On 5/13/2010 3:48 AM, RogerN wrote:
"Roger wrote in message
...
I am in sympathy with some of your views but I fail to understand your
anger. Freedom to believe or not in a god, gods, no gods or what ever does
not detract from having a cordial relationship with your neighbors.

Government, in the eyes of our founding fathers, does not exist to promote
a
belief in any religion, but rather to have a system where religions can
co-exist and be tolerated by each other.

Individual questions of what is permissible occur from time to time and
are
settled and then we move on. Neither side in the debate on any particular
question usually ends up completely happy.

Consider Thomas Jefferson. As the prime author of the Declaration of
Independence, he wrote of:

"...the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God..."
"...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"
"...appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world..."
"...solemnly publish and declare..."
"...a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence..."
"...pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

But he also coined the phrase "separation of church and state". In a
letter
to the Danbury Baptists he wrote:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between
Man
& his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his
worship,
that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only,& not
opinions,
I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American
people
which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus
building a wall of separation between Church& State."

In 1797 the US Senate by unanimous vote (Only the third time *all* of the
Senators voting agreed on anything.) ratified the "Treaty of Tripoli". In
doing so they publicly declared:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense,
founded on the Christian religion..."

Myself, I really like the Jeffersonian concept of the US being the "Empire
o
f Liberty", I suspect the reason "we don't just split" is because we are
stronger as one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, and
each of us is left to decide as a matter of personal liberty just what
"under god" means to themselves.

--
Roger Shoaf
If you are not part of the solution, you are not dissolved in the solvent.


The part I don't agree with it the change in meaning of what the founding
fathers wrote. The things I mentioned such as "The national day of prayer",
"one nation under God", etc. wasn't seen as a violation of the constitution
until recently. Can't change the wording of the constitution? Then change
the meaning of the words in the constitution. You'll notice those who want
to take away religious liberties will use "separation of church and state"
(not in the constitution) instead of "establishment of religion".

RogerN


You don't get what is really a simple point. Back in the days of the
founding fathers there were two religions basically, Christian and
Heathens, which means Indians. There were so few people in the early
U.S. that followed any religion other than Christianity that back then
people didn't think much about any other religions. Everyone was a
Christian, pretty much.

Today, we have a gigantic, multicultural nation with all kinds of
different religions that all want to be recognized by the government.
The only way today to be fair is to show no favoritism to any of them
and that means Christianity, even though most people still are members
of that religion. To avoid problems it's just far easier for the
government to take the position where they keep totally away from having
anything to do with any religion for fear of upsetting the others.
Better to just keep all religious stuff out of government affairs. So
that's what they are doing. The problem is you see not favoring your
religion as being persecuted. But that's your problem and not anyone
else's. I'm sure plenty of Muslims feel just like you do. Which is why
it's so much better for the government to just have nothing to do with
religion at all. It's the only way to be fair to all the different
religions. That's a problem the founders never had to deal with. It's
like your day of prayer. Nowadays the question would be if we have a day
of prayer which religion should we favor by having it in that particular
one. How would you like a day of prayer from the Koran? Something tells
me that would not make you very happy.

Hawke