Really. Read the Constitution and its amendments. There is nothing specifically stating a seperation of Church and State.

Oh, I apologize. I think I phrased my arguments in a manner which was foreign to you. Allow me to phrase them in a manner which you may better understand:

"WTF YOU'RE STUPID. BITE MYE *** I'M RITE."
[i apologize for my oh-so-clever mockery! oh-ho!]


I didn't bring up the case....but if a decision is to be made, I feel strongly about what it should be. You don't see me suing left and right for things like this, but it's on the table now and that's what I feel.


I don't know if you actually read my post or not, but I did just say that it does. So..excellent comprehension!
[again I apologize for my cutting sarcasm!]


In addition to improper sentence structure, your statement lacks tact! I suggest attempting procreate. With yourself. THANKS.

--------------------------------



I do believe you're correct. I believe the exact or near exact words are:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

...which does not explicitly say that church and state must be totally separate, just, in its most literal form, that congress cannot establish a state religion OR disallow practice of a religion.

Which displaying a statue does neither (by that interpretation).

Someone please explain to me the rationale behind removing these. I will concede that there is no reason to keep them up, or place them up, at least, that I can discern, BUT in all seriousness, people who are made uncomfortable by the placement of the documents on which the laws are based, need to die. Now.

"When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs. A government cannot be premised on the belief that all persons are created equal when it asserts that God prefers some." Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun in the Lee v. Weisman ruling, 1992.

That opinion omits a key phrase, which would negate his point...



...because our government was premised on this belief.

Sorry, but this is so wrong I almost fell out of my chair when I read it. It is the other way around, so the government doesn't become a theocracy.

And will someone explain to me why Christians must have their junk hanging around? Why so opposed to taking them down? Do you really need them that much, or are you just going to be whiny sacks of crap about it? [/Mikus-mode]

Nor is there any specific mention of a right to privacy, or of an injuction against segregation, or of the application of the Bill of Rights to the states. The Constitution doesn't exist in a vacuum; over two centuries of Supreme Court opinions must be considered in any serious discussion of Constitutional Law.

Well, as long as I'm not exposed to justice's naked breast, then they can hang up whatever they want! :p

Mikus! Are you even reading my posts? Our laws were NOT based on the first commandment. At all. I've mentioned that several times. Apart from the principle of displaying them, being that they are a religious concept, even if they somehow WEREN'T considered religious in origin, the first one clearly states that i should believe in God. I don't.


I am aware. It wasn't aprt of my point or anything, I was jsut adding some information to the thread. Personally, I don't care what the law says, because if there isn't one, there should be, as far as I'm concerned (as you can obviously tell from my statements in here).

I'd like to see what else they have on display.
How about religious laws from other religions? It would be fair to put up the Ten Commandments then.


1. Christianity has no laws. You'd be talking about Jewish laws.
2. No it's not.


Putting it on public display would violate the establishment clause. How would you feel if they started posting tenents of the Wiccan faith all over the place?


By putting monuments that represent a specific religion, the government is favoring a religion and therefore endorsing it.


That is left very vague. Creator just means whoever or whatever they were created by.

BTW, even though the words "seperation of church and state" are not in the constitution, the part about not establishing religion means pretty much the same thing.


I don't know why some christians have such a hard-on for making the government put up monuments to their religion. If people who don't like it are whiny sacks of crap, then those who support it are arrogant pricks who think that christians are the only people that matter in this country.
And the obsession over the ten commandments is dumb, because Jesus himself fricking nullified and fulfilled most of them.

