the previous system of “fault” divorce only the aggrieved person could sue for divorce. If I had an extramarital affair, my wife would have been able to sue me for divorce, but I could not sue her for divorce. Thats why you sometimes hear in old movies, “My wife won’t give me a divorce!” One person could initiate divorce proceedings only if they could prove that the other person had given them grounds for divorce. And the adulterous actions of the person at fault, along with their partners in adultery, would become part of the public record. So even if you husband cheated on you, you couldn’t get a divorce unless you were willing to publicly destroy them…it was impossible to get a “quiet” divorce, unless you got an anullment.
The existence of your friend God is also a theory, you know. And there is no “truth” of how the Earth began. Any teaching of how that happened is a theory, since no one really knows how it happened. The Big Bang is a theory, your God creating it is a theory. We don’t exactly have primary sources to listen to or learn from in this case.
Having condoms given out in school is helpful to the prevention of those abortions and teen pregnancies. It doesn’t promote having lots of sex, it promotes protection against teen pregnancy. There isn’t a 100% guarantee, and they say that in the schools. It simply provides extra protection that the students might not have been getting elsewhere.
For much of your post, you railed against the evils of humanism and humanist laws. I think Doctor J said earlier that some people’s viewpoints are that if the laws aren’t promoting Christianity, they must be against it. That is simply not so. Those “humanist laws” (examples of laws promoting secular humanism are not cited, btw…) are for the protection of a minority (which Christrians are certainly not in this country) against a tyrannical majority “trying to force their beliefs down others’ throats.” They are not for promoting humanism nor are the results of vendettas against Christianity.
Because you’re wrong.
On an unrelated note, Jenkinsfan sure has been taking care of those puppies for a while now.
Granted, in my original quote, I could have more accurately said this:
“Today, the standard of Humanism has pretty much won as the law of the land. The standard of Humanism has won in the everyday lives of people and in the culture as a whole.”
I’ll admit that law is one part of a larger whole. The culture overall has changed to a more humanistic belief system. But this is reflected in some laws. The fact that some schools teach sex education from a humanistic point of view is a direct reflection of the culture shift. (What I mean is, teaching things like “wait to have sex until you really love someone” instead of “wait to have sex until you are married”).
There are laws in some cities that legalize prostitution. There is an attempt to legalize homosexual marriage. As someone else pointed out, “no fault” divorce is now a reality. Allthree of these laws aim in the direction of the humanistic view.
As for specific laws on school shootings and teen pregnancy, I would admit that it’s not so much law as much as an overall shift in the culture.
The rash of school shooting in the past few years is COMPLETELY unsurprising to me. If anything I’m shocked it didn’t start years earlier. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad watching the so-called experts wondering “why” this happened. It happened because the culture has shifted to a religion of “right and wrong is a matter of your personal preference and opinion”. There is no absolute right or wrong anymore. Therefore if you happen to feel like shooting someone, who are they to tell you that it’s wrong? That’s just their opinion. Your opinion is that it’s okay to shoot away.
To the degree that laws today support this overall view, yes the laws of the land have had a small part in this. But the bigger culprit is the culture as a whole. We can’t have the freedom to divorce whenever we want, to have sex whenever we want with whomever we want for whatever price we want, to abort our children if we want … etc etc … without ALSO having the freedom to shoot and kill whomever we want, etc etc. In other words, if society wants to open the bag and say “do whatever” … that’s what people will do. And that’s what people are doing.
As for the law saying something is humanistic or anti-Christian … they will never come out and say that! I am speaking of laws that reflect humanistic values. For example, a law reflecting humanistic values would require schoolchildren to be taught to wait to have sex until you love someone. A law reflecting Christian values would require them to be taught to wait until marriage. It does not have to say what the law is based on.
I don’t have time to continue right now, but hopefully I’ll have time later this weekend to respond to the rest of the comments.
I do hope you saw that those two questions were “somewhat tongue-in-cheek”. I did understand that we are really talking more about standards/values than specific laws.
As to whether there is an “absolute right or wrong” we’d have to get into whether human beings have that as an inherent quality. But where the difference might be is that my guess is you would like to use a Biblical/Christian religious standard as your absolute, and thereby have the goverment pass laws using that barometer. I would find that rather scary, as I may not agree with all of those “values.” Of course, you obviously find that many values in these times are scary (can’t necessarily disagree with you there) but the difference is laws that “support” or “create” these values are legislated somewhat independently of any religion or lack thereof whatsoever, and so your religion and its values aren’t forced on me by my own government. Basically, they are the majority’s choice.
I can certainly say that I believe in concepts such as personal responsibility for your actions, “do unto others” etc., but I find that those are concepts separate from any religion. I don’t believe that prayer in school, or blatant exhibits of nativity scenes on government property express my values or standards. And if a government by its actions and words starts to use a specific religion’s values as it’s own value system (even on things you and I might agree on), it is only a quick step to determining that “teacher-led Christian prayers in school” are now mandated by law.
But I guess I’m jumping the gun here, and perhaps not properly understanding your viewpoint. You haven’t yet (really) said that you want a government based on Christian principles to the exclusion of other religions - you have expressed your POV on freedom of expression of religion vis-a-vis SOCAS. I’m just expressing my fear on what the crumbling of the SOCAS wall might produce.
I hope by this you didn’t mean MY opinion is it’s ok to shoot away. I’m not saying that at all.
Lastly, I am interested in hearing your POV on the main point of my last post, which was that the laws we have today (and, perhaps then the values) are in no small way the result of a Christian-based goverment anyway. So what are you complaining about?
So, how many of the kids involved in school shootings have espoused this particular belief? Because I’ve not seen or heard such a thing. Or are they just keeping it to themselves?
So, you are maintaining that due to no-fault divorce laws (which are how old? 30 years? 40? 50? I honestly don’t know) and Roe v Wade, that people are being told that it’s just groovy to kill someone because they want to? That because they feel justified in taking a life, then it’s okay? So, when did all laws against murder get repealed? Because I must have missed it, and probably ought to point it out to the local DA. The above statement is true only if society actually breaks down, and it hasn’t.
Those wily secular humanists! And their dog, too!
Man! If only I were young enough to have been taught that gettin’ it on was dandy so long as I loved the person. You do know, I hope, of the instances of young people getting married because they had given into their carnal urges? That old saw about “the first baby always being the earliest” wasn’t just pulled out of the asses of the people who have been saying it for so long.
Shylock:
Actually I did realize you were being tongue in cheek and I had originally included a line in my response that said “I know you meant this in a humerous way but I’m going to surprise you and answer it for real.” Somehow it got deleted while I was editing and making changes.
And no I didn’t mean you when I said that about feeling free to shoot people. I was speaking from the perspective of the shooters.
I want to comment on your second point as well, but I would like to ask a question to anyone willing to answer before I go on at all…
what is SOCAS? I keep seeing it referred to and I have to plead ignorance. What is it? Since you referenced it in your second point I want to know what it is before I comment.
More later …
Say all you want about Christians being an oppressed minority–many people still consider it political suicide to have a Jew on your ticket.
This is, after all, the country whose President once said, “No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.” Any idea who that was? Here’s a hint–I don’t like his boy any more than I liked him.
Out of curiosity–is there anyone in Congress currently who is an avowed atheist?
So what are you complaining about?