And you think "separation of church and state" does exist? Certainly it erroneously does in the minds of some but nowhere else.
The war on the West thru Christmas
- Thread starter AMonger
- Start date
And you think "separation of church and state" does exist? Certainly it erroneously does in the minds of some but nowhere else.
pandora2112
Seasoned Expediter
The actual words are "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Which means putting religious icons on government property is a no no because it could be conceived that the government is sponsoring that religion. The actual wording separation of church and state comes from Thomas Jefferson in a letter he wrote expanded on the idea. It's become a widely popular term but yes technically it is not in the Constitution...I would have to Google it to give the letter from Thomas Jefferson.
And it's okay I quit smoking! Lol!
)O( ~ Namaste ~ )O(
Which means putting religious icons on government property is a no no because it could be conceived that the government is sponsoring that religion. The actual wording separation of church and state comes from Thomas Jefferson in a letter he wrote expanded on the idea. It's become a widely popular term but yes technically it is not in the Constitution...I would have to Google it to give the letter from Thomas Jefferson.
And it's okay I quit smoking! Lol!
)O( ~ Namaste ~ )O(
Tennesseahawk
Veteran Expediter
I only know back as far as what my grandparents taught me. Everything before that is here-say.
I'd love to experience an 1890s Christmas, tho just seeing my childhood city being lit up from end to end would be great. Today, I don't think my kids get the Christmas spirit like we used to. Instead, they get news flashes of mall fights and Black Friday tramplings.
Face it... America has no "culture" or tradition anymore. America has become slovenly, in spirit and in body. People of Walmart have become the norm.
pandora2112
Seasoned Expediter
Here's the letter:
Mr. President
To messers Nehemiah Dodge,Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.] Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association assurances of my high respect & esteem.
(signed) Thomas Jefferson Jan.1.1802.
)O( ~ Namaste ~ )O(
Mr. President
To messers Nehemiah Dodge,Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.] Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association assurances of my high respect & esteem.
(signed) Thomas Jefferson Jan.1.1802.
)O( ~ Namaste ~ )O(
Tennesseahawk
Veteran Expediter
You libs love to quote that letter. It is just that... a letter. How is setting up a nativity scene establishing a religion? If abolishing Christmas from the public square was the Founding Fathers' intent, wouldn't they have started the abolishing themselves? That is a fairly recent thing... thanks to hateful people who would love nothing more than for the rest of society to be as miserable as themselves.
BTW... Christians only borrowed pagan rituals, because the pagans brought the rituals with them when they turned to Christianity.
pandora2112
Seasoned Expediter
Actually I'm not really a liberal...I guess I hold some liberal views but I'm much more conservative in many matters.
And putting up religious icons is sponsoring religion...plain and simple. And you know why everyone quotes that letter bc that man was there, writing it and living it!
And actually the Christians couldn't get the pagans to stop their traditions and in an effort to get them into a church incorporated their traditions. Also some rituals were incorporated when the pagans were forced to convert or die....not much of a choice.
)O( ~ Namaste ~ )O(
And putting up religious icons is sponsoring religion...plain and simple. And you know why everyone quotes that letter bc that man was there, writing it and living it!
And actually the Christians couldn't get the pagans to stop their traditions and in an effort to get them into a church incorporated their traditions. Also some rituals were incorporated when the pagans were forced to convert or die....not much of a choice.
)O( ~ Namaste ~ )O(
Tennesseahawk
Veteran Expediter
Yep... Jefferson was there. And so were many others who thought it wasn't a big deal to have a White House Christmas tree (as we still do). So no, separation of church and state was the idea of one man, taken as gospel by a bunch of atheists. Our government doesn't force one to choose one religion over another, even by putting Merry Christmas on the city's marquee. Tho one could argue it's forced on them in Hamtramck, where you listen to praying five times a day over loud speakers.
pandora2112
Seasoned Expediter
If the president wants a Christmas tree no one can stop him...and since many people celebrate with a tree even though they aren't religious not many complain about a tree. I don't care personally but nativity scenes, adding under god to the pledge and our money is an issue. These are symbols of religion and by allowing them it's the same as sponsoring a religion.
If the founding fathers wanted a state sponsored religion they would have made one not made a stand against one by including the first amendment. At the least they would have kicked out the deists and atheist and wrote a state sponsored religion don't ya think?!?
