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To: Gargantua
Since our country was Founded as a Biblical Christian nation by God-fearing men, who went so far as to say that our public schools should teach, among other things, Scripture

You may not know a lot about what the Bible means, but you really miss the boat on our founding fathers intention in the first Amendment. You may be interested in locating the letter written by Thomas Jefferson while he was president to the Danbury Baptist Association on Jan. 1, 1802, expressing the intent of the first Amendment. Unlike yourself, Jefferson was in attendence at the 1887 Constitutional Convention. Among other things, the letter expressed clarification of the first Amendment: "I contemplate with sovereign reverance that act of the whole American people which declared their legislature should 'make no law regarding an establishment of religeon, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof', thus building a wall of separation between Church & State"
Subsequently Hugh Black stated "The first Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable."
This was done to prevent anyone force feeding their religeon down the throats of our children for one thing, no matter which one and only true god inspired your religeon.
110 posted on 03/12/2002 5:27:27 PM PST by ThinkLikeWaterAndReeds
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To: ThinkLikeWaterAndReeds
In many schools of Vedanta, Buddhism and Sufism, beyond extinction of the finite mind (Vedic nirodhah, Buddhist nirvana, Sufi fana) lies the state of Perfection (jivanmukta or liberated while living in the body, tathagata or gone to Suchness, baqa or abiding). In this model, the "holy sparks" are the saints (Vedic Satpurusha, Buddhist Bodhisattva, Sufi Pir) who see God always and everywhere, but who have not yet realized Union (Vedic Aham brahmasmi or "I am Reality", Buddhist Prajnaparimita or the Wisdom that reaches the other shore and proclaims the identity of Nirvana and Samsara as absolute Oneness, and Sufi anal Haqq or "I am Truth").

Where we would part company is in the one fact, and a very important fact, is that we believe that man cannot find God. God comes to find His own, and that is all summed up in the life and death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that my friend is all the bible is about be it OT or NT, no big mystery and no need to sit on a lotus and eat ambrosia to figure it out.

111 posted on 03/12/2002 5:35:20 PM PST by la$tminutepardon
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To: ThinkLikeWaterAndReeds
realized Union (Vedic Aham brahmasmi)

see? concept

119 posted on 03/12/2002 7:58:28 PM PST by la$tminutepardon
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