Eek, didn't see the jist of the thread, just voted based on the title.

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Support FairTax!|Boortz|Vote Libertarian!
The People's Cube

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery." – Winston Churchill

Economic Left/Right: +10
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.85

If you have the freedom to force your religion on others, I think it undermines others' freedom of religion.

These neo-cryptic communists must think we're stupid. Freedom of religion is not the same as freedom from religion..


They want the latter. They want a society completely devoid of any concept of God.


Any real American would know better. Though our views of God may change, it's our free right to believe them. I have wiccan friends, athiest friends, Christian friends, Jewish friends, and use to know a Muslim guy...


None of us were wearing overcoats and shooting up non-believers with AK-47s.. Though I'm sure if this insane leftwing hivemind had their way, anyone with a visible set of supernatural beliefs would be thrown into death camps.

The reason they don't see anything of that sort, is because they don't want to see it. So that's fine, they don't have too.


But that doesn't make the rest of us stupid, or dangerous, or in desperate need of "education".


Liberals have a right to say yes or no. They have no right to say yes or no for somebody else.

How can you have freedom of religion without also being free to discard it at will?
The point of "freedom of religion" is to keep people's minds free, not just to make it so that these special institutions called religions are given special reign.

In order to have freedom of religion, the law must not allow others to force you into religion. The best way to prevent that is to seperate church and state.

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside

All Hail the Jug of Milk

I prayed to the Jug of Milk today and asked for a tamale for lunch, since I was out of them and won't be going to Costco until Sunday. Then I went to my freezer to find something else to eat, figuring that praying to the Jug of Milk was just a waste of time. As I was moving a carton of ice cream out of the way, guess what I found? You got it, a tamale. My prayer was answered. Surely, the Jug of Milk provided me with that tamale. How else can you explain it? that it slipped behind the ice cream by accident and has been hiding there the whole time? Nah ..that's too far fetched to believe.

Praise JoM

"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles."

-John Adams

add this

The Barbary Treaties :
Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Signed at Tripoli November 4, 1796
ARTICLE 11.
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion...

Approved by house and senate and signed by John Adams


and this

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries."
James Madison

James Madison was the fourth president so seperation of church and state have been around for a while.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem & 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 & zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more & 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, and 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 and state. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from presenting even occasional performances of devotion presented indeed legally where an Executive is the legal head of a national 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 and blessing of the common Father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

(signed)
Th Jefferson
Jan.1.1802.

whats sad is that you even have to make this argument. people who would actually be okay with religion and state intertwined are hopeless. and i dont mean hopeless in a religious sense, that doesnt really count -- blasphemy is a victimless crime.

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I might add, too, that the separation works both ways. We usually think in terms of the church interferring in state affairs, but from the church's side of the equation, there is much to lose should the state ever start dictating church affairs.

I don't see why the meaning of the First Amendment is considered so important. The Original Constitution granted the government no power whatsoever religion. Whatever the First Amendment means, the government was still not granted any authority whatsoever religion.

Now, that's just silly, dude.

Judging from the Constitution's non-delegation of power over religion, I'd say the lawmakers wanted a government with not even a shadow of a legitimate claim to jurisdiction over religion.

Dude, separation of church and state, or rather, the exclusion of religion from civil authority, is the foundation that our grand and glorious republic was built on.