Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
But in my view, the exclusion of a competing philosophy indicates close minded fear, rather than the legitimate pursuit of truth.
Pursuit of truth can't happen around a belief system. Or, more appropriately, a bunch of belief systems. Science should be science, based on empirical evidence, ability to question and reason. Not engaging in tribal stories for "truth" doesn't make those who care about science fearful of anything but idiocy taking over.
Incorrect. First Amendment was designed to protect certain rights of EVERY person, Christian or not. If anything, it was designed to protect rights of non-Christians.
Your public school mis-education is showing again, Einstein. The First Amendment was specifically enacted with the intent of protecting established state churches from the encroachment of a national church. It specifically applies only to acts of the U.S. Congress, leaving the states free to address religious questions according to their own lights. We had legal, established state churches in the United States until Massachusetts disestablished in 1833. Many states required belief in God in order to hold public office until the Supreme Court abolished these requirements in 1961 - 174 years after the First Amendment was ratified!
Look up Everson v Board of Education. The SCOTUS decision applied the Establishment clause to the states.
One of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court, flying directly in the face of the words of the constitution and the intent of the framers. Truly shameful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by carterstamp
In a nutshell, there can be no law establishing a national religion, and there can be no law prohibiting free exercise of religion.
Then please explain how things like voluntary prayer in school, or the freedom of a business not to accommodate immorality, establishes a "national religion".
Your public school mis-education is showing again, Einstein. The First Amendment was specifically enacted with the intent of protecting established state churches from the encroachment of a national church. It specifically applies only to acts of the U.S. Congress, leaving the states free to address religious questions according to their own lights.
I'm glad to not be "educated" the way you've been. With that, I hope, we can leave our personal qualifications aside, and engage in a discussion you wanted to have.
Allow me to first explain how the first amendment was designed to protect non-Christians. Unless you disagree (and let me know if you do), non-Christians would have been a minority back then and Christians running the federal government or at least in high positions. There is no point of such protections for those with an overwhelming majority. The point of such protections is to guarantee freedoms who are potential targets.
Next, your assumptions about bill of rights is about as off as it can be. It wasn't designed to protect states or the governments. It was designed to protect the people. In fact, it was suggested that states adopt these bill of rights in their own constitutions by the person who authored and presented them, and at the time he did:
"I cannot see any reason against obtaining even a double security on those points; and nothing can give a more sincere proof of the attachment of those who opposed this constitution to these great and important rights, than to see them join in obtaining the security I have now proposed; because it must be admitted, on all hands, that the State Governments are as liable to attack the invaluable privileges as the General Government is, and therefore ought to be as cautiously guarded against."
- James Madison (The Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, First Congress, First Session, 1789)
Evolution does not explain where life began. It never has. It is the basis in explaining everything we know about biology. Just as Newton's or Einstein's laws of physics do not explain the beginning of the universe. However trying to get a Mars rover to land properly without use of physics equations these geniuses gave us is impossible regardless of if we know the true origins of the Universe (which would of course involve physics). Cutting of evolution is similar to saying we shouldn't teach Newton Free body diagrams or Einsteins theory of relativity because they both show would prove that the world isn't the center of the universe. Good luck creating engineers who don't study proper science. I am sure that Europe and Asia will be far ahead of us soon.
This is pure double talk and the most common response from "evolutionists" when confronted with hard facts. Nevertheless, if what you say here was actually true, then there would be no incompatibility and no basis for the fight between evolution and creation, but of course, we both know better than that, don't we?
Fact is, even the bloody Catholic Church has come forward and said that they see no incompatibility between Christianity and evolution .... but don't expect that type of magnanimity from the Richard Dawkins types in the world of evolutionist thinking.
It's a clever "slight of hand" approach by evolutionists to deride intelligent design/creationism through arguments of evidence of evolution, only to backtrack as you just did by denying a link between the existence of life and the "theory of evolution". The fact is, evolution and the "theory of evolution" are two separate matters, with the latter claiming "speciation", which is the evolutionary creation of one species from another entirely separate species, and the basic premise that all species originated from one primordial source, such as a single cell organism which evolved into all other forms of life that we see in nature. That you might concede that you have no answer for the existence of that first primordial form of life which gave birth to all the rest, while also insisting that it couldn't have been "created" or "intelligently designed" is the great fraud being promoted, as you expect everyone to just skip over that part, and ignore this "minor detail".
