In The News → Re: Remember Judge Moore of the Ten Commandments Fame?

said by Naiirita:

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First off, as for gay marriage. gay marriage. it is more of an infringement that just live and let live, marruage is a govt endorsement.

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Sorry for the delay in replying.
Is it your belief that placing the Ten Commandments monument in the court houses an endorsement of the Christian God?

that does depend on how it is placed. but i also see no probelm with it being displayed even it it is considered a endorsement of the ideas represented in the 10 commandments, mainly that there are laws that EVERYONE are held accountable for. thats a rather nifty idea, and almost unheard of at the time, hell it was almost unheard of 200 years ago. but then again, if placed there by a judge as an endoresement, i dont that in and of itself breaking the speeration clause. now if he ordered people to pray, or found some one guilty of coveting and tried to sentence them or did something is a legal capacity, that i would have issue with. but the simple displayment does not bother me. no more than an islamic judge posting something to do with muslim law that has at least a symbolistic tie in to americas. the seperation clause reads that the govt cant make laws regarding religion, thats vauge for a reason i think, to allow some leeway. unfortunilty the SC has read that no law regarding means the govt cannot doing anything that even looks like its christian in origin. the simplest way of looking at it is to say this, does the posting of the 10 commandments outside a courtroom violate anyones religious beleifs. if not then i fail to see how the govt is forcing religion, if it does, make an argument as to why and lets take a look at it and discuss it. but to simply yell CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM REMOVE IT NOW! is wrong.

Ok I see what you are saying. However, when this country was founded, there were people that did not practice Christianity. Only acknowledging Christianity, in my opinion, makes it look like that is the only religion or system of beliefs that matter. Americans Christians have a tendency to overlook the contributions made by people with beliefs that are non-Christian.

As an example, I attended an event at the local community college. ( it was for one of my classes) The event was called Multicultural Fact Food-Fest. One aspect I did not find enjoyable was the lack of cultural diversity in the pre-dining ritual. Instead of demonstrating how various cultures celebrate or give thanks for the meal they are about to receive, they only said the Lord’s Prayer. I understand time constraints could have been part of the reason, but still, this oversight took the Multi- right out of Multicultural. Adding more diversity in that area would have made the event far more meaningful, respectful, and yes, courteous.

America only seems to care about the Christan god, all non-believers "can and will, go to hell".

several of the founding fathers wernt christians, and as i also said, this isnt just a christian thing. this is matter of a larger war of religion against those who wont ALL aspects of ANY religion removed from any public venue. most people(and i as well) would have no problem with a document from another religion being posted, as long as it had a tie in with american law somewhere.

said by JAJ1138:

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As an example, I attended an event at the local community college. ( it was for one of my classes) The event was called Multicultural Fact Food-Fest. One aspect I did not find enjoyable was the lack of cultural diversity in the pre-dining ritual. Instead of demonstrating how various cultures celebrate or give thanks for the meal they are about to receive, they only said the Lord’s Prayer.

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Christians include Poles, Spaniards, South-Americans, Africans, Arabs, Chinese, you name it. Seems pretty multicultural to me. Perhaps it's someone's particular definition of "multicultural" that confused you? Since when does multicultural = multidenominational? If it doesn't include other religions, it's not multicultural?

Sorry if I misunderstood.

And America, BTW, doesn't care about ANY G-d, it cares about the right of the people to worship as they see fit, or not.

That some preachers manage to bamboozle people into donating so much money that they own their own private runway at the local airport, their own university and their own TV channels, is not an indication of what America does in favor of one religion or another.

said by ravital:

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If it doesn't include other religions, it's not multicultural?

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Why not have an atheist say something? Why not include pre-dinning rituals of non-Christian religions?
Christianity seems to have no tolerance for other religions or those without religion. Since Christianity is a universalizing religion, there is a need to convert non-believers. It is my belief that it is not possible to have tolerance for others beliefs, when the goal is convert non-believers into a universalizing religion. Unwavering faith mean that followers only believe, practice, and tolerate their own doctrine. So to answer your question yes in someways, no in other ways.

said by ravital:

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And America, BTW, doesn't care about ANY G-d, it cares about the right of the people to worship as they see fit, or not.

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What America are you referring too? You can not be referring too the one that has "In God We Trust" on the currency and “one nation under God” in the national anthem Pledge of allegiance....

said by JAJ1138:

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What America are you referring too? You can not be referring too the one that has "In God We Trust" on the currency and “one nation under God” in the national anthem...

