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In this case, your perception of troublesome is trumped by the inspiration the inauguration, in all its manifestations, brought to millions of Americans.
As the troublesome nature of Bush's lawbreaking was trumped by phony issues of national security? The age of convenient coverup and lowly excusification of lawbreaking is over. That is what was inspiring about the inauguration. That cheap version of inspiration that you would apparently prefer is available gratis down at your local revival tent. The government is meanwhile enjoined from providing any such thing.
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Originally Posted by Yeledaf
Well, it happened. The government arranged and conducted the ceremony. Your supposition that Obama was continually surprised about what took place is spurious, at best.
Not at all my supposition. Raised only as an alternative supported by just as much information and evidence as was your own. One indefensible fraud placed beside another.
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Originally Posted by Yeledaf
The proper place for such generic exhortations to goodness and faith, as established by tradition and uninterrupted legal precedence, remains the public space -- at certain clearly defined times and places, including the opening of Senate proceedings and in a permanent frieze in the Supreme Court's own chambers. Mr. Newdow's skill at legal argumentation ( shared by so many classy folks chasing ambulances) notwithstanding, his scornful views of the faith of others qualifies him as little more than a public nuisance. Newdow: slayer of coinage mottos.
You pile digression on top of digression. Apparently, you are willing neither to concede nor discuss the rights violated that formed the basis of Newdow's Pledge suit. Not surprising, since he has both the law and the facts on his side.
As to your new gibberish, Congressional prayer is not legal either, but remains as a tolerated vestige of traditions that began at the nation's founding. The new capital was little more than a dank marsh with a few rutted roads when the First Congress convened. Houses of worship were all but non-existent. Clergy were recruited to meet the spiritual needs of lawmakers then, much as cafeteria staff are recruited now. Sunday services themselves were conducted within the Capitol until well into the 19th century. Today, of course, a temple of almost any faith at all could be found within easy walking distance of any legislator's office. The original justification for the practice has long since disappeared. The practice itself will one day also.
There are three signficant friezes within the Supreme Court chambers. On the east wall, above the Justices, are male figures representing the Majesty of Law and the Power of Government. They are surrounded by characters depicting various aspects of Wisdom and various aspects of Justice. On the north and south walls, there are depictions of noted law-givers from many times and cultures. Those depicted include Menes, Hammurabi, Moses, Solomon, Lycurgus, Solon, Draco, Confucius, Octavian, Justinian, Mohammed, Charlemagne, King John, Louis IX, Hugo Grotius, William Blackstone, John Marshall, and Napoleon.
As an emergency room physician, it was ambulances that chased Newdow, not the other way around. In a laudable example of personal responsibility, he obtained his law credentials for the very purpose of defending his parental rights...the ones that you've refused to recognize. He does not maintain a standard legal practice. He certainly does join with millions upon millions in taking a scornful view of the faith of others when that faith is accompanied by an unconstitutional (and un-Christian) insistence upon officially exalting it to a favored station as the one true faith to be recgonized and admired as above and beyond both all other faiths and no faith at all. Like Jesus of Nazareth long ago, Newdow takes a rather dim view of religious hypocrites.
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Originally Posted by Yeledaf
The supreme court's decision to circumvent the initiative process and subsume state legislatures is precisely at the hear of the current climate of divisiveness and bitterness which surrounds this issue.
No, the climate of bitterness and division is created by religious zealots alone. The Supreme Court was asked, as it has been asked many times before and since, to resolve an issue related to Constitutional rights. It did so. The fundies won't accept that they were wrong. Constitutional rights are meanwhile beyond the reach of legislatures. Such rights do not depend on the whims and vicissitudes of popular passion, but are fixed and protected from them. The founders suspected, you see, that people such as yourself might one day come along.
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Originally Posted by Yeledaf
Arguing that abortion is the sole alternative to "compelling a women to become pregnant", when such a decision is well within her own purview and control, is an absurd canard.
