Posted on 12/11/2002 6:28:08 AM PST by A2J
No, tpaine, we do not agree on the meaning of the establishment clause. It isn't about what "religious establishments," such as churches and so forth, may or may not do.
'An establishment of religion' as the word was used in the 1st, meant any precept, dogma, teaching, etc, of religions in general. The USSC has so found, for good reason. Separtion of church & state is that reason.
What the plain language means (or meant to the Framers) was that the government is prohibited from establishing an official state church: The government is barred from "picking a religious sect" and making it the national religion, nor may it favor one creed, confession, or sect over any other. But even if we were to agree on the meaning you have in mind, that establishment indeed directly and unequivocally refers to churches, religious sects, religious schools, etc., the language says:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."
So on that basis, we would have to take this to mean -- using your interpretation of "establishment" -- that Congress is forbidden to make any law with respect to churches and religious sects, etc.
Yep, & all levels of government must also abide by the clear intent to keep church & state separate.
Parse the language for yourself, tpaine. It is so clear I don't know how it got so muddied up in the public understanding as it has in recent times. I guess we have the ACLU to thank for that. -- And religious fundamentalists, -- who refuse to accept that government cannot be used to force publishers to alter public schoolbooks to reflect their views?
tpaine! I had a Eureka! moment just driving to the post office: I finally realized (DUH!) the source of the difficulty you and I are having with this text. It's that "respecting" word.
I gather you interpret it to mean "an act of conferring respect." But in the context, all "respecting" means is "with regard to."
Arguably, it does not and cannot have the meaning you attribute to it. For the founders of this nation -- the people, acting through the Framers -- were overwhelmingly a religious people (back then anyway). It is inconceivable that they would have ratified language that would have authorized the government to "disrespect" its own people.
Try parsing the text with the "in regard to" meaning in place and see what you get.
Thank you, Physicist -- I'll go check them out. I've been meaning to get back with you before this; but this wild thread that started with a CREVO dispute, then mutated into a digression on QM, has undergone yet another mutation: A controversy over the meaning of the First Amendment. I got waylaid. :^)
Can you tell me why this thread got relegated to the "Smok'y Backroom"?
Albert Einstein, troubled by some implications of quantum science, believed that any rational description of nature is incomplete unless it is both a local and realistic theory: "realism" refers to the idea that a particle has properties that exist even before they are measured, and "locality" means that measuring one particle cannot affect the properties of another, physically separated particle faster than the speed of light. But quantum mechanics states that realism, locality--or both--must be violated.
Previous experiments have provided highly convincing evidence against local realism, but these "Bell's inequalities" tests require the measurement of many pairs of entangled photons to build up a body of statistical evidence against the idea. In contrast, studying a single set of properties in the GHZ particles (not yet reported) could verify the predictions of quantum mechanics while contradicting those of local realism. (Bouwmeester et al., Physical Review Letters, 15 Feb.)
Nothing just or wonderful about what is being done to the truths and freedom in the Constution. The method used is judiciary decree (govt. of the people huh?) How do you explain the plethora of Anti-Christian laws across this land? Banning of bible groups meeting at private homes (yes!), forcing courts to take down 10 commandments (what about Supreme court), taking "under God" out of pledge of allegiance, telling kids they can't mention name of "Jesus" in school and can't bring mention his name in valedictorial address, and on and on and on. (what happened to freedom of speech, hmm?). Preachers lose tax exempt status (thanks to LBJ!) if they say anything about political candidates! In the Revolution, preachers would rail against the Crown, then step down, take of their robe and grap their rifles! This is nothing less than an assualt on Christians by cultural marxists (love that term!).
But the idea of pure religious freedom, logically, means that the state cannot touch it and cannot be touched by it. Much of the Constitution has evolved, and although some of it has become skewed by liberals, this is not one of the issues.
Hogwash - they are slowly abolishing Christianity in America and one day the state-sanctioned persecution of Christians will commence. It is headed that direction. Judges are making laws! See anything wrong with that? Yes, the Constitution has evolved - does truth change? As I said (you left it out of your post), if truth is relative, then the Constitution is a worthless piece of crap that holds no weight, and might makes right in that case! The entire constitution is under assault - 1st, 2nd, 4th, 10th amendmends especially.
Much like the freedoms designated by the Constitution directly or by omission did not apply to anybody but white males. I imagine that betty boop and Alamo Girl are pretty happy about the evolution of Constitutional rights there. Slavery was precedent as well. Nobody can argue that the breaking of that precedent was in spirit with the Constitution, not an opposition to it...
