This seems fairly significant. Apologies to those of you already familiar with the particulars of the decision. From the First Amendment Center, “6th Circuit upholds Ky. Ten Commandments display”:
A federal appeals court ruled today that a Kentucky courthouse can keep its display of the Ten Commandments because other historic documents also are included.
The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a lower court decision that found the display at the Mercer County courthouse in Harrodsburg is constitutionally acceptable.
The court said the commandments are viewed alongside nine other documents, including the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence. The font size is no different for any of them, the court noted, and there was no attempt to put the religious document at a higher level.
“When placed on a level with other documents having such unquestioned civil, legal and political influence, the Commandments’ own historical significance becomes more pronounced,†the panel said in its ruling in ACLU v. Mercer County.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this summer in McCreary County v. ACLU that courthouse displays of the Ten Commandments in Pulaski and McCreary counties were unconstitutional. However, in a separate ruling in Van Orden v. Perry, the Court said an exhibit in Texas could remain because it included other historical markers and had been in place for about 40 years.
The American Civil Liberties Union brought the case against Mercer County, arguing the display violated the Constitution’s guarantee separating church and state.
The appeals court said the ACLU was relying on a false understanding of that clause.
“This extraconstitutional construct has grown tiresome,†it wrote. “The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state. Our nation’s history is replete with governmental acknowledgment and in some cases, accommodation of religion.â€Â
So long it’s not established as an official state religion, I have no problem with any public acknowledgment of religion (or its de minimis use on currency, or in the Pledge); this ruling is much closer, in my opinion, to the First Amendment’s intent with regard to religion than the expanded understanding of the establishment clause we’ve been drifting toward in legal rulings over the years.
Simply allowing others to acknowledge their religion in public—accomodating their beliefs—is what “tolerance” is supposed to mean.
(h/t Ace)
You know I’ve always thought that God, if there is one and if He is all powerful could, if He wanted to, affect any of these decisions regarding State vs. Religion.
For those that believe, maybe he finally stuck his hand in.
i watched a FOXnews special on this.
The “jeffersonian wall” between church and state was erected in the sixties by justice Hugo Black, reacting to an inordinate fear of the RCC.
according to FOX.
Hoo, doggie! I eagerly await the screeching from the moonbats concerned that, as a result of this decision, Pat Robertson and other nutjobs are now legally authorized to forcibly enter their homes, with a “666” stamp in one hand, and a Bible in the other, and demanding their instant conversion to Christianity, or Else Be Stamped as an infidel.
Not that this decision authorizes that. As Jeff G points out, it merely states that the “wall” concept is not in the Constitution. But the ACLU and their sycophant adherents will surely see the worst case scenario.
But, but, but… THEOCRACY!!!!
I wonder if Bill from INDC is going to drop a nut over this.
Nope, just Jeff’s apparent ridiculous misunderstanding/misapplication of the word “tolerance” to mean endorsement/advancement of theism over atheism or other brands of theism via the state.
Oh SNAP.
I might have missed the memo, but people are still allowed to acknowledge their religion in public, aren’t they?
Goldstein—as long as redneck cops are still not allowed to pull you over and say, “BMW? You Jewish?” like a Robin Williams joke, you should be okaty
Uh, Bill.
You dropped a nut over here.
I can’t tell you how many times rabid Robertsonians and/or atheist loons have kicked in my door to demand I change…because there hasn’t been any. Have a TV show you find offensive on religious grounds? Don’t watch. Have political leaders that do things beyond the pale on religious grounds (either way)? Vote them out. Do that in one particular way and Pat Robertson will claim God hates you.
I find these cases to be ridiculous in their frivolity. And Bill, I think it’s more than a stretch to accuse Jeff of misunderstanding…if anything “tolerance” means exactly that– “The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.”
I can’t see where display of the Ten Commandments along with other important documents that underpin our society amounts to any disrespect for anyone except in the very tiresome ACLU-trumpeted vein with which the court took issue in this case.
Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s okay to believe nothing in public, too.
So I haven’t really chosen the advancement or endorsement of theism over atheism. I’ve simply acknowledged that others’ religions don’t bother me so long as they aren’t state established.
As long as nobody hears you.
Which brings to mind—or should for the rhetorical, hyper-fearful Bill’s out there—the not so subtle distinction between religion and philosophy, insofar that there is no such thing as a non-philosophy. This may bring into question the entire social government of the US, as morally subjective and conditional a government of “free” people as you could find.
What did the founders mean by “religion”? State-sponsored / encouraged / enforced / mandated modes of thought and values systems, such as are found in, say, state eduction? There, “religion” is illegal but such a practiced philosophy of institutionalized, tax-paid, nearly inescapable Nihilism, accompanied by it’s own value system and including obvious repercussions to and on society is not.
Ergo, functionally similar enough to religion as to cause concern, were it not so damn sacred.
So, did the SCOTUS once declare secular humanism a religion? I’d so love to see the entire NEA and statist US school system put out of our misery in a single afternoon by a technical ruling on that subject.
Better minds than I can and should debate whether or not “religion” is synonymous with philosophy.