No can do, my friend, no can do. That is in fact the entire argument in a nutshell.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SPSGuy
In regards of what government is suppose to entitle. I think that basic infrastructure, policing, fire, and education is pretty much the case in all civilizations dating back to the Ancient Greeks. Some third world countries excluded.
Not even close. And I tell you this ... with regard to the most common usage of the term "government", we're speaking of the "federal government", or central government. And the federal government not only should not, but actually cannot provide you much fire fighting assistance compared to the firehouse 6 miles from your home in podunk Idaho.
That is pretty much true across the board, including education. Bureaucrats in Washington DC are ill equipped to involve themselves in the local delivery of education, and for the majority of our history as a country, had no involvement whatsoever, yet I would contend that we have progressively grown dumber in direct proportion to the increases in federal interference over the past several decades.
One of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court, flying directly in the face of the words of the constitution and the intent of the framers. Truly shameful.
Then please explain how things like voluntary prayer in school, or the freedom of a business not to accommodate immorality, establishes a "national religion".
Voluntary prayer in school has always been upheld. People can pray in school.
And businesses can refuse to "accommodate immorality", but the fact of the matter is that they didn't "refuse to accommodate immorality", they engaged in discrimination. Did they ask to see a marriage certificate from every couple that stayed there? Did they refuse to rent a room to adulterers? They accommodated immorality all the time. And they even stated that they rent rooms to gay couples. They drew a line at wedding receptions, and what they did happened to be against the law. Frankly, their employee should have been more discreet, and not told the couple they were being discriminated against.
The Vermont innkeepers weren't forced to stop providing wedding reception services. They chose to stop providing wedding reception services. Because the law in Vermont doesn't allow them to discriminate about whom they provide wedding reception service to. There is no tenet of Christian faith that says thou shalt not hold a wedding reception for two women. None.
In Catholic moral theology, it is a sin to willingly cooperate with the sin of another. If someone wants to use my inn for the purpose of, say, committing suicide, and I say "sure, but only if I don't have to pull the trigger", then I still share moral culpability for the sin of suicide. For a Catholic innkeeper, to knowingly cooperate with the sin of homosexuality, especially in something as public as a "wedding" reception, is not only sinful but also scandalous.
Vermont gave them a choice: compromise your religious beliefs, or close. You say they weren't "forced", but that's just semantics considering that they had no other moral options.
Then please explain how things like voluntary prayer in school, or the freedom of a business not to accommodate immorality, establishes a "national religion".
Define voluntary prayer, whose cost, time and involvement?
In Catholic moral theology, it is a sin to willingly cooperate with the sin of another. If someone wants to use my inn for the purpose of, say, committing suicide, and I say "sure, but only if I don't have to pull the trigger", then I still share moral culpability for the sin of suicide. For a Catholic innkeeper, to knowingly cooperate with the sin of homosexuality, especially in something as public as a "wedding" reception, is not only sinful but also scandalous.
Vermont gave them a choice: compromise your religious beliefs, or close. You say they weren't "forced", but that's just semantics considering that they had no other moral options.
Then when were they asking their guests to prove they were married and so, could, without sin, sleep together in the inn's rooms?
For a Catholic innkeeper to allow adulterers to use their rooms for sinful purposes must also be scandalous.
Only, not only were they doing so, but they were also renting rooms to homosexual couples. They didn't have a problem with same-sex copulation, only with same-sex wedding receptions?
That's not morally consistent. They were willing to compromise their religious beliefs, that wasn't their problem. Their problem was they couldn't justify where they decided to not compromise their religious beliefs. If they had an issue with homosexuals, they should have refused to rent rooms to homosexuals. But they did rent rooms to homosexuals. They just didn't rent reception areas to homosexuals. So, their religious defense doesn't make sense.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
