Church and State
I Quote:
Amendment # 1 of the Constitution of the United States of America
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ”
That means that the state shall not establish an state sponsored religion, they shall respect ALL RELIGIONS and make them all feel welcome in the United States of America.
This does not mean that things that are religious in nature have to be banned from all public places, and you have to be careful not to say anything that can be construed to be religious in any government setting.
It means that if I wish to put the 10 commandments in the hall of the courthouse you can put the Koran next to it,and there is nothing that the government can do about it!
Now if I wish to have a Nativity scene on my lawn and someone else wishes to have a scene from the Mormon text.neither one of us should be offended Don’t all religions teach tolerance of others beliefs?
As for the atheists they must be tolerant of my beliefs if they wish me to be tolerant of theirs, it’s real simple if you don’t like it look the other way till you pass it.
OK Let em fly.
November 18th, 2005 at 4:52 pm
OK. I guess I’ll go first. The free exercise of one’s religion does not include trying
to force it on others. The religious right would love to institute forced prayer on all
school children. The kiddies can pray in school any time they wish. Any REAL christian
knows that ANYONE can pray ANYTIME and ANYWHERE, but what they really want is to coerce
EVERYONE into accepting their beliefs. Schools are about knowledge, not belief. There is
a difference.
In some cases, the government must restrict religious practices. In the Koran, muslims
are given the OK to kill infidels. Usama and the rest of the Wahabists interpret infidels
to mean anyone who is not a muslim. Mainstream muslims are taught that christians and jews
are “people of the book” (the scriptures) and are not infidels. However, I, as a humanist,
am fair game. Fortunately for me, the state and federal laws against murder still apply.
November 18th, 2005 at 11:05 pm
Point Taken, The religious Right in my opinion is just as dangerous as the other side, they take religion and try to force it down our throats, I believe religion should be a personal thing exercised in the way that one chooses to not how someone else thinks I should.
Schools I agree need to be a place to learn the skills that we need to operate in our everyday life(reading writing arithmetic etc) Not what religious doctrine to subscribe to, That is for whatever place of worship one chooses to frequent.
The jest of my post was to draw attention to the fact that what the media/press construes as the separation of church and state is way out of line with what the law says it is.
As for the Muslims (Radical) that is just another instance of someone taking the word of their chosen Deity and twisting it into something to fit their own actions. We all know that the problem that the middle east has with us is we are a free country and they cannot stand that so why bring religion into their hatred of us just attack us on those grounds and leave religion out of it. Usama cannot control the west and that just pi**es him off (Sorry for the profanity MR). But I digress, My point was why take the 10 commandments out of the courthouse, put the teachings of the Torah next to it.
November 19th, 2005 at 2:58 am
I personally don’t have a problem with the commandments, the torah, the q’ran or the books
of Bokonon being displayed in public places, as long as no tax revenues are spent on them.
Bokonon says in the 23rd calypso, “Give unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar’s. Ceasar doesn’t
have the slightest idea what’s really going on.”