No document ever declared a “wall of separation between church and state” in the colonies nor the new Republic.
The Declaration and the Constitution prohibited a newer form of the Church of England taking root in America. That root being an official religion. There was never a ban on religion in the public square. Ever.
Their bad for letting it overtake them there (England), but our good for allowing the freedom of religion here.
I do chuckle when I hear or read “constitutional experts” speaking to this subject. They are too self important in their arguements and too influential in their bias. I say so because the courts actually listen(ed) to them and have make bad decisions.
All religions were welcomed, none above another except the one that formed our base, but could not supercede our Constution and exercise of government.
Deists, pilgrims, puritans and even a smattering of Episcopalians (Catholic lite) and others were tolerated. Could it be so today? Nah, Maryland would not be allowed.
Papist bastards.
Meh. America was founded on Judeo-Christian law and morality – the Founders were mostly Christian. If recognizing that on coin or in the Pledge gets your panties all bound up, so what? Because it’s better that the state ignore theism and assume atheism, according to … Bill?
Maybe this’ll help:
the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them …
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights …
appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions …
with a firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Recognise any of that God stuff? It’s from the Declaration of Independence.
It’s hard to imagine a more devastating argument against the display then this sentence by the court in supporting the display. It puts the Ten Commandments on an equal plane with the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.
Is it the law that we keep the Lord’s day holy? That we honor our father and mother? Is it against the law to covet your neighbor’s wife? Did we need the Ten Commandments to tell us murder is wrong? That theft is wrong? Were they legal before the Ten Commandments came along? The fact is, the Ten Commandments played no role whatsoever in our country’s legal foundation and it has no business being put on the same plane as our foundational documents.
I find it amusing that not a single person opposing the ACLU in this case seems to have paused for even one second over the question of why religious groups are trying so hard to get the Ten Commandments into schools and courthouses. And that’s because the answer is obvious–they want it clear to every person who enters that they are entering the abode of a christian government and if they aren’t christian, then they’re second class. How is the government openly embracing one religion over others not incompatible with freedom of religion?
You, sir, are a magnificant paranoid bastard. What court asked you to pledge to “Our Lord, Jesus Christ”?
Do I hear none?
Baskins & Robbins ticket # 148, serving Pistachio nutcase
The fact is, the Ten Commandments played no role whatsoever in our country’s legal foundation and it has no business being put on the same plane as our foundational documents.
The blinkered ignorance in that remark displays everything that is wrong with education today. I guessed 18-year-old before I checked the name … strungout21.
Yeah.
I find it amusing that not a single person opposing the ACLU in this case seems to have paused for even one second over the question of why religious groups are trying so hard to get the Ten Commandments into schools and courthouses.<blockquote>
Actually, I believe it is to keep them in. Morality can be an excellent reason to tell the truth.
Sorry, this should have been a quote;
But how did they get there? Did Congress pass a law? Respecting incorporation, did the State legislature or local rule-making body pass a law or ordinance?
If not, then the case should have simply been dismissed; the First Amendment says “Congress shall pass no law,” not “Judges shall decorate no courtrooms…”
:peter
And here we are in the middle of yet another GRAND CONSPIRACY according to byrd.
Pat Robertson and his goobers think the conspiracy runs in the other direction, buddy.
That’s one hell of a dialectic you guys have running there.
Oops.
Actually, the King James version of the Bill of Rights says “Congress shall make no law,” not “Congress shall pass no law.”
Sorry.
:peter
I know enough to fart in the general direction of any jerk who uses the phrase “public square” to refer to the pronouncements of a government entity. Like, I dunno, a court of law.
I disagree with Jeff G’s arguments, but at least they are ethical. But mRed and (to a less cliched extent) Allah need to look over what they are posting.
Sloppy language in service of an ideology is nothing but propaganda.
“Public” does not mean “government”.
As mRed pointed out, in the vast majority of cases the wish is to keep and/or remove (depending on side) a display that’s already there, and has been for sometimes a century or more, sometimes only since a movie producer’s publicity stunt.
The ones wanting to keep them are protesting the establishment (in the legal sense) of one of the least-tolerant, most-exclusive religions ever promulgated, complete with Inquisition and religious tests for office. The fact that the said religion is negative regarding the Deity rather than positive is a red herring.
Regards,
Ric
My God! Common sense is returning to the judiciary!
Can this be anything but a sign of the imminent Apocalypse?
Repent, sinners! Ye shall be judged!
Oh, and Bill, if you want to erect a giant nothing (to represent atheism) next to our manger in the public square, or for that matter if Jeff wants a huge menorrah or someone else wants a big Koran or a Ganesha statue, I will fully support that.
I draw the line at Aztecs demanding we sacrifice virgins, though. That’s no way to promote abstinence!
There are no gods.
Nice phrase, even better parsing.
Those of us, who are not afraid of religion, never had to use the term “public square” VS “government”, because we didn’t know what a strawman you would erect with this issue.
So, your sloppy language idiocy is just that, idiocy. You know what we mean. Why do you not address that? I am sure you will drag out literate and knowledgable language and arguments about the right terminolgy to address this subject. Might be nice in Bullshit 101. Answer the question.