)O( ~ Namaste ~ )O(
If the founding fathers wanted a state sponsored religion they would have made one not made a stand against one by including the first amendment. At the least they would have kicked out the deists and atheist and wrote a state sponsored religion don't ya think?!?
)O( ~ Namaste ~ )O(
Yes, it is. The only problem, there is nothing in the Constitution prohibiting the sponsorship thereof. Sponsoring a religion is hardly the same as establishing a religion. Not even close.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"
What that means, oddly enough, is exactly what it says, word for word. It means that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. It doesn't mean that Congress or any other branch or department of the government cannot acknowledge the existence of a particular religion, or that they cannot even vouch for the validity of the religion.
sponsor: a person, firm or organization who vouches or is responsible for a person or thing.
In the case of government sponsorship, the government isn't being responsible for any religion, but they are vouching for it, and there's nothing wrong with that, since to vouch for something is to acknowledge its existence, to attest, or certify, or support the thing being vouched for as true or legitimate. There is no question that Christianity, for example, exists and is a legitimate religion. It is a true fact that it exists. Acknowledging that simple fact is not the same as establishing a particular religion, by Congressional law or by any other means.
Do keep in mind that I'm a devout Agnostic, with strong Atheistic tendencies, so my comments are not coming from someone who thinks the same way that some of the more crackpotted religious folks think. My comments come from the point of view of reality and of pragmatism. If the majority of the people of a community want elm trees planted along Main Street, they should be allowed to have that done. If the majority want a Nativity scene on the courthouse lawn, or a Menorah, or whatever they want, they should be allowed to have that done. Government is, after all, by the will of the people within certain limitations.
Thanks to the whining of selfish, disobliging parasites (someone who receives support, advantage, or the like, from another or others without giving any useful or proper return), to the Supreme Court, the Court has ruled extremely broadly on what those Constitutional words mean, to the point where the separation of church and state has become an absurd caricature of civil society. It's laughable that a judge cannot exercise his own free speech rights by hanging the 10 Commandments in his courtroom, or some local government cannot put up a Nativity scene, or any number of other absurd mis-interpretations of the separation of church and state.
On the whole Thomas Jefferson thing, he certainly wrote it, but that particular letter and its context has been so widely misunderstood and interpreted it's not even funny anymore. The wording for "separation of church and state" is based on Thomas Jefferson’s reply to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut in 1802, but the separation of church and state, properly understood, comes from the work not of Thomas Jefferson, as is widely perceived, but from the insights of Roger Williams.
It was Williams who developed the metaphor of the garden and the wilderness. The garden was the place where the people of faith would gather to struggle to understand God’s Word. The wilderness was the rest of the world, the world where the light had not yet been received. Between the garden and the wilderness stood a wall. The wall existed for one purpose only. It was not there to protect the wilderness from the garden - it was there to protect the garden from the wilderness.
What does this really mean to us today? While the wall of separation between church and state is there to protect the state from the church, to prevent a government being run by religious law and teaching (such as countries governed by clerics and Sharia Law, or run by the Church of England, for example), it is there mostly to protect the church from the state. It stands as a divide to preserve religious freedom. And one needs to protect the church from the state because the latter will utilize its enormous powers to do what the state has always done – either subvert the religion or destroy it, same as it does to everything else.
Based on the modern misconceptions of the separation of church and state, there could have been no abolition movement to eradicate slavery, since it was led by Christians with the Bible as their principle ideological text, nor could there have been a Civil Rights movement led by Dr Martin Luther King since it too was a church-based movement led by King and other ministers quoting the Bible.
Religion is a part of mankind, and part of this community we call America, and to pretend it doesn't exist is foolish, whether you agree with it or not. The fact is, to a great many people, religion is an important part of their lives. There is no reason whatsoever to try and strip people of the things they hold dear, be it religion, or science, or rock and roll music. If nothing else, it's simply not nice. It's mean. It's thoroughly disrespectful. If 20,000 people in a community want, or have no problem with, a Nativity scene on the courthouse steps, and 3 whiny little snots don't want it there, the 3 whiny little snots shouldn't be able to tell everyone in town they can't have it just because they can't properly interpret Constitutional wording which requires no interpretation at all. It's absurd.