It is also an argument that you invented. Women have the right not to be pregnant. You don't have a right to interfere with that right. Learn your proper place. Learn as well that expectations of abstinence are as futile as futile gets.
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Originally Posted by Yeledaf
In your reference to the Federalists, you neglected an even more fundamental right: that to life. You are your allies have an immense pile of tiny corpses demonstrating your contempt for that one...
Such a nice segue from the Federalists, but God's pile is nearly three times larger. Complain to Him sometime. After that, explain how free-floating fetuses derive any right at all to invade and occupy the bodies of living human beings against their will. Explain how such an unwanted intruder can come in fact to acquire super-rights that trump any and every right of its entirely unwilling host. Your morality is a despicable morality of wanton exploitation, all carried out as an indulgence to personal partis pris. No soup for you.
Originally Posted by djacques
If the United States of America was "founded on God and Biblical principles", surely you can point out one of the many references to God and the Bible in the Constitution (i.e. our founding document), right?
Originally Posted by Greatday
the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness
Would you like to claim that ANY of those words come from the Constitution?
Would you seriously like to defend the proposition that the appearance of those words in the Declaration of Independence was as an endorsement by its authors of the supremacy of Christianity as a religion? Were those words even written with reference to religion?
Last edited by saganista; 01-24-2009 at 01:47 PM..
I am a Christian [Catholic specifically] & feel uncomfortable where there is prayer in public because it is imposing my faith on others. Just think how many people at the inaugural were non-Christian or atheists. They may have been surrounded by Christians who were bowing their heads and praying the Lord's Prayer with the Rick Warren. Also I'm sure there are many Jews [ie Senator Feinstein the Master of Ceremonies is Jewish] in Obama's administration who had to go into the National Cathedral this morning to pray & sing Christian hymns.
I just don't think it is fair & muddies the waters between church & state.
Have you ever read the Bible? Do you know what the "Great Commission" is? Matthew 28:16-20. Perhaps you should read it.
Christians are supposed to share their faith, and "make disciples" according to the "Great Commission".
If you feel "uncomfortable" with that, perhaps you need to do some soul searching to find out if your faith is genuine.
While you're at it, do some research into the real meaning of the so-called "establishment clause". I assure you, you will not find the phrase "separation of church and state" in any of our founding documents, nor did our founders believe in any such concept, at least not in the way it is used today.
Have you ever read the Bible? Do you know what the "Great Commission" is? Matthew 28:16-20. Perhaps you should read it.
Christians are supposed to share their faith, and "make disciples" according to the "Great Commission".
If you feel "uncomfortable" with that, perhaps you need to do some soul searching to find out if your faith is genuine.
Ahh, there you go. Thanks for admitting that your goal is to use the power of the state to proselytize for a specific religion. The great commission my a$$.
are you capable of reading at all? if you go back and READ the posts you will see that i never implied that the documentary was produced by masons... good grief... it's like talking to a bunch of 2 year olds.
the original post about masons did not clarify that the teachers/historians/prof. were not masons; therefore one must assume that they were as they were in a documentary about masons.... ugh.
now, you can get ur blankie & go back to bed now as you seem a bit cranky.
You are just digging yourself into a deeper hole w/ no evidence Believing in God is fine; I am a Christian as well. But there is no place for religion in our government. I am embarrassed that our nation's presidents have to even be concerned with pleasing some narrow-minded evangelicals by allowing religious ceremonies during the inaugural. It is a violation of separating the church from our government & only offends non-Christians & atheists.
You are just digging yourself into a deeper hole w/ no evidence Believing in God is fine; I am a Christian as well. But there is no place for religion in our government. I am embarrassed that our nation's presidents have to even be concerned with pleasing some narrow-minded evangelicals by allowing religious ceremonies during the inaugural. It is a violation of separating the church from our government & only offends non-Christians & atheists.
do you have a direct link to the President to know this info? did it ever occur to you that they wanted to participate in these ceremonies out of their own desire? what you suggest is that pleasing "narrow minded evangelicals" is at the very top of Obama's priorities!