Propaganda? God, what a prig. Where in the Constitution, Declaration or Bill of Rights did the writers expressly exclude religion, any religion, from the public square? Oh excuse me Mr. Friggin expert and linguist, from government?
If you spent half of your time directly answering questions instead of coming up with snappy little rejoinders we might just have a dialogue.
“Sloppy language…..” Have you ever thought about what you are saying as opposed to just feeling the rush of stating it?
When and where did the Founding Fathers exclude religion from the public square or the government as opposed to forbiding a state mandated religion?
Gee, maybe I will look over what I am posting, you know, just to feel better about myself. Loser.
I’m starting to see why Bush didn’t get too torqued about Specter’s allowing Alito’s confirmation to be pushed to January. Many battles remain but the signs of a more reasonable future in the judiciary are starting to get clearer.
With the benefit that it is fresher in the voter’s minds, yet not close enough to steal the show.
Almost…. Rovian….
byrd:
That was an interesting tirade. I would answer these two questions with a “yes.”
By which other code would you establish that taking something that isn’t yours or killing another human is wrong?
The fact that you “just know” these things are wrong is indicitive of how deeply rooted Western civilization truly is in Judeo-Christian principles.
The fact that you deny those roots of Western civilization is indicitive of your ignorance or proud stupidity, whichever it may be.
This should be the rallying cry for a reunion tour of whoever’s left from Pink Floyd.
mRed, then I guess you must prepare yourself for more rejoinders…
So you admit, then, that you meant “government” when you said “public”?
Actually, no. I only suspected what you, personally, meant. But you just admitted to it.
mRed, you have put us all on notice, that when you say “public” – which could mean anything available to the people at large – you mean “government”, which is forced upon the people at large.
This is why I questioned your ethics. You have at least answered that question: that for you, when it comes to the intersection of government and politics, ethics are expendable.
So when you suggest I am “afraid of religion”, I don’t have to take that literally. I may worry about a religion with designs upon the public square – in its literal sense of, anything not private; I may also worry about a politics which has abandoned ethics for an emotion-driven and grievance-fueled quest for “our side to win”. But no. This is “religion” to you. If your belief system is not affirmed by the state, it must not be the right one; as a believer, you must redouble your efforts.
What is a public square? Polyhedron? Ellipsoid? Klein bottle?
“Public” is to “public square” as “public” is to “public servant”.
Well, that’s 3 posters whinging about the now mandatory Sunday School, followed by the command performance sermons and forced baptisms, all before the noon buffet in front of the sinners locked into for stocks for assorted minor sins.
Oh, and that $50 bill you put in the offering plate? It’s not tax deductible anymore. NYAH NYAH NYAH!!!
Yeah, like that’s going to happen. I think people get the message, fellas. You don’t like religion pushed into your face. I know I don’t. And that’s ANY religion. But guess what? I deal with it, and without resorting to law suits. Largely because it’s not being pushed in your face in the USA. If it were, you’d know the difference.
It’s called “tolerance”….in the classic sense. If I don’t like it, I don’t listen. Or I walk away.
Oh, and it helps to have a thick skin.
BoDiddly: Because as everyone knows, murder was legal in India and China when (as Confucius put it) “you really, REALLY feel like totally killing that motherfucker”.
Or maybe it was Hammurabi who said it. I forget.
America was founded, in part by people from England trying to flee from religious persecution. Let’s not repeat that history by allowing our government to get involved in any way with religion. Better safe than sorry, I’d say.
You republicans often like to argue that the federal government can’t get anything right, and yet you want to hand over your religion to them. I don’t get it.
If it is tolerant to show the ten commandments, then alongside these rules should be religious texts from Buddhism, Taoism, Muslimism, Monism, etc., right?
6Gun, the first philosopher was Thales, who claimed “All is water.†It wasn’t so much what he said that made it philosophy rather than religion. It was the way in which he said it – he implied that he didn’t get his information from a deity, but from his own mind and (gasp) he admitted that he could be wrong and it was open to debate. That is a major difference between philosophy and religion. Religion usually discourages debate (heresy). Also, philosophy has more to do with human understanding using reason as opposed to religion’s focus on a deity (or deities).
Repent or burn, infidels.
Nice job you “forgot” about getting to stone the brains out of your sister’s skull for shagging her boyfriend. “But wait that’s religious in nature!” Are you sure? Cuz I’ve read imams who say it ain’t in the Koran. And sure as hell it ain’t practiced in Christian America. Hell, it’s not even “tolerated”.
Tillman –
You waited till this debte was 6 hrs old to chime in with that bit of wisdom?
“America was founded in part by people from England trying to flee from religious persecution”. No shit.
Only problem is that the persecution they were fleeing was persecution by the state religion. Which, if you think about it, is exactly what the establishment clause was written for. Not to make sure that no atheist gets creeped out, not to license the ACLU to sue anything that moves which has ANY connection to history, (which is pretty full of religion, isn’t it?), and then bill the f’n taxpayer for tons of dough to pay for their involvement in a stink which they created in the first place.
