[forkies]

Originally posted by voyageur:
forkies, if I may ask, Carleton College?

hell no!

your location says "Walden," as in HDT? English major?

Originally posted by Zimphire:
The difference? My post had truth in it.

This thread proves that.

Originally posted by dav:
i think the catch is, to merely not believe in the manner they do, is to do wrong.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by turtle777:
[BWTF would God bless a country doing that much sh!t ?

I think God's gonna judge America in a real way...
People say they believe, but their actions speak against them.
Rom 1:21-22

Well, 'nough said.

-t [/B]

Sad but true.

[His Dudeness]

The separation of Church and State is there to PREVENT or FORCE the government from making the people practice a certain religion. The government can't MAKE be a Catholic, but the CAN prevent and enact laws to prosecute anyone who bashes my head in for BEING a Catholic.

Having the Ten Commandments in a public place or in a court lobby doesn't FORCE someone to be a Christian. Nobody forces a religion on anyone else in this country. That's because of the separation of church and state.

[dav]

Originally posted by His Dudeness:
The separation of Church and State is there to PREVENT or FORCE the government from making the people practice a certain religion. The government can't MAKE be a Catholic, but the CAN prevent and enact laws to prosecute anyone who bashes my head in for BEING a Catholic.

Having the Ten Commandments in a public place or in a court lobby doesn't FORCE someone to be a Christian. Nobody forces a religion on anyone else in this country. That's because of the separation of church and state.

the state shouldn't sponsor any religion. why not slap a mcdonalds logo on the dollar, that wouldn't "force" anyone to spend money on mcdonalds, or "force" one to eat mcdonalds food. and would you be ok with displaying some satanic symbolism or "commandments" in a government facility - that's not "forcing" satanism on anyone.

have you considered the perspectives of people who may hold different beliefs than you?

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by dav:
the state shouldn't sponsor any religion. why not slap a mcdonalds logo on the dollar, that wouldn't "force" anyone to spend money on mcdonalds, or "force" one to eat mcdonalds food. and would you be ok with displaying some satanic symbolism or "commandments" in a government facility - that's not "forcing" satanism on anyone.

have you considered the perspectives of people who may hold different beliefs than you?

I think you missed his point.

[dav]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
I think you missed his point.

possibly, but his comments led me into posting my thoughts. FWIW.

[wataru]

Originally posted by His Dudeness:
The separation of Church and State is there to PREVENT or FORCE the government from making the people practice a certain religion. The government can't MAKE be a Catholic, but the CAN prevent and enact laws to prosecute anyone who bashes my head in for BEING a Catholic.

Having the Ten Commandments in a public place or in a court lobby doesn't FORCE someone to be a Christian. Nobody forces a religion on anyone else in this country. That's because of the separation of church and state.

Well, I believe the government shouldn't be able to endorse any religion, either. Actually, if they can endorse all religions equally then fine, but like I said before that's really not feasible, so the only realistic option is to not endorse any at all.

I like dav's comparison with the McDonalds logo. Sure, McDonalds advertisement doesn't make you eat at McDonalds (though even that is debatable to some degree). But I think promotion in any way of a single religion would inevitably result in preferential treatment of that relgion, as well as unfair treatment of other religions.

[brachiator]

Originally posted by turtle777:
Why ?

I live in the US, and I don't think that song is great.
WTF would God bless a country doing that much sh!t ?

I think God's gonna judge America in a real way...

According to noted Christian leaders Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, God already did, on Sept. 11.

"God bless America," indeed.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally posted by Zimphire:
Libbies? Who knows. Anti-Christian? Yes. Very much so.

There's doubt to that as well of course.

[OH-N'omac]

Originally posted by wataru:
I can't speak for other atheists, but I don't care if people mention God in public. What I don't like is evangelism, or mentions of God in governmental proceedings. Religion has no place in our government. And I think you're making a big deal out of nothing with the money thing--we have bigger "God" fish to fry; money can wait. Now if it was Jesus's picture instead of a president's... then I think people would be upset.

That sounds like an acceptable ideal to me. The danger in letting religion into government is that it makes certain decisions unquestionable. If you believe in a personal god, and your leader is making decisions based on what god told him or her to do, then you lose the ability to say "Wait, I don't agree with that" because questioning your leadership becomes an issue of questioning god. That's why "what god wants for America"-types bother me so much. They frame their arguement that way and all of a sudden you can't question their ideas without questioning their religious faith as well. Since our government has so much power and its decisions impact people globally, it would be far better if decisions were made solely on assesments of benefit/risk/cost than it would be for decisions to be made "because god told me to do it." There's just too much of a history of people using the "god card" to committ atrocities to allow religion to have significant power within government.

[voyageur]

Originally posted by forkies:
hell no!

your location says "Walden," as in HDT? English major?

Hehe! Sorry for pegging you for one of your rivals!
But, yes, Walden as in HDT. It's a double reference; I live a mile from his hut's location, and my boss was a student of BF Skinner's. I'm not an English major, though.

[cpt kangarooski]

His Dudeness--

Having the Ten Commandments in a public place or in a court lobby doesn't FORCE someone to be a Christian. Nobody forces a religion on anyone else in this country. That's because of the separation of church and state.