I don't see why they SHOULD be left up. It really doesn't do any good, all it does is incite this big argument. I can most certainly see how some pople would feel uncomfortable about their presence there- not necessarily because they feel physically uncomfortable about it, but rather because of the precedent it sets. I know I am opposed to it, albeit very mildly.
You just KNOW there would be a huge fuss about it if it were a chunk of the Koran, and it would be removed. It doesn't make much difference what the founding fatehrs were, our society has changed since then and our country is now a whole lot multicultural than it was then, and we have to take that into account. We're not a land of Chrisitans anymore, and haven't been for quite some time now.

i will be happy when all, i repeat ALL aspects of religion and religious infliction are/is removed from government and a society that is supposed to be for everyone.

for example; we were not allowed, and it was illegal, to shop on sunday. my 'buddy' bob rae did away with that in the late 80's/early 90's (i don't remember the exact year).
for example; up until the mid 70's it was taught, at the university of toronto, that 'self love' was a disease that could be cured with electroshock therapy.
for example; until 1968 it was required that native children were to be taken by the catholic church, sanctioned by the federal government, and taught the word of god, where they would be punished for speaking their language or speaking of their own gods.
for example; in court today i have to swear to god to tell the truth. it means nothing to me because i don't believe in god.
for example; we drop bombs on people in the name of god. those same people are shooting at us in the name of god.

god should **** off and get out of my life. he has no place in my life and therefore has no place dictating how i live my life in the society i live in. and as mentioned off the top by flexor, i am not a murderer (unless you call abortion and stem cell research murder) nor am i a theif (i know many 'god fearing' people that steal all kinds of stuff). in other words i don't need any god to tell me i am a good person. it's all just a scam seeing as the catholic church is not only the richest, but possibly the most powerfull criminal organization on earth (yeah i know we were talking about christianity but it's all the same 'stuff' to me). and when it comes right down to it, how on earth does anyone really know whether the ojibwa creation theory is any less credible than the one in a bible. no one knows. one day we will all find out that the inuit got it right and that adam and eve are just a bed time story.

The only things about god in our laws that are direct references are the teachings of Creationism, swearing on the Bible, and "Under God", and some stupid monetary symbols and sayings. There's nothing restrictive in our government on the level you're thinking of, Evad. But I do agree, those rules/laws should definitely have been abolished (at least, the first 3. The last two I'm not so sure are that big of a deal :\)

I agree. That is part of the point.



Yeah. This is part of what I am saying. :confused:.

To reword my point, separation of church and state was NOT intended to be used to hurt religions for the benefit of the government.



Unfortunately this won't work, imo. You know the phrase: "You can make everyone happy some of the time, you can make some people have all the time, but you can't make everybody happy all the time." You may like what you propose, but SOMEONE won't like it.

And I will make this my only comment on how taking away religion from secular life would affect us... I believe without a religion, a person has no real reason to have morals except for whatever morals society as a whole has. And right now society doesn't have much in the way of morals.



This is a case where religion is IMPOSED upon people (and I don't even think it's correct interpretation of the Sabbeth rule, if I understand it right) and is wrong, imo.



Well we have since made advancements in the understanding of ourselves from a scientific perspective. That doesn't sound so different from when, back in the day, people used to think the heart was the origin of conscious thought, and not the brain.



Again I agree that this is wrongful imposion of religion. People should be allowed to decide for themselves if they will follow a religion's rules and not be forced.



I agree that it had more signifigence back when the majority of the population were God-fearers. However, that clause has since been removed. You now have to "Swear to tell the truch, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help me God ."



If you are referring to Iraq, I don't recall this being a religious crusade.

As for your other point, there are a variety of religions. So theoretically, only one, at most, can be correct. So it is understandable that some misguided groups will use God's name wrongly to justify their actions.



From the Christian perspective, this would be a bad thing for you. I believe God loves you [and everyone else], hence the reason he WON'T leave your life.



It is in human nature to do bad things. Surely you have felt guilt at doing something at one time or another...

Around here we call "God fearing" people who only fear God on Sundays "hypocrites" and should not be used to condemn religions... because they themselves have a twisted view of it.

And if you believe God would only tell you you are a good person, why are you running from him?



I can't say much about catholicism as I haven't been exposed much to it, but if you're calling all christians a bunch of theives you need a wake up call. Go to your local [non-catholic] church one sunday when a missionary is visiting and listen to them talk about their hardships and victories ofrf in some far off land. These people aren't doing that for the money. Because they dion't get any.