And who says you can’t display totems from other religions? What you democrats forget is that the lawsuits are about REMOVING christian symbols which have been public fixtures in this country since it’s founding. You’ll forgive me if I suspect their motives here. It’s about money and political power for the ACLU, the rest is just what they use to keep the donations and pro bono legal help flowing.
“Religion usually discourages debate”. I don’t know where you grew up, but your family and schooling must have been a huge fucking bore. Where I come from, religion has caused more spirited debate than anything but sports or politics.
Seems plain enough to me. What I’m wondering is how in the hell did Black, or whoever, come up with the ‘wall of seperation’ based on the language above?
Rick, I was talking about debate in the setting of church itself. It is not encouraged to say the least while you’re in church.
Excuse me for being late to the debate here. I like to spend time with my father (who is getting up there in the years) if that’s OK with you.
Tillman, you can spend your time any way you want to. Say hey to your Dad for me.
I threw the part about religious debate in just for the hell of it. It’s true that debate in church is discouraged, if it weren’t, they’d call it “Crossfire”, not “Church”. Whatever, if that’s what you’re looking for, I’m sure we can find you a church that spends all it’s time in argument between members regarding the airspeed of a laden swallow or whatever.
But all this is really beside the point, as was your entire first post. That was my point, that after eighty comments, the best you could do was missrepresenting the Pilgrims’ motivation, and a bunch of crap about some guy claiming “all is water”.
The only government conducted in the public square is hangings.
I’m no Republican, but just to throw this out there?:
This seems to have both nothing to do with the debate, with the added benefit of being wrong.
This part gets subject to interpretation the most:
But I think there is much to say here:
And does that irony strike you? In a nation founded upon, among other things, the essential freedom of speech and the freedom from oppressive, institutional, centrist values, that we can’t speak freely on taxpaid property, can’t escape paying for a nihilist education, increasingly wait on government (churchlike) for food and health care, are perpetually under the thumb of social government, aren’t free from having the door kicked in because of what kind of moral conduct the neighbor said we exhibited, lose property to our representative government daily, are taxed under penalty of imprisonment, and endure countless bullshit discussions about founder’s intent and the Holy Separation Clause?
Tell me one of those offenses on the Constitution and it’s purported separation clause isn’t functionally identical to the classic law of the state Church. The words differ as do the practicioners, but the weight of consequence is identical.
Now we’re to understand that this government’s daily facile social(ist) fascism is distinct from religion because, natch, the perpetrators of this leftist/authoritarian rape of our constitutional values are willing to—technically, possibly, or theoretically—allow debate? Try that at the DMV or the Medicaid counter … or in Hilary’s Village. Only because they are public representatives and don’t, er, institutionalize their “religion” of behavior and conformity with like, robes and those big gymnasium-looking Southern baptist churches?
Sorry, the effective religion of American state is typically some feminist dogma-driven, speech-controlled, anti-religious, inescapably Orwellian / socialist hamster wheel of an existence, just one philosophically dictated from bureaucracy and not a pulpit.
Get real, liberals. Functionally, the Religion of the old State and the Religion of the new State are identical. Only their definitions and appearances tell them apart.
This is where I really despair for all the intellectual leftist liars disguising their nuanced bullshit behind walls of words—obfuscating every practical definition of any word or issue foolish enough to cross their path.
Nothing personal Tillman; thanks for the clarity, actually. It’s time to sum up: The US government and it’s members, properties, policies, and practices are highly oppressive, highly intolerant, highly sexist, highly dogmatic institutions that by intent and consequence deny one religious freedom in order to replace it with another. It and they demand conformity, a conformity certainly no less unctuous and harmful than that of any batch of English churchmen 250 years ago.
In effect, there is little difference to society between the oppression of pre-1800 English centrists and that of the US government in 2005 except that the latter is far harder to escape and far more organized and infiltrating than the former. What once was an intolerable classical religion of State has simply become an intolerable and unconstitutional religion (or practical, inescapable philosophy of action) of the new State.
Don’t ever tell me that anyone signing any of the founding documents would ever abide a day’s worth of these Socialist States of America. Self-righteous arguments equating primary Christian values with fear of a phantom in-effect state religion in 2005 that don’t include a correspondingly complete view of the street-level effects of the philosophy of our masters in Washington are simply asinine.
What the fuck. What. The. Fuck.
Will this pronouncement stand proudly alone or will you be offering some substance, Tillman? You stopped slugging the wife yet?
Dealing in paranoid stereotypes is perhaps the Left’s most annoying habit.
So long as the religion is not established as an official state religion, I have no problem with public acknowledgment (or de minimis use on currency, or in the Pledge);
Uh-huh.
Let’s see – 78% of Americans are Christians, 1% Jewish, 1% Muslim, 10% other, and 10% atheist.
So, the problem with “the” religion being acknowledged on the currency is that, to be fair, only 79% of the bills would be printed with “In God We Trust”. 1% would have to be printed with “In Allah We Trust” (and drop any portraits from the bill), 10% would have to be printed with “We Don’t Trust Nobody”, and 10% with “Whoever”.