Patently false. You've been reading too much "revisionist history" written by people whose purpose it is to deny our heritage.
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Originally Posted by djacques
Whether they were or not, they left us a secular government and a godless constitution and we need to be vigilant in maintaining a wall of separation between church and state.
They left us a "Godless Constitution"? Please. Neither did they leave us a "secular" government, but only a government that, per the Constitution, was not to "establish" and official church.
Further, there is no such thing as a "wall of separation between church and state" in any of our founding documents. It was not their intent to establish a government without God. In fact, most believed that a nation without God could not be free; that freedom and democracy depended on a people who respected God.
From our very beginnings, our leaders in government have prayed for guidance from God, and they didn't see anything wrong with it, nor did they think it "unconstitutional" to do so.
It wasn't until groups like the ACLU came on the scene and started whining and advocating for atheists, that it was unconstitutional to pray in public, or for our leaders to lead or be lead in prayer.
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Originally Posted by djacques
I admire the founding fathers more than any other Americans. But I'd still be for separation of church and state even if they'd called for the union of church and state.
Nobody is calling for any such "union of church and state". But one cannot leave their deeply held religious beliefs behind when considering important legislation or contemplating military strategy. Nor should they. To do so, to leave God out our our thinking and decision making, would be to turn the processes of government over to the thinking of only one class of people, the unbelievers, leaving the rest of us with no voice at all.
This is definitely not what the founders intended.
Patently false. You've been reading too much "revisionist history" written by people whose purpose it is to deny our heritage.
They left us a "Godless Constitution"? Please. Neither did they leave us a "secular" government, but only a government that, per the Constitution, was not to "establish" and official church.
Further, there is no such thing as a "wall of separation between church and state" in any of our founding documents. It was not their intent to establish a government without God. In fact, most believed that a nation without God could not be free; that freedom and democracy depended on a people who respected God.
From our very beginnings, our leaders in government have prayed for guidance from God, and they didn't see anything wrong with it, nor did they think it "unconstitutional" to do so.
It wasn't until groups like the ACLU came on the scene and started whining and advocating for atheists, that it was unconstitutional to pray in public, or for our leaders to lead or be lead in prayer.
Nobody is calling for any such "union of church and state". But one cannot leave their deeply held religious beliefs behind when considering important legislation or contemplating military strategy. Nor should they. To do so, to leave God out our our thinking and decision making, would be to turn the processes of government over to the thinking of only one class of people, the unbelievers, leaving the rest of us with no voice at all.
This is definitely not what the founders intended.
As a former Catholic and recruit for the Opus Dei in my college years, I can tell you that a secular government is in place for your own protection. I assume you are an evangelical Protestant. I can assure you that my former church and religious organization - while circumspect in their opinions on this matter - do not officially consider you to be a legitimate Christian. You are a member of a defective break-away cult. And realize that Protestantism is losing adherents in the US. With the influx of immigrants from Mexico and the rest of Latin America - majority of whom are Catholics - the United States is well on its way to becoming a Catholic country. It already is in major cities. Check out the demographics in Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, New York City, etc and you will know what I mean. Catholics far outnumber other religious groups in these cities.
It is quite possible that a conservative traditionalist strain of Catholicism will predominate in the US - a strain that is less tolerant of Protestantism. When that happens, I imagine you will remember this thread and you will be praying for the separation of church and state and the strengthening of secular government.
The sole reference on which you hang your chapeau here is the establishment clause. Nothing in the inspiring inaugural ceremonies constituted Congressional passage of a law establshing a religion. Acknowledgement does not constitute establishment. I won't ask you if you're so dense that you don't understand the difference. You've demonstrated that repeatedly.
