Posted on 09/06/2001 8:11:05 AM PDT by ClancyJ
Maybe so, but I see it as more a sign of the degradated moral state that our nation is in when good people must seek to "protect" the very standard that our nation was founded upon but one that has been utterly ignored by the so-called "freedom loving" sort whose definition of "freedom" is the excuse to live in opposition to that standard.
Such "freedom" only leads to a bondage far worse than any a government can lay on its people.
The statement "I believe that only air is under my bed" is about your bed, not about monsters. When you tell us that there is only air or empty bottles or dirty socks under your bed we get some 'positive' information. When you say that there are no monsters, no empty bottles or no dirty socks under the bed we get close to zero information. See the difference?
Saying that I am an atheist tells you nothing about me. I could be a serial killer or a doctor who found a cure for cancer.
You have removed part of the statement. The original read “The statement is equivalent with regards to the presence of a monster..
Not equal but equivalent with regards to the presence of a monster..
I emailed all our friends that use a computer and family yesterday and gave them the petition to sign and fill out their addresses etc.
OH dear ClancyJ, This is SOOOOOOOOOOooooo Important for America. OUr forefathers intended it to be IN God we Trust and NEVER leave God out. To do so would be turning this nations back on God for sure.
Thanks so much my friend.
It has been done for 200 years - who are you to say it is not right? The framers had no problems with religion. You are wanting to take away the rights of people and superimpose your will over them.
I do not wish it to be taken away from you. Place it in your home, on your business, wherever you want. But keep it off govt property, because you do not have the right to make others pay to spread your message.
You are telling me where I can place the Ten Commandments - you don't have that right. Again, you wish to come in and tear down the Ten Commandments although this has gone on since our country began. You do not have the right to put your will over the free will of others either. Also who do you think pays for all that nonsense in enacting laws, putting out lawsuits to get it changed. I should not have to pay for you to take away what has been in this country for 200 years.
Posting the 10 Commandment on public property constitutes a govt endorsement of one religion to the exclusion of others. This is not within your rights. Never was.
No, it does not. Taking the Ten Commandments out - is putting your personal viewpoint over those that disagree. You are making other people jump to your decision of what they can or cannot have in a court building. There is no influence having the Ten Commandments posted - you have never been influenced or you would not be sprouting what you are sprouting. This is just to push religion out of the country and to demand that others give up something so that you are comfortable. Such a crass stance.
It tells me a great deal about you.
For instance we can never have the same worldview.
You are judged by God as a fool.”A fool says in his heart “there is no god”: they are corrupt and their ways are vile, there is no one that does good.
PS 150:3
Even the “good” you profess to do is not good in God’s eyes and therefore is not truly good.
I know that your knowledge of the world is wrong: “The beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord…” Proverbs 1.
Who you are is largely determined by what you believe.
A 200-year-old unconstitutionality is still an unconstitutionality.
who are you to say it is not right?
One who has read the First Amendment.
The framers had no problems with religion.
No they did not. They just did not want it done with govt's imprimateur.
You are wanting to take away the rights of people and superimpose your will over them.
You do not have a right to post religious doctrines on public property.
You are telling me where I can place the Ten Commandments - you don't have that right.
No, I am telling you where the First Amendment says you cannot place them - on public property.
Again, you wish to come in and tear down the Ten Commandments although this has gone on since our country began.
Longevity does not equate with constitutionality.
You do not have the right to put your will over the free will of others either. Also who do you think pays for all that nonsense in enacting laws, putting out lawsuits to get it changed. I should not have to pay for you to take away what has been in this country for 200 years.
Now you are just repeating the same illogical mantra.
No, it does not. Taking the Ten Commandments out - is putting your personal viewpoint over those that disagree.
The Supreme Court and the Constitution say otherwise.
You are making other people jump to your decision of what they can or cannot have in a court building. There is no influence having the Ten Commandments posted - you have never been influenced or you would not be sprouting what you are sprouting. This is just to push religion out of the country and to demand that others give up something so that you are comfortable. Such a crass stance.
Boo effing hoo. You can't have your way and have the govt endorse your religion. Waaah. The Founders established this Republic just to avoid what you wish to impose.
You clearly have no faith that your message can stand on its own. Fellow Christians have come to this thread and said they agree yours is a silly and unconstitutional proposal. But none are so blind as they who will not see.
It tells me a great deal about you. For instance we can never have the same worldview. You are judged by God as a fool
If you think this is a constructive way to continue our discussion you are wrong. Have a nice day.
Chaplainships of both Congress and the armed services were established sixteen years before the First Amendment was adopted.It would have been fatuous folly for anybody to stir a major controversy over a minor matter before the meaning of the amendment had been threshed out in weightier matters.
But James Madison did foresee the danger that minor deviations from the constitutional path would deepen into dangerous precedents. He took care of one of them by his veto [in 1811] of the appropriation for a Baptist church.
Others he dealt with in his "Essay on Monopolies," unpublished until 1946. Here is what he wrote:
"Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom? In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them, and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does this not involve the principle of a national establishment ... ?"
The appointments, he said, were also a palpable violation of equal rights. Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain?
"To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the veil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers, or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor."
The problem, said the author of the First Amendment, was how to prevent "this step beyond the landmarks of power [from having] the effect of a legitimate precedent."
Rather than let that happen, it would "be better to apply to it the legal aphorism de minimis non curat lex [the law takes no account of trifles]."
Or, he said (likewise in Latin), class it with faults that result from carelessness or that human nature could scarcely avoid."
"Better also," he went on, "to disarm in the same way, the precedent of Chaplainships for the army and navy, than erect them into a political authority in matters of religion."
The deviations from constitutional principles went further:
"Religious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings and fasts are shoots from the same root with the legislative acts reviewed. Altho' recommendations only, they imply a religious agency, making no part of the trust delegated to political rulers."
If you think I’m rude imagine how God feels when he is blasphemed by those who worship the creation and deny the creator’s existence while his own bride remains mute. I only passed on his words.
The difference between that and posting, in stone, a religious doctrine in a building 24/7 is the difference between schools letting religious groups meet on campus after hours, versus having teacher-led prayers to Jesus or Vishnu in public school every day.
No, it is not. The "religious doctrine" you refer to is a foundation of law, and has been used as an example of. That is why you will find then in the US Supreme Court building.
Which, at least until they come to sandblast it off in their attempts to erase our heritage out of our collective memory, still exists in D.C. today.
Not really, and the fact that the first four especially aren't codifed in American jurisprudence is testimony otherwise. English common law, which predates the arrival of the Romans by a good 500 years, is greatest source of influence on American law.
However, it is true, and I concede, that the Jewish code of the 10 Commandments has had an influence on the development of legal thinking.
As has the Code of Hamnurabi, the Magna Carta, Greco-Roman law, and other past documents. This is why in the Federalist Papers there was not a single Biblical reference, but many to Hellenistic and Classical legal theories.
That is why you will find then in the US Supreme Court building.
If you want to post the 10 in context with other influences on American law - the above mentioned Code of Hamnurabi, the Magna Carta, etc. then I don't think people would have a problem. So long as it is within that historical context. The context of the posting at the SC is such.
But standing on its own like a directive, it is a govt endorsement of a specific religious creed, which the SC has repeatedly ruled is a constitutional no-no.
Silly me, I've just figured out where S.O. is lifting all the anti-Christain propaganda. I'll not fall for it again!
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