If you print “In God We Trust”, you’re pushing a religious position – one which states that there *is* a single supreme deity. About the same proportions of Americans disagree with that as are black – and I seem to recall that pushing a white supremicist line is a no-no in American governance.
Come on, Jeff – at least have the honesty to admit that your stance is that you have no problem with public acknowledgement OF THE MAJORITY RELIGIOUS BELIEF, since they have the power and the atheists and Muslims can go jump in the lake. You’ll feel better if you’re more honest.
What part of de minimis did you not get, Potato in a time of Tubers that like to take it in the eyes?
In God We Trust; One nation under God.
Those are unobtrusive and don’t bother me one bit—particularly when the Pledge allows an opt out. And not being a lefty, I don’t have to buy into that strict proportional representation nonsense. Getting here first and starting a country has its privileges.
Please, don’t try to speak for me. Seriously. You have a hard enough time gathering your own thoughts.
“to be fair”? America is not an absolute democracy, requiring 100% agreement. It’s a republic which uses majority rule. “Fair” in one hand and $1 in the other buys you a Diet Coke. Your “equal opprotunity religious representation” rant is a silly strawman. Maybe it’s the way things are in New Zealand, but most people don’t consider the Kiwi Form Of Government an ideal model. Despite what you’ve heard.
And what’s wrong with that? “Freedom of religion” is exactly that, Phoney. You deny a majority their freedom of religion to satisfy a minority.
But if that minority is what bothers you, I’ll suggest a way to change it: Convert 69% of the American population to atheism. That’ll give the atheists 79% of the vote, and they can do damn well what they please.
Talldave, the Aztecs did not sacrifice virgins. They sacrificed everyone that wasn’t Aztec.
“If you print “In God We Trustâ€Â, you’re pushing a religious position – one which states that there *is* a single supreme deity.”
And what’s wrong with that?
Er, because it’s using a state organ (in this case the Treasury, I guess) to push a religious position which a significant minority disagree with?
Tell me, imagine JFK had directed the Treasury to print the currency with “In God and the Pope We Trust” – after all, he was the President, and he could do it with an executive order.
Now, assuming you’re a Protestant, would the *only* problem you’d have with that scenario be that Catholics are a minority in the US, and that otherwise it wouldn’t be offensive?
But, what the hey, Umberto Eco called it a decade ago, and you people are just living it out. Knock yourselves out justifying your serfdom.
“to be fair� America is not an absolute democracy, requiring 100% agreement. It’s a republic which uses majority rule.
It’s also a republic which used that majority rule to justify enslaving a minority. Well done on not learning a lesson there.
The term “majority rule” slipped by you. Somehow, I’m not surprised. I hope New Zealanders enjoy a minority telling the majority how to live, if you’re an example of how things work down there.
And Jeff’s post just before mine approaches your whinge in a different, but valid, direction. Of course, you ignore it. Surprise.
1. “God” does not equal “Pope”; the Pope is the head of the Catholic Church on Earth. I’m not Catholic, and I know that.
2. The Pope is not God, he’s a human being, just like you and me.
3. Living persons can’t be on US currency and stamps in any form.
4. Therefore, JFK putting the “In God and The Pope We Trust” would be illegal. Religion doesn’t enter into the matter, at all.
Executive orders aren’t royal decrees, Phoney. They are essentially directives from the Commander In Chief to agencies in the Executive Branch. They can be over-ruled by Congressional action and/or legal action. They have to stay with in the law. I suspect that your latest strawman wouldn’t make it out of the Oval Office, let alone the White House.
Sheesh, you are grasping at straws tonight, aren’t you? Especially with Umberto Eco. But you must love someone who ”…emphasizes the fact that words do not have meanings that are simply lexical, but rather operate in the context of utterance.” Feh, another moral relativism fanatic.
But thanks for the reference, it gives great insight to your own philosophy.
BUAWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
God, Phoney, you’re killing me here! Really.
C’mon, tell us another one! Let’s hear how printing “In God We Trust” on $1 bills enslaves atheists. Go on, give us a good show!
Ah, the Royal Buffoon has returned! Life is good again.
I wish the SC would resolve these “display” cases as follows. Grandfather any display in use before 2000. Leave them alone.
Don’t like that? Too bad! The fact that not everyone will be happy is no reason why courts should listen to rewordings of the same quarrel for centuries.
Tell the lower courts to stop a newer display unless it sensibly refers to a specific event in American history – e.g. a mission drawn on a California city seal.
Schools would be allowed to reference religion, not promote it, on purely ceremonial occasions. Nearly every rite of education had some religious association. Only new references could be challenged.
By stopping new incursions the issue would fade away. After all inscriptions erode, ceremonies evolve, city seals are redrawn,…
Hmmm.
Actually they sacrificed Aztecs too if they were captured in a inter-city state squabble.
What bothers me the most is the number of people who blather on about “establishment” of religion but have no idea what that really means.
“Establishment” doesn’t mean acknowledgement of religion, nor does it mean tolerance of it.