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For Yog's sake, please explain to me how "in God we trust" on scraps of green paper in my wallet infringe on my freedom of religion????? How does that make America a theocracy???? Does "Fruit of the loom" on your underwear mean someone is forcing you to be a vegetarian? Does the fact that your tires are stamped "safe at speeds up to 135 MPH" mean someone is forcing you to drive that fast?

Oh, so sorry, I forgot, this is America, where a sense of proportion is completely forbidden.

You know, They have almost no poverty in Scandinavian countries - and an apalling rate of suicide. That's what happens, when people have it so good, they look for nonsense to worry and complain about.

Anyone drag you to church kicking and screaming because of "in god we trust" on your money lately? Anyone force you to eat fish on Fridays? Anyone invade your home and burn any of your books that happen to be critical of Christianity because of those three miserable letters on your dollar bill?

I truly pity a population that has so little to worry about, that it has to go so far out of its way to find nonsense to whine about. There's a fitting French saying about this, "looking for noon at 1400 hours."

said by ravital:

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Anyone drag you to church kicking and screaming because of "in god we trust" on your money lately? Anyone force you to eat fish on Fridays? Anyone invade your home and burn any of your books that happen to be critical of Christianity because of those three miserable letters on your dollar bill?

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LOL, no one has tried to drag me to church yet.

said by ravital:

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And America, BTW, doesn't care about ANY G-d, it cares about the right of the people to worship as they see fit, or not.

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however, it clearly points out, which god America cares about. As you said "America was founded for the most part by Christians for Christians."
"The motto IN GOD WE TRUST was placed on United States coins largely because of the increased religious sentiment existing during the Civil War."
»www.ustreas.gov/educatio ··· ust.html
One nation under God says it all.[Pledge of allegiance (doh!)] Note: it is not one nation under Gods.

Ravital, what you are missing is the secularists of this country were nice and quiet until we began to hear we had no rights and until the religious right began asking to infringe on the few gains made. My turning point was when my governor, in a response to the 9th Ciruit's ruling on the Pledge, stated every building built in Florida would have statements about God on the facade. People wanting secularists to calm down and not take it seriously need to back off a bit and it might happen.

Scraps of green paper, they are not. They are the currency of the United States, legal tender for all debts, public and private. Furthermore, they put words in my mouth that I do not necessarily wish to speak. In God WHO Trusts? In God WE Trust.

if that bothers you i bet you hate the part where it says our rights are endowed by our creator.

said by Naiirita:

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if that bothers you i bet you hate the part where it says our rights are endowed by our creator.

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Do you mean the document that was written PRIOR to the separation of church and state created by the Constitution?

the document that was written and rattified by the same people who wrote in the seperation of church and state. and the same people who decided to begain the sessions with a prayer. and as i know you know, it never calls for seperation of church and state, it just says the govt cant establish a religion. that can be interpeted many ways.

hmmm and had another thought, anyone know when they started putting in god we trust on money?

said by Naiirita:

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if that bothers you i bet you hate the part where it says our rights are endowed by our creator.

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I consider my Mother to be my creator, so I can't say it bothers me. But that is just me. Granted my Father had something to do with that as well. But my Mother did most of the creating.

1957. We were worried about the Godless Commies. It was put on for a silly reason and ought to be removed.

As to separation of church and state, the phrase was invented by Thomas Jefferson in a letter he sent to the minister. He indicated that such a wall had been created in America.

so in other words all our rights come from mom?

and yet that was not put into it. there is a reason for that. people didnt want an atheistic state. they wanted an agnostic one.

said by Naiirita:

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and yet that was not put into it. there is a reason for that. people didnt want an atheistic state. they wanted an agnostic one.

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Precisely. But an agnostic state would not profess that it trusts in God! Please get your God off my money. I know communists make some people feel insecure with their godlessness and such, but I simply don't have the patience for this nonsense. I'd rather not have a paraphrased version of Psalms 71:1 on my currency.

why wouldnt an agnostic state not have in god we trust on its money?

said by Naiirita:

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why wouldnt an agnostic state not have in god we trust on its money?

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???

Because agnostics don't profess an opinion on whether or not God exists. "In God We Trust" asserts an opinion that God does indeed exist.

'our Creator' is a nice, generic reference - you can take it as God, Mom and Dad, Mother Nature, Laws of Science...
'God' specifically, on the other hand, certainly implies a religious connection.
Smart folks, our forefathers.
KM

its not that they dont profess an opinon, its that they dont have a definitive faith in it.

yes its nice and generic and does have a nice implied conatation as well. specificly implied is that the rights are not given by a higher power and thus can not be removed except by a higher power.

said by Naiirita:

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its not that they dont profess an opinon, its that they dont have a definitive faith in it.