About creation, I myself have an interesting theory. I believe it is possible that creation and evolution both happened. It is not entirely impossible. What I think is that, first God created the big bang and set it in motion. That is how he created the stars and the planets as described in Genesis. Then over the span of 6 days where God made the earth, the term 6 days could have been used just to represent billions of years in an easy-to-digest time span. Go read Genesis and think of every "day" as an evolutionary step. In this case, God caused evolution, and it is now complete, which would explain why we don't have various stages of human evolution right now.

Of course, this is only a theory... like the very theory of evoution itself! I think it is sad that evolution is being presented as FACT when it is still THEORY. I read where one school tried to put stickers on it's testbooks to inform students that evoltion is a theory and so they should retain an open mind about other possiblites. The courts made the school remove the stickers. That just annoys me.

Anyways... I'm done talking now... sorry if I didn't back up some of my opinions with enough facts, but I'm tired and I gotta go to class now.

I don't particularly care.

Just keep your Jesus out of my face eh?

You can keep your buddha to, I've had enough of his crap. Always in my basement on his little pedestal, looking so happy. Stupid fatty.

Er...New Testament?



*sigh*

No one seems to be able to read my post.



Wow.

That school was actually an entire county... the county where I graduated from high school, receiving the WORST science education ever!

You obviously dont understand the scientific application of the word theory.

Here's the memo in case you missed it: Gravity is just a theory!

please, feel free to add more theories that are being taught as FACT!

Yes, and they should. Obi isnt worked up about this topic, that tells me something...

Everyone?! You're just saying the the government should only support your particular beliefs on religion, which happeneds to be total atheism. Call it what you like, atheism is a religious viewpoint, which is that there is no God, and in some cases nothing outside the physical world.)



Of course that was a stupid law. No one is talking about that. We're talking about having religious things on government property.



Um.. Were talking about the government and religion. Not what some stupid professor thought about self-love in the 90's. Please try to stay somewhat on subject.



Indians have, in the passed been poorly and wrongfully treated by the United States. No one is arguing you there. The constitution clearly says that that is wrong. That's not what we're discussing.



Poor baby. If it means nothing to you why do you even care? It's doesn't hurt you does it, Mr. Subjective?

If you can find anywhere where Bush or any member of our government responsible for the War in Iraq said that the Iraq war had anything to do with religion, let me know.





Ok, here we have a bunch of subjective ranting and hateful bashing, none of which even addresses the subject that were discussing. It just shows that you can't stand the idea of religion and Christianity in particular.


*This post is not in any way directed at, or meant to offend the mature liberals or atheists on this board. It is not even meant to discuss the topic. It is only showing flame bait for what it is. *

Are you saying in that statement that liberals arent/cant be Christian?

Just a point of clarification: the Constitution says nothing about how Native Ameircans are to be treated. Court rulings have decided that such treatment is illegal.

You mean a society meant for athiests, right? Because that is exactly what you are saying.



God should get out of your life? Give me a break. I will be happy when people like you get out of my life and stop telling me what to ****ing believe. Everyday I have to put up with some damn professor or other individual trying to impose their ****ing beliefs on me. Honestly, you people want to ***** about the ten commandments being put on public property? Take a hike. You people are just trying to force your beliefs on me and others.

Or perhaps one that treats atheists equally to theists.

So a government that will not say "God does not exist", but similarly will not assume that God does, either. So essentially, an agnostic government.


A common misconception is that 'atheism is a religion', or that 'atheism' is a belief system. It isn't. Atheism only stipulates one thing: God does not exist. That is the only thing atheism states and that is the very definition of atheism. It has no 'rules' and no 'philosophy', and really isn't a 'uniting factor' by an means.