An established religion is the official state religion. It usually includes:
a) Gov’t support – both financial and legal. The financial support comes from taxes (or mandatory tithes) collected by the gov’t.
b) An obligation for citizens to follow the dogmas of the religion. This could include manditory attendence at services, or disqualification of non-believers from holding office.
c) Dissent is prohibited (or at least discouraged). This may go as far as blasphemy laws, or a “Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice”.
Putting “In God We Trust” on a dollar bill or the 10 Commandments in a court house is not “establishment” of religion.
What ever happened to voting with your feet. This here country’s been sticking Judeo-Christian stuff all over itself public and private from it’s inception. But it’s not the only country in the world. There are countries where people are shot or imprisoned for any public religious expression. Then there are other countries that have religious expression but will chop off heads of pushy Judeo-Christian types. Then there’s Antarctica where mostly you don’t see any religious or secular stuff going on. So if you don’t like the way it is and always been around these parts, don’t try to remake America in your image (and don’t give me that crap about us trying to Christo-talibanize America, we’re just trying to keep it the way it was established, your the ones that demand change). Why try to change this place, when there’s a whole world out that has to have some place more to your liking.
I’m a big Eco fan, for what it’s worth. He’s a semiotician (of the CS Peirce school)– not a linguistic relativist. That Potato is referencing him makes my skin crawl.
What I’m wondering is how in the hell did Black, or whoever, come up with the ‘wall of seperation’ based on the language above?
Jefferson used the “wall of separation” phrase in a letter he wrote in 1802. Many people, especially foreigners like Buttless in a Time of Saddles, do not understand this language is absent from the U.S. Constitution. Likewise, they do not understand the Establishment Clause came about primarily because England required everyone, whatever their religion, to pay TAXES to support the State-ESTABLISHED religion—the Anglican church. That arrangement would not have gone over well in a nation formed in part by legions of Protestant dissenters, not to mention Deists and Atheists.
but ed, that was rare.
the Aztecs often engaged in warfare for the sole purpose of acquiring sacrifice captives. they kept no livestock, and there is consistant evidence that parts of the sacrifices were to used as a supplimentary source of dietary protein.
Quote: If you print “In God We Trustâ€Â, you’re pushing a religious position – one which states that there *is* a single supreme deity. About the same proportions of Americans disagree with that as are black – and I seem to recall that pushing a white supremicist line is a no-no in American governance.
We should view acknowledgement of a creator on our currency as equivalent to promoting racial superiority?
Explain to the proportion of Americans who agree with the propositon that there is a creator and that it’s proper to acknowledge this on our currency, that to be in this segment of the population is to be acting on the same principle that says all men are not created equal.
Haven’t spent much time around Baptists, have you?
6Gun, the big differentce between our form of Gov’t and a Theocracy is that you are free to argue about whatever you want without people shunning you for offending their god. Try to go to a Theocracy like Iran and argue something – anything – against their strict religious morals and they’ll put you down as against their god. You are the one obfuscating the issue. If you don’t like something here, work to change it – but try that in a Theocracy and you’ll find yourself in jail or worse because you’ve offended Their God.
How does a non-citizen get off lecturing us about our constitution and laws?
That question was rhetorical, btw. I don’t think anybody wants to know the graphic details.
From this, I conclude that the United States of America is not a Theocracy.
Next!
Well, no one’s perfect, Jeff!
Who said is was a Theocracy?
Haven’t spent much time around Baptists, have you?
Amen to that, brother. Ain’t it funny how the people who seem to have the firmest, and loudest, opinions about religious believers, and Christians specifically, don’t seem to actually know much about them?
But, but, but, us Red staters is too iggerant to be trusted with guvmint work, didncha know?
Only the suave and nuanced poltroons like Phoney are qualified to run a world government. If you don’t believe me, just ask the cretin.
Sorry, I guess you’re just afraid that religious fanatics will turn the USA into a Theocracy. Nehemiah Scudder hasn’t arrived as yet, eh?
Let’s review some sloppy reading comprehension:
I say:
Allah says:
And Jeff says:
To repeat, I wrote:
For emphasis:
There is a clear distinction between expression being tolerated (even encouraged) among private citizens and entities, and being actually propelled via the state. I didn’t say “state established religion,” as Jeff mentions, I said advanced “via the state.” It is very hard to argue that an explicit reference to God by a state organ in a pledge or oath does not serve as the state advancing the concept of religion, and I point this out as a truth, no matter what your opinion on that advancement’s legitimacy or Constitutionality.
Yes, yes, I’m aware of the “but, BUT – they meant establishment of state religion with taxes and books and special uniforms and rituals to wash your junk 5 times per day,” but Allah and Jeff’s apparent no-duh treatment of “the state” as just another equal and non-distinct prong of expression in this super wacky free tolerant melting pot of ideas is a rather – let’s say “odd” or “convenient” – classification.
There are special distinctions and limits placed on entities of the state all the time, in areas like discrimination, hiring policies and the very nature of the state’s communications.
The state is not a touchy-feely little individual patch in the GREAT AMERICAN QUILT OF FREE EXPRESSION, another lone sweet voice trying to find itself through unfettered discovery of its inner song, it is an apparatus for governing us, representing us while protecting our rights and keeping us from killing each other.