No, the Establishment Clause actually exists in concert with better than two hundred years of law and jurisprudence that I'm sure you would like to throw away. Those centuries provide specificity to the Clause under hundreds of alternative circumstances. The founders did not feel it worth their while to attempt anticipation and resolution of every conceivable controversy that might arise over the rest of time. They simply left their clear and simple words and therefrom the self-evident overarching dictum that the government is to remain neutral with respect to religion. If that is all I have, it is more than enough to crush your feeble protestations.
Acknowledgement of religion is very different from the open practice of it, especially so when that practice is of one religion only, and it is carried out under the auspices of the state. You need to tighten up your vocabulary.
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Originally Posted by Yeledaf
Show me the word NEUTRALITY in the Constitution. Your argument here is clouded by...jeez, I don't know exactly what your problem is, aside from the annoying fact that there are people in this country who are comfortable with the fact that the United States has traditions which include references to Christianity --- and are not you...
Show me where the words "fire in a crowded theater" appear or where exceptions for libel and slander have been carved out of a free press. There are meanwhile no more objections to "reference" to religion than there are to "acknowledgement" of it. What's annoying are continuing attemtps by zealots to induce the state to favor one religion in particular over all others, and certainly religion over non-religion. when the law quite clearly says that you may not do that. How difficult is it really to get this entirely simple principle into your head?
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Originally Posted by Yeledaf
Agreed. But the very ceremonies which we are discussing seem to indicate a predilection toward my point of view, wouldn't you say?
From my morning paper, it seems we have a predilection toward armed robbery as well. I don't suspect that this predilection will be given much weight by any eventually presidng judge in the matter of considering sentence. Your so-called point of view boils down to a simple disrespect and discounting of law that you don't feel like obeying. Our prisons are full of such. Our society depends on the rule of law. You seek instead to undermine it.
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Originally Posted by Yeledaf
Words, mere words, Horatio. You felt threatened by an inaugural ceremony which the vast majority of onlookers found inspriing. Views such as yours express a certain way of looking at the world, but they fall far short of expressing the sense of our national consciousness. And for that, most of us are grateful.
Threatened??? Such flights of fancy you are given to. But I suppose this pales after the sour gestalt of nullity. The national consciousness meanwhile drifts today toward greater oversight and greater assurance of compliance with applicable law than what our late administration was ever able to manifest. In that light, Rick Warren did no honor in his lone moment upon a national stage by interjecting an overt practice of sectarian prayer that is patently forbidden in official conduct to any agent of those who brought him to that stage. He cheapened the proceedings in that insult.
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Originally Posted by Yeledaf
But the inauguration was credible. In fact, it happened. And millions were uplifted. Keep that precedent firmly in mind for 2012.
Yes, much more credible than your arguments, as I indicated earlier. In fact, it was a great triumph for Americans united in the hopefulness of liberalism, presaging a new American era founded upon the same that promises to stretch to 2012 and well beyond. A dark chapter closed, and a far brighter one now opened...
While you're at it, do some research into the real meaning of the so-called "establishment clause". I assure you, you will not find the phrase "separation of church and state" in any of our founding documents, nor did our founders believe in any such concept, at least not in the way it is used today.
They most certainly did, although the concept of walls and hedges separating church from state was not, strictly speaking, of their own origination. I suspect from this and other of your posts that the history you study is all found on fundie websites and in fundie publications. No honest reading of the contemporaneous and earlier writings of the founders and their influences and correspondents can support the claims you make.
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if you go back and READ the posts you will see that i never implied that the documentary was produced by masons... good grief... it's like talking to a bunch of 2 year olds.
Believing in God is fine; I am a Christian as well. But there is no place for religion in our government. I am embarrassed that our nation's presidents have to even be concerned with pleasing some narrow-minded evangelicals by allowing religious ceremonies during the inaugural. It is a violation of separating the church from our government & only offends non-Christians & atheists.