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ag·nos·tic (g-nstk) n.
One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.

»dictionary.reference.com ··· agnostic

said by Naiirita:

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so in other words all our rights come from mom?

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Well lets see, I have certain unalienable rights. Why do I have these rights? Well, because my Creator was a citizen of the USA when I was born. So yes, I have certain unalienable rights simply because my Mother was a citizen of the USA when I was born. The rights can come from the father if he is a citizen and the mother is not.

said by KoolMoe:

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'our Creator' is a nice, generic reference - you can take it as God, Mom and Dad, Mother Nature, Laws of Science...
'God' specifically, on the other hand, certainly implies a religious connection.
Smart folks, our forefathers.
KM

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Very well put.

said by JAJ1138:

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said by Naiirita:

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so in other words all our rights come from mom?

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Well lets see, I have certain unalienable rights. Why do I have these rights? Well, because my Creator was a citizen of the USA when I was born. So yes, I have certain unalienable rights simply because my Mother was a citizen of the USA when I was born. The rights can come from the father if he is a citizen and the mother is not.

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Bull.

My mother was a citizen of Morocco when I was born. In America, I have exactly the same inalienable rights as you.

said by AmeritecTech:

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Precisely. But an agnostic state would not profess that it trusts in God! Please get your God off my money.

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I can't blame you for sticking to the literal interpretation of the word. But it's not as if you were forced to accept a single interpretation of "In God We Trust" regardless of the reason it was added in 1957 (which I don't dispute).

For instance, you could take it as a recognition that this is the currency and the legal tender of a country that puts certain principles and values above petty conveniences or the transience of events, people, countries and their institutions. Something that matters more than the signature of a passing mortal who happens to be Secretary of the Treasury on the bill. Something greater than all of us, without which we'd be just like all other countries on the western hemisphere, established and founded by generals on horesback. And it can't be "In the Constitution We Trust" either, that's the creation of mortals, and it does ennoble the mortals who created it and the ones who live by it, but it has to be something greater than Man.

Sorry, I can't take this any more seriously than those who imagine themselves to be feminists, clamoring for the teaching of HERstory along with HIStory, and holding OVUnars to "balance" SEMinars (they do, I'm not making this up).

said by ShinyTop8:

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Ravital, what you are missing is the secularists of this country were nice and quiet until we began to hear we had no rights and until the religious right began asking to infringe on the few gains made.

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I can certainly understand that. What I don't understand is why it matters that some idiot proclaims something, why it justifies such a panic. I understand and would be as uneasy as you if my governor did what yours did (do you mean Jeb Bush by the way?). I submit that when the mayor of Chicago passed a regulation that all buildings in the downtown district who wanted to have fences must have a wrought-iron one, it had a greater effect on people - at the very least financially (and you can bet some contractor cronies benefited) - than something so obviously demented and irrational as what you heard from your governor. Think of how difficult it is to overturn a municipal regulation, vs. something that so blatantly violates the Constitution.

said by ravital:

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said by AmeritecTech:

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Precisely. But an agnostic state would not profess that it trusts in God! Please get your God off my money.

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I can't blame you for sticking to the literal interpretation of the word. But it's not as if you were forced to accept a single interpretation of "In God We Trust" regardless of the reason it was added in 1957 (which I don't dispute).

For instance, you could take it as a recognition that this is the currency and the legal tender of a country that puts certain principles and values above petty conveniences or the transience of events, people, countries and their institutions. Something that matters more than the signature of a passing mortal who happens to be Secretary of the Treasury on the bill. Something greater than all of us, without which we'd be just like all other countries on the western hemisphere, established and founded by generals on horesback. And it can't be "In the Constitution We Trust" either, that's the creation of mortals, and it does ennoble the mortals who created it and the ones who live by it, but it has to be something greater than Man.

Sorry, I can't take this any more seriously than those who imagine themselves to be feminists, clamoring for the teaching of HERstory along with HIStory, and holding OVUnars to "balance" SEMinars (they do, I'm not making this up).

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And you don't think this post establishes your religion as the reason for the words? You don't think this post belittles my beliefs? I have never belittled your beliefs. I have repeatedly insisted you not impose them on me. Reinterprest and spin all you want, them's the facts.

Your last paragraph is about as dismissive as they come. The fact that you believe nothing is different about us without it the religious angle shows there is no discussion and you are not supportive of the Constitution unless it backs your religion. Very revealing.

Sorry to disappoint, even with your attempt to belittle and dismiss I am still not trying to do away with anybody's practice of religion, only their imposition of it on me and mine.