So Jeff and Allah’s equation of “free private expression” with “expression by the state” as concepts so one and the same that they don’t even merit acknowledgment (though Jeff does mention that his standard is establishment of religion) as an obvious distinction in my comment, strike me as an error or cognitive dissonance. Flame away, Goldstein.
BTW, I hear the State of New Jersey wrote a political protest poem the other day. It was about the Jews and 9-11. Very edgy. I think that State has a real future in poetry, if it would just apply itself like that California.
I can’t speak for others, but I was raised in a southern private Church of Christ school. And frankly, I can’t see how anyone can take the Bible very seriously.
The book of Job is a prime example. Here is the story: The devil comes to God and convinces Him to let Satan basically torture Job and his family – including killing his family members. I thought that God and Satan were enemies – apparently not since God has this huge ego that was used to manipulate God – “Three shillings that I can make Job pissed at you God!†God says, “You’re on.†So this world is some kind of cosmic, maniacal bet between God and Satan? Anyway, Satan tortures Job, Job never curses God or looses faith, then at the end of the story, Job has a new family that’s even bigger than before. Yeah, as if his family was replaceable like a wardrobe or something and all is well. WTF?
JeffS, there is a difference between potential and actual. I am worried that the U.S will become a Theocracy. Nowhere did I claim that it <is> a Theocracy. See the difference?
Tillman,
Harding? I matriculated there on the five-year plan.
Lisa, yep, unfortunatly. How’d you know?
It’s a gift.
Yup. As I noted when I said:
But thanks for the confirmation. It’s just that I have a hard time sorting the wheat from the chaff due to your screeching. Also, I don’t think there’s much of a chance that the USA will become a Theocracy….even if you immigrate to Antarctica the day after tomorrow. It just isn’t in the books, fella. Take some Ritalin, and go outside for a while. The fresh air will do wonders for you.
JeffS, is that the best you can do? Go learn something besides how to insult people – you’re already good at that and it isn’t something you can put on a resume.
Lisa, what is your take on Job? Do I have the story right or not?
David Ross,
Why no comments section on your blog?
(House of David—http://pages.sbcglobal.net/zimriel/blog/zimblog.html)
Why no criticism of your post below?
<blockquote>The Ten Commandments weren’t the foundation of Western codes of law. If anything, the pre-existence and primacy of these codes led to acceptance of the Ten Commandments, not the other way around. So why is it so popular to paste them around courthouses of states, none of which states sport an established religion?
It seems obvious to me. The yokels choose the Ten Commandments over the other law code soundbytes just to assert that, by contrast with those pagansecularhumanistwickeddecadentungodlyimmoral Greeks and Romans, we Americans are based on the Bible (halleluia!).
A Ten Commandments display is just a pointer to what lies around it: the Hebrew Torah. It tells us heathens two things. First, that this is a Christian nation which refuses to acknowledge any other forebears other than the Jews (who are just getting used here anyway, and most Jews know this). Second, that the best law is theocratic: delivered from on high to the chosen prophet, and telling us that we wretches are here to serve God first, and to protect our fellow man second except where this conflicts with the first four Divine Commandments.
Of course a Ten Commandments display in a secular courthouse represents an establishment of religion. It belongs there just as much as all those Qur’anic verses about killing unbelievers belong there. Which is to say, not at all, and it is a wicked confidence trick to pretend it does.
posted by Zimri on 19:54
are they going to provide room for my belief system in their courthouse? it’s quite extensive.
Right Gary, the divine command, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” is in the Bible more than once. So is it moral or not to kill witches? If so, we should still be burning people to death after we label them “witches.†If not, why is it in the Bible? Maybe it was in the Old Testament, but morals should be timeless (it is as wrong to steal today as it was 3,000 years ago, right?).
”Do I have the story right or not?”
Not.
With due respect, I suggest that you read the Talmud and the Midrash on Job.
TW: “usually”. It’s usually a bad idea to assert that you’re raising a question that no one has considered in 3,000 years.
Tillman: Yeah, sorta.
I don’t think Satan “manipulated” God—how can you manipulate the All-Knowing?—rather God allowed Satan to harm Job to prove that faith isn’t based on material things. Remember, Satan said Job only trusted God because he had been blessed by God and if God took all that way, Job would curse him. So God said, “Yeah, whatever, dude, do what you want short of killing him. I know my guy.”
And God was right.
OK then Braue, are you saying I read the wrong version of the Bible or what? What is the story then? Have you actually sat down and read Job? I didn’t ask you, but that’s OK. But Lisa says that she has credentials, what credentials do you have?
I’m a Kantian Agnostic. I didn’t say “under God” during the Pledge in school, the teachers knew it, and nobody bothered me about it. I do not have a problem, personally, with a courtroom display of the 10 Commandments in the context of other major historical documents about law.
(TW) Really, I think the ACLU is just embarrassing itself here. And, of course, Phoenician is a self-satire who doesn’t realize it yet.
Well, Lisa I say that God was manipulated by Satan since He apparently would not have let Job suffer that way unless Satan taunted Him in the first place. It’s really childish if you think about it.