Because it "could be conceived" that the government is sponsoring a religion? Are you kidding me? There are any number of crackpots who can conceive just about anything you can imagine, and many things you cannot imagine. Just because someone can conceived something incorrectly doesn't mean it's a valid and logical conception. Otherwise, all actions of everyone should be motivated solely by not offending anyone in any way. Civilization as we know it would cease if everyone had to be pleased with everything all the time.
Observing is not establishing. If individuals are forced to participate in a nativity scene against there will or if they are forced to stand and look at a nativity against their will that would be a problem. If there is a nativity scene that anyone can walk past and ignore at their choice that shouldn't be a big deal so long as no taxpayer money is spent on it. The same would apply to a display of mohammed with his camel and goat and koran, as long as it's out of the way and privately paid and can be ignored by choice then it's no different. Observation is not establishment.
I sometimes wonder if people who bray the loudest about the "establishment clause" have ever taken the time to actually read it. They seem to just assume it means what they think it means, when in fact it doesn't say any such thing. Nowhere in the clause do you find any cause for government to FORBID the free expression of religion, in fact quite the opposite. The requirement by some that religious people shall keep it secret and not express their religious beliefs in the public square is, in fact, unconstitutional. It says so, right there in the "establishment clause".
How about that.
How about that.
pandora2112
Seasoned Expediter
Actually Turtle when you post I read it you put thought into and make valid arguments....
)O( ~ Namaste ~ )O(
Exactly. Observation is not establishment. The whole wining about Nativity scenes and other observances is ridiculous. Ri-dic-u-lous. The argument cannot even be made that such observances will lead to establishment, because history proves undeniably that isn't so. In years gone by such observances were ubiquitous, routine and accepted, and no one with any semblance of intelligence felt the government had established a religion. We are losing rights and liberties at an alarming rate, and what do people crap themselves over? Wood and plastic figurines on the courthouse lawn. OMG.
Why is it that those who oppose 'religious displays' are often those who don't believe in either God or an established religion? Why is it that they are afraid of what they don't believe in?
pandora2112
Seasoned Expediter
While I've never liked them to be honest I don't go protesting because to be honest there are much more important issues. Kind of like you said they are so routine though fading on there own....besides people freak at my personal displays of my beliefs so it's tit for tat!
)O( ~ Namaste ~ )O(
How things have changed. In the late 1950's and early 1960's communities around where I grew up were growing faster than buildings could be built. Several local churches rented the high school auditorium for Saturday and Sunday services. More than one church rented it each day. They took turns. SOME people even stuck around to see what other religions services were about. It was a good stream of income for the school. There were no protests. It is wonderful to know just how much more tolerant we are today, in 2012. Can you imagine the uproar today?
pandora2112
Seasoned Expediter
Actually recently read an article where some churches are renting school auditoriums. I think it's a great idea because it generates income for the school....
)O( ~ Namaste ~ )O(
Be interesting to see if anyone protests this. It harms no one and as you say provides needed income for the schools. It was the norm when I was growing up. Then again, lots of things that are protested or banned today were the norm back then. Good thing we had the '60's to MAKE us more tolerant and free than we were back then, eh?
pandora2112
Seasoned Expediter
Some people take it too far and just protest to have something to do! Kind of like the whole praying in school thing, I don't care if you pray...but because people took it too far now no one in school can prayer even on their own without people freaking. Let someone wear their cross as long as I can wear my pentacle I don't care...my only caveat is if you have a school group of Christian youth if someone wants a Pagan youth or Jewish group you can't say oh no!
)O( ~ Namaste ~ )O(
I don't care either way. Freedom allows for all. Protesting freedom is stupid.
There ARE some good protests. Back in the late '50's the Michigan Duck Hunters ACCSO. got tired of find dead ducks killed by the polluted water. They talked to industry, got no where. They talked to government, local, state and federal, go no where. SO, they 'protested'. They collected several TONS of dead ducks, two dump truck loads full. Drove them up to Lansing and DUMPED them on the steps of the capitol. THAT got some peoples attention. That was the beginning of the clean up efforts on the Detroit River and Lake Erie. They did not only protest though, they rolled up their sleeves and WORKED. I now belong to that group, we STILL work, raising thousands of dollars every year for our marsh. Talk is CHEAP, action is everything.