There were flaws in the Constitution - they were corrected and the changes were in line with the self-evident truth that all men are created equal, and other self-evident rights contained in the Bill of Rights. It was white men who abolished slavery, remember? If they had made slavery an issue in 1787, there could have been no Constitution. And guess what - Christians were the driving force behind that! The founders recognized the problem of slavery and they agonized over it - they knew it was wrong. Today, the basic rights are under assault. Are rights relative or are they self-evident? If they are relative, then they are worthless - I can make up my own and idiots in Washington have no moral authority to tell me what is right and wrong - only God does. They can make things illegal or legal - but legality is not synonymous with moral correctness. Bad men make bad laws. The founders espoused "virtue" as the highest calling. Today, "virtue" is ridiculed and "tolerance" is now the highest value. Tolerance is just political corrnectness run amok.
The idea of evolutionary Constitution has nothing to do with the founders' vision - this is a marxist vision. Does truth change? Yes, according to the culutural marxists. But not in reality it doesn't.
Evolution...Atheism-dehumanism---TYRANNY(pc/liberal/govt-religion/rhetoric)...
Then came the SPLIT SCHIZOPHRENIA/ZOMBIE/BRAVE-NWO1984 LIBERAL NEO-Soviet Darwin/ACLU America---the post-modern age of switch-flip-spin-DEFORMITY-cancer...
Atheist secular materialists through ATHEISM/evolution CHANGED-REMOVED the foundations...demolished the wall(separation of state/religion)--trampled the TRUTH-GOD...
built a satanic temple/SWAMP-MALARIA/RELIGION(cult of darwin-marx-satan) over them---REDACTED and made these absolutes subordinate--relative and calling/CHANGING all the... residuals---technology/science === TO evolution via schlock/sMUCK IDEOLOGY/lies/bias...
to substantiate/justify their efforts--claims...social engineering--PC--atheism...anti-God/Truth RELIGION(USSC monopoly)--
and declared a crusade/WAR--JIHAD--INTOLERANCE/TYRANNY(breaking the establishment clause)...against God--man--society/FREEDOM/LIBERTY/SCIENCE!!
tpaine, I'll take the meaning of the First Amendment from the Framers rather than the USSC any day, any time. The Court got this one wrong: Their interpretation is wildly anhistorical and demonstrates an abject insensitivity to langauge usage that prevailed at the time of the drafting of the Bill of Rights. In short, the meaning the Court gave us is a "Marxian" or "progessivist" reinterpretation of the text. Gramsci would have been proud. IMHO FWIW
I haven't forgotten nonlocality. It's yet another example of material behaving as material behaves.
(You all may be interested in an illustration of Bell's Inequality that I concocted for use on FreeRepublic, but I warn you that my experience in running it past a few people shows that it's not nearly as easily grasped as I had hoped.)
Dakmar...
I took a few minutes to decipher that post, and I must say I agree with a lot of what you said.
fC...
These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...moral/social character-values(private/personal) GROWTH(limited NON-intrusive PC Govt/religion---schools)!
Dakmar...
Where you and I diverge is on the Evolution/Communism thing. You seem to view Darwin and evolution as the beginning of the end for enlighted, moral civilization, while I think Marx, class struggle, and the "dictatorship of the proletariat" are the true dangers.
God bless you, I think we both have a common enemy in the BRAVE-NWO.
452 posted on 9/7/02 8:54 PM Pacific by Dakmar
What Doctor Stochastic just said.
Please listen to yourself think. The essential ingredient in science is testability. Some scientific hypotheses sit in limbo for decades because they cannot be tested with current technology. That is why you see threads devoted to the recent testing of the speed of gravity -- the math and the predictions have been around for three quarters of a century, but could not be tested.
But anything taught as science must be testable in principle.
If ID has any meaning at all, it must propose some discovery that would support it, or it must propose a hypothetical discovery that would discredit it (this has already been done).
Several posters have asserted that certain key phenomena required by evolution have never been observed and never will be. Fine. Quantify that.
You wrote: "I wonder why did the U.S. Congress publish the first American bible if total separation of church and state was their intent? (It was the Aitken bible in 1780s.)"
Thank you so much for this information -- I didn't know that! And thanks so much for writing.
I have a question for the "In God We Trust" people for which no one has yet been able to give an adequate answer: Why is it that the legality of slavery was not in dispute for the first ~70 years of our republic (till 1862)? PRECEDENT supports slavery, but gives no constitutional justification for the war in 1862. So much for precedent!
Yet Darwinism itself rests on a premise that is itself untestable in exactly the same way that ID does. Indeed, one premise is the mirror image of the other. In this sense, both are in the same boat WRT "testability."
If the Baptist church were made the State church, who would suffer? The people! Not the State! The State is a non-entity and cannot suffer. Suffering is done by human beings. That is what I meant. The Constitution forbids a State church, but the reason for that is to protect people, not the government. In England, did the State suffer at the hand of the Church of England? No - but the pilgrims did! The way they have twisted this idea, people now believe that mentioning hte name of Jesus Christ somehow harms the State. Bull. It may offend some people, but that's too bad. There are many things much more offensive than the name of Jesus Christ in our culture to me - like "safe sex" and "gangsta rap." But, there is no right in the Constitution to not be offended!
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