God’s gigantic ego is one of the reasons I had to give up believing that the Bible is divinely inspired. A being with that issue is not omni benevolent (all good).
Also Lisa, what does God have to prove to Satan? I have an issue with that too.
One more thing Lisa, other people (i.e., Job’s family) were not just “material things.”
I’m not going to hijack Jeff’s comment section in a discussion of what God can or cannot do, since obviously nothing I say is going to change your mind, so you’re just going to have to play that game by yourself.
Or play with yourself. Whatever. It’s your choice.
Well Lisa, I guess we’ll have to leave this discussion accusing each other of mental masturbation then.
Thank God!
Ooops…
I lived for a while in a small Georgia town where a framed 8.5×11 printing of the Ten Commandments was hung in the hallway of the Courthouse. No one I talked to had ever noticed it until the shit hit the fan, then everyone knew about it. After years of litigation nothing has been resolved; the Bible-thumpers are pissed, the Bible-thumper-thumpers are pissed, and hundreds of thousands of wasted dollars have made the lawyers and ACLU very happy.
The “wrong” version of the Tanakh, Tillman? Well, possibly; the translation is never entirely accurate, y’know. However, as I suggested, you might want to read more, not just differently.
As with Lisa, I’m reluctant to take up Jeff’s space with things that are not novellae, although I shall do a brief write-up on the subject and post it elsewhere. However, you may wish to persue Genesis Rabbah on the subject of Job’s misfortune being coincident with the Exodus, and why.
BTW, I am a talmid chacham, albeit only a mediocre one. May I in turn inquire into your authority?
TW: “truth”. And the truth shall set you free…but only if you know what it is.
OK, I think I’m getting my, you should excuse the expression, pious lefty outrage points mixed up here.
Does this mean it’s legal for the NSA to secretly monitor our prayers or what?
My problem with the whole debate is that given the influence of religion on culture, there is a huge grey area between the two. Individual traditions that fall in this area may be judged by different observers to fall in different categories. All legislative and judicial actions do is move the gray between the two area back and forth; they do not shrink the size of the area.
Do government symbols that use Greco-Roman deities count as religious or secular cultural expression? A case could be made for either, as the pantheons have faded into the general cultural background of society. Likewise Valentine’s Day and Mardi Gras have distinctly religious origins, yet one would be hard pressed to claim the modern observations of either count as religious observations.
We then have two options. First amounts to ‘majority rules’. Decide via community standards on each individual case. This has the problem that most of the American population is christian or at least comes from christian roots, so christianity may end up being favored, and that the atheists and non-christians would occasionally have to deal with decisions they disagree with.
The other option is what we have now: if something offends you, sue the life out of it. This leads to the Intelligent Design nonsense debate we have now. We have made it acceptable to whine and complain if anything in the public domain offends you in any way, and any victim group would have to be stupid not to use this method to get what it wants. Don’t like annoying christians? Sue the school for singing a secular Christmas song in winter! Uppity atheists on your nerves? Sue to overturn evolution!
TW: easy. Nah, that’s too eas… D’oh!
Braue, I didn’t set myself up as an authority on religion, and to be fair, you didn’t either. But I just went to a religious school for 12 years (which included a Bible course and a sermon daily). I also have read a lot of philosophy.
There are a lot of other troubling aspects of the Bible that I won’t go into though. I was just scratching the surface. We humans apparently need our myths.
Tillman, when you get a thicker skin, and stop complaining about something that is part of our friggin’ history, I’ll stop snarking. God (sorry, that just slipped out), do you realize that you and the rest of the atheists sound like the John Birch Society? And without the threat of Communists taking over the country, at that.
I respect your desire not to believe in God, or whatever. I just want you to stop telling me (and other people) how to treat you right. Phoney claims here that you’re an enslaved minority. I doubt that you agree fully with that assessment, but that’s the path of lunacy that you are heading down, whether you know it or not.
Ultimately, I don’t see your beliefs as an entitlement. I see them as beliefs, period. But you (and other, like Bill) treat them as an entitlement.
I think civilis
sums it up nicely. I elected for the first option, myself. If you want the second option, expect to get snarked for being a self-centered fool.
And the “self-centered fool”? That’s my opinion, not an insult.
Indecent Bill gets this right.
IMO, i don’t see a single religion becoming exclusive in the US. The choices are too various, and we are too used to free speech and having our won way.
What i do worry about in the context of Bill’s comment is the influence of religion on science in this country. It is obvious to me that the Bush administration has declared a sort of war on science, where religious ideology influences decisions like funding for ESCR research. Consider the insanely silly schiavo episode, where everyone became an instant neurologist after viewing 30 seconds of intensely editted video, prepared to argue with doctors and neurologists with years of specialized training. Congress had a weekend session to execute a no-op in terri’s law. Insanity.
Another example is Bush proposing ID be taught alongside evolution in high schools.
I am sure that that freedom of religion is well protected in this country.
I am not so sure about the freedom of science.
Thank you for your share!Many countries are linked to religious and political power, these are the so-called caliphate, like this country, with a little bit, there are shortcomings, I feel bad