No, what prevents the government from forcing you to worship differently than you want to (or at all) is your freedom of exercise of religion. The OTHER religious clause in the First Amendment. The establishment clause prevents the GOVERNMENT from setting up a religion REGARDLESS of whether or not people believe in it. For example, at the time of the Revolution, England had the Church of England but they did also have religious minorities in the UK and they generally were afforded some religious freedom.

Getting back to the song, I find it to be cheesy, like a lot of Irving Berling songs. I prefer "This Land is Your Land."

[His Dudeness]

I guess that makes sense... except for the fact that the government at the time that was written didn't set up Christianity.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by - - e r i k - -:
There's doubt to that as well of course.

And that is malarky.

http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/endC.htm

The fragile, typewritten documents from the 1940s lay out the Nazi plan in grim detail:

Take over the churches from within, using party sympathizers. Discredit, jail or kill Christian leaders. And re-indoctrinate the congregants. Give them a new faith - in Germany's Third Reich.

[cpt kangarooski]

His Dudeness--

I guess that makes sense... except for the fact that the government at the time that was written didn't set up Christianity.

Please restate that. I don't understand what you mean here.

[His Dudeness]

Originally posted by cpt kangarooski:
His Dudeness--


Please restate that. I don't understand what you mean here.

You said the first amendment prevents the government from setting up a religion. Back when the Bill of Rights was written, Christianity had already been around. The colonial government wasn't endorsing Christianity.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by His Dudeness:
You said the first amendment prevents the government from setting up a religion. Back when the Bill of Rights was written, Christianity had already been around. The colonial government wasn't endorsing Christianity.

Yup, and soon after they were teaching the kids how to read in schools using Bibles.

RACISTS!!!

[cpt kangarooski]

His Dudeness--

You said the first amendment prevents the government from setting up a religion.

OK.

Back when the Bill of Rights was written, Christianity had already been around.

OK.

The colonial government wasn't endorsing Christianity.

Oh yes they were. EVERY colony had an official state religion, except for Rhode Island which had been founded by Roger Williams who was banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony for -- guess what -- not adhering to their official state religion.

Even the religiously tolerant colonies such as Pennsylvania still had official religions (in their case, Quakerism). Maryland was founded Catholic -- although by the late 17th century, the CoE was established there and the Catholics were disenfranchised and not permitted to publicly worship. Southern colonies were CoE. Northern colonies were typically Puritan. Virginia had a law to execute Quakers, and they executed them in Massachusetts too, if banishment didn't get rid of them. This was about par for the course -- they'd been getting heavily punished in England which is why they fled to the American colonies to begin with.

Seriously dude, it sounds like you have no idea what colonial America was like. We have the First Amendment because the people who wrote it knew EXACTLY how bad things could get without it.

Massachusetts serves as a pretty good example. Back in the 1780's, after we had broken off from England, we had to work out a new Constitution for the Commonwealth. Thanks to various movements during the 18th century -- the Enlightenment, the Great Awakening, etc. -- it was pretty much accepted that there would be some religious tolerance. The original gang of 17th century Puritans would have been pretty upset at their ancestors, but fortunately for everyone, they remained safely dead. However, there still had to be an established church. So Art. III of the Bill of Rights of the 1780 MA convention set up a tax where the taxpayer had to support a church, but at least he could pick which one he wanted to support. A few years later, similar arguments went on in Virgina. The central argument against it was that government entanglement in religion invariably caused BOTH to be corrupted. Plus of course, it offended the notion of liberty.

The Baptists were very much in favor of this, as religious tolerance was one of their core beliefs -- remember that it was Baptists that founded Rhode Island due to intolerance in Massachusetts, that they uniquely didn't have a state religion, and that purely as a practical matter they had to favor seperation as they kept getting lynched all over the place for being who they were.

In Virginia, Madison and Jefferson won the fight and finally seperated church and state. (Patrick Henry had been one of their main opponents. Washington was, as always kind of a weenie, and said that he didn't mind government supported religion but didn't like how it was upsetting people. Adams had something of a similar position.)

By the time the First Amendment rolled around, most people favored it. Not because they liked seperation of church and state -- but because if there was a NATIONAL religion, then chances were that it might not be their favorite STATE religion. They liked having each state have an official church. Their church.

But it still took quite a while for the states to disentangle themselves from religion, since we didn't have the 14th Amendment applying the 1st to them yet. Massachusetts didn't stop taxing people to support churches until the 1830's.

Oh, and also I didn't say 'setting up' as in 'creating from whole cloth' but rather 'to establish.' Christianity exists, but if the state recognizes it officially, it has set it up as the official religion of the state. It can't do that.

[theolein]

Originally posted by MindFad:
"We must always remember that all human beings begin life as a feces. A feces is a living being in the eyes of God, who has endowed that feces with all of the rights and God-given blessings of any other human being." �George W. Bush, June 17, 2004

Did GW really say this? I know the guy doesn't exactly speak proper English but that's one hell of a wopper.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally posted by theolein:
Did GW really say this? I know the guy doesn't exactly speak proper English but that's one hell of a wopper.

It is of course a joke.