I think by allowing fundamentalists to put up a display of the Ten Commandments, you're essentially allowing them to dig their own grave. Now, hopefully they'd take enough flak from that that one of them (better if it's a few more than that) and realize they aren't actually doing Christ much good with these poorly thought-out attempts at evangelizing. I used to think that Roy Moore was an all right guy for what he did in Alabama. Now, I think he needs to pull his head out of his butt and see that he's only preaching to the choir.

Fundamentalists are the modern-day Pharisees.

*sigh* Why do people get so worked up about these kind of trivial things? Do Americans just not have enough real problems in our lives? Whither or not the Ten Commandments are up in a courthouse, God is mentioned on money, or government officials saying prayer is really that important? These thing are not necessary for the various parts of the government to operate. These things also don't persecute anyone since they are passive references to a common religion and in no way enforce the belief of that religoin. The only thing that is going to change if these things stay or go is that someone's ego is going to be bruised and someone else gets to pound their chest in triumph. The Supreme Court is wasting their time on that?

Let me clarify in short easy to understand sentences.

The laws are based on the commandments.
One of the commandments says believe in God.
No laws say believe in God.
The commandments are posted in rememberance of where the laws came from.
No one is telling you what to believe.

What is the problem?

Why does any group want to put hang up their junk, get their name out there, etc? This happens with every group that has a cause/agenda/opinion on anything.

I think it's the first sentence that we have issue with. The laws are not based on the commandments. The laws are based on common sense, which the commandments are also based on. more or less.

Well I'm no American, but I'm PRETTY SURE that the founding fathers were Christian, and probably based their laws on those beliefs...

It's called Mosaic law

no. i'm referring to every bomb dropped by every president/prime minister who has stood up and claimed that god is on our side. this has happened many times for many wars.

and atheism is not a form of religion. you do not need faith nor do you need to follow any rules of conduct. you do not have to go to any worship of any kind. it's the opposite of religion. a lack of religion.

and as far as the creation of earth is concerned, there are 1001 stories. doesn't have to be evolution. one of them is right and the rest need faith. it could be the one that the maya believed. it could be the one that some small group of people in some largely unknown country believe.


maybe but it wasn't intended that way.


lol. isn't placing the ten commandments on piblic property telling people what to believe (or a way of imposing a belief).
funny how you never ever see athiests asking you at the store to come and discuss the absence of god with them. nor do they send propaganda (aka junk mail) to everyone in the neighbourhood.
the ten commandments refer to a particular religion. in a country filled with hundreds of religions it should be against the law to spend a muslim's/hindu's/atheist's/whatever's money on that.
that's why we/they complain.

It's debatable. I don't think so. If a government building suddenly hangs the Qu'ran on their front door am I going to find it offensive? No.




No, they just try to tell you God doesn't exist. Of course, I don't expect anyone to hear about that from the liberal media.



Then it should also be against the law for the government to spend a christian's money on a public school that hires athiests who try to force their students into accepting their view as supreme.

The founding fathers WERE NOT Christian. They WERE NOT. So Mort Hog's point still stands.

He's right. They were deists.

The framers of the constitution...only three or four of them were deists. The majority of them were episcopalian. The rest were catholic, methodist, presbyterian, quaker, and lutheran.

What's an episcopalian?

sounds like you've had some athiests come knocking on your door bothering you. funny though. we all know (and it's just not my own experience) that the christians, catholics and various other religious followers are the ones well known for shoving their so called supreme views down our throats. also what i do find funny is that the church (choose any denomination) wants you to bring your children in the day after they are born to start teaching the ways of god. only when they turn 4 do they go to the schools that teach science. it seems the church has a four year head start and yet the religions find the schools both offensive and threatening.
send your kids to a christian school. what do i care. when my kids went to a catholic school i signed a piece of paper that said my education taxes went to the catholic school board. now that they are out of there my taxes go to the public school board. i don't see your point about the schools hiring athiests.

Edit: Reponse to Mikus

They're christian. They believe that God's will is most clearly defined in the ten commandments.

Baptism at birth has been in place for a looooooooong time.