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To: rollo tomasi
I know pro-Palestinian types that try and make the case that the Arab-Israeli conflict is not religious either. Your comments about Northern Ireland mirror theirs, and have about as much merit.

If you're defining a religious conflict narrowly and say that it only covers specific arguments over religious doctrine and practices, perhaps you needed to state that at the beginning. Using your methods of argument, one could say that the Thirty Years War wasn't all about religion either, and had other causes and roots.

I don't see any need to debate the Crimean War with you any longer. You've already admitted several posts back that the roots were religious, or in your words, that's "how it started “bubbling”". Case closed.

But Jefferson had no problem teaching with a Bible.

Jefferson wrote his own version of the Bible that excluded everything supernatural and prophetic, and all passages that dealt with the Holy Trinity and Jesus' divinity. He clearly believed that Jesus' was a real person and had some worthy philosophical and moral teachings that were useful, but he obviously didn't feel that a supernatural belief in a theistic God was necessary to appreciate liberty.

True but how many State Constitutions directly mention God or imply God?

I'm not sure. But I don't think it's a coincidence that the word God isn't anywhere in the Constitution, and that the two most important facets of the document pertaining to religion are 1) the government cannot make any law that establishes religion and 2)that everyone is free to exercise religion without state interference.

How come Christianity was welcomed in the PUBLIC square until some oligarchy perverted Original intent and created some "establishment clause"?

The establishment clause was not 'created' by the courts and is not imaginary. It's very clear and simple.

What religious laws are we lacking that you'd like to get on the books?

Also why did you avoid all those secular societies that decayed from within because of well, secularism.

I've asked you to name them, and you haven't. Tell me which countries and societies you are talking about. How can I avoid something that doesn't exist?

53 posted on 03/22/2009 3:00:43 PM PDT by GunRunner
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To: GunRunner
I'm not sure. But I don't think it's a coincidence that the word God isn't anywhere in the Constitution, and that the two most important facets of the document pertaining to religion are 1) the government cannot make any law that establishes religion and 2)that everyone is free to exercise religion without state interference.

You're not using constitutional language in 1) above, but something that has come about by the "wall of separation" crowd. A more accurate summary of this in the light of the history of the Constitution would be: 1) Congress shall not through legislation favor a particular church or sect over others (because nothing higher than one of the signing states could have an official state church), 2) Nor can Congress through legislation prohibit the free exercise of a particular church or religious sect.

Here is how language was morphed to mean that if any level of government permits any religious activity or symbol it is "establishing religion." The relevant phrase in the First Amendment is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." This specific language was loosened by changing "respecting" to mean "with respect to" and "an establishment of religion (ie, a religious organization)" to mean "the establishing of religion." From there, people said that whatever applied to Congress applied to the entire federal government and whatever applied to the federal government should apply to all state, county, and municipal governments and that the First Amendment wasn't talking about a specific religious establishment but anything of any religious nature whatsoever. This totalitarian approach to government was the exact opposite of what the Founders intended by creating, through the Constitution, a federal government that would operate only according to specific and enumerated powers, leaving everything else up to the individual states as they saw fit, and to the people.
62 posted on 03/28/2009 10:09:33 AM PDT by aruanan
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