Replies

>Your Venn diagram while being a nice argument is not what you posted and more to the point not what the right argues.

I maintain that it IS what I posted, furthermore who cares what 'the right' argues!? I'm arguing for me, that's what the Freedom of Speech is about!

>I agree with it in theory however your original statement implied nothing of the sort and more to the point strict constructionists never use such an argument.

Granted, I didn't use a sarcasm tag. But what do you mean by "constructionist"? And who said I'm a strict one?

>Its either its in the Constitution or its not.

That would be trivially true, logically. T v F = T, Always.

>Your "Separation of Church and State" fad comment is the most insane thing yet.

Is it? I was saying that the Government was quite possibly overstepping its bounds, into that of the Church's domain... or does "Separation of Church and State" only apply to the Church when it tries to influence a political view?

If you say yes to that then you are basically advocating a position where the Church is relegated to the back spot of a person's life, and this is completely at odds with the [common sense] viewpoint that [most] people are, in fact, holistic beings. (That is to say they are not totally different people depending on the situation, that is it is still the same person.)

Any time you would say that religion should not have a place in politics then you are effectively saying that morals (because we typically learn them in church) do not either. I do not want a leader in office who, thinking that a certain law is morally repugnant, still passes it into law.

> Go read Jeffersons writings..he wrote that statement twice. Next your going to try to argue he, Washington, Franklin, Paine, Madison, etc were Christains. I've got news for you, THEY WERE DEISTS

First, Washington was definitely NOT a deiest, a deist would not write the praise of answered prayers. Second, Jefferson was a deiest... until he decided that he had been mistaken and changed his viewpoint later-on in his life.

>You never did address my point about if the government should build telecommunication networks for high-speed internet (they build highways, so why not information highways, how about fiber optic to every town along the interstate and internet nearly free for all).

Because it seems a trap either way, as does the hypothetical you present below. But, let me say in my own opinion, that the Government is too big. I think it should be much, much smaller.

The reason this smells the trap is because if I say government shouldn't, then you would say I am against Free Speech; if I say that it should, then you will say that I am agreeing with you that the Government should do things not outlined in the constitution. Also your lumping it together with your next hypothetical statement with an OR could mean that you would see an anti-education slant to a negative response.

However, despite all this, I will give you an answer. In the beginning of the transit system, that is interstates and such, Congress used military funds to develop the infrastructure. (And they may have used the Army Corp. of Engineers too, I don't recall.) They justified the construction with the reason that it would make the deployment of troops anywhere in the country easier and more efficient. They were right in their assumption.

Now, the Internet had a similar beginning, as ARAPNET (spelling may be off), which was to be used for 'uninterpretable communication to missile controllers' I believe is the actual phrase, if not then it is the intent.

I am perfectly happy with the way Internet came to be, that is the original infrastructure was expanded via private/capitalistic means.

> or if passing a law banning learning would be unconstitutional in your mind.

There's already the NEA. Or are you going to tell me that they're really educating the general populous [effectively] when a high-school diploma isn't worth the paper it's printed on?

It's my opinion that a person with a HS diploma should be able to get a decent paying job with chances for advancement; I regard the failure of such state to be that of the public education system.

[sarc] Besides, with our stellar success with "The War on Drugs" we could use a "War on Education". [/sarc]

>I expect you would go right along with a law requiring a license to learn to read English so people could never understand Lockes ideas that influenced Jefferson and Madison.

How in the name of Jesus Christ did you reach that conclusion? Or are you just trying to provoke me?

> As long as people can hear the word of God get saved and die nothing else matters does it?

Here you are completely warping Christian thought into something that it is not. If I were to say "yes" then you would retort about my lack of empathy, it "No" then you would retort that my faith is meaningless.

However, again, I will try to answer you to the best of my ability. "God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9b)" This sets the general tone for the overall answer, that God doesn't want anyone to perish, Right? Wrong.

In James two good works quotes stand out: "Show me your faith without works, and I by my works will show you my faith." and "Faith without works is dead".

That means that, *gasp*, other things DO matter.

As Paul said about freedom: "All things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient", basically saying that while he was legally free to do anything it may not be in the best interest of his ministry to do so. It's the exact same statement as "Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should."

A like mentality can be applied to "soul saving", and that is 'being nice to someone and being good to someone, may be entirely different things.' It may not be 'nice' to let someone make a painful mistake that you once, but sometimes you need to in order to do them good.

Having said that, Christ Himself thanks those who clothe the naked, who feed the poor, who visit the prisoner as if they truly were good deeds done to Himself.

So, it is therefore intuitively obvious that I SHOULD do good works and also that God wants to save people. (And the two are NOT mutually exclusive, like you seem to think... just remember Mother Teresa.)

>Who cares if they are slaves along the way because the bible allowed it therefore the United States Consitution violates a God given right.

Is being a slave mutually exclusive to your Rights? Or is it merely that you don't have the same freedoms as the Freeman would? You forget that Paul wrote to the Slaves telling them that they were free in Christ, and that the Freemen were Slaves in Christ... that there should be equity in the church. James also states that a Christian should not be 'a respector of persons'.

Perhaps there is no God given right to be a Freeman. However, there _IS_ a constitutional one, so the point is moot.

> Or what about multiple wives? Last I checked David, Solomon, Gideon, Jacob, Job etc all had more than one woman.

Jesus said that marriage was supposed to follow the model that God laid out in Eden, that is the one-man/one-woman marriage. Obviously, if the Son of God says that is the way it SHOULD be, then it is so. The other multiple-wives thing would be therefore not 'what God had in mind'. However it was legal, again you are trying to merge a dichotomy into a single entity. And just because people go against God's plan, doesn't mean that He can't use them... In fact, it's because we didn't follow His plan that He came in the form of Jesus of Nazareth to die so that we could BE part of His plan (instead of just following it).