brighid

People are REALLY uneducated when it comes to issues of separation of Church and State. No one is attempting to disallow any child from praying to God, or saying it out loud in public. What they are doing is PROTECTING their right to worship freely, without fear that they must cow tow to the majority. What would these people think if suddenly Muslims gained a majority in this country and CHANGED the Pledge (like it was changed from it's original to include "under God") to One Nation, Praise Allah ... Or One Nation, Under ONE God, but Jesus Christ is a False Messiah... indivisibile ...

How soon they forget the last half - "with liberty and justice FOR ALL" not just god-fearing, CHRISTIAN people! Arrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh is right.

Write a rebuttal to this mindless drones that simply repeat the latest right-winged propaganda who are completey unable to think for themselves.

Furthermore it should be added that Jesus told his followers to pray in a damned closet and this is where all these hypocritical Christians should go back to! They fail to realize the "evil" atheists are doing them a damned favor by attempting to keep Church and State strictly separate. They should be thankful that someone is standing up and saying that the government has absolutely NO business promoting ANY religion because the Constitution guarantees freedom OF and even FROM religion. If they enjoy worshipping so much they should closely guard the offensive and dangerous intrusion the Bush administration has undertaken because it will undermine their rights sooner then they think.

Brighid

LordSnooty

The person that wrote that article needs to have each of his (or her) teeth kicked out, one by one.

How can you confuse religious expression with public morality? It seems impossible, but the author of that article managed it.

Paul

ChrisJGQ

"The seal will likely be upheld, in part because the Ten Commandments have secular meaning - being the basis for our very system of laws."

Yeah, that's my favorite part too. Okay, so the ten commandments disagree with murder, theft, and false testimony, which all are illegal. Those are some pretty damn revolutionary concepts, admittedly. I mean, it's not like any non-christian culture has *ever* made any of those three activities illegal before.

What is it that makes these people feel that the ten commandments are the basis of our legal system? I've heard it said more times than the amount of brain-cells that this individual has in his/her head, yet I've never heard a single, logical reason. You'd think that the "basis of our very system of laws" would have something to say about rape, slavery, and child molestation.. But hey, according to this individual you'd be wrong.

The Other Michael

You can always confuse the issue by asking "which 10 commandments?" they are going to post.

cheers,
Michael

Secular Pinoy

From Salon.Com: All conservative, all the time

Schparky

Someone ought to point out to these people that many of these church/state separation lawsuits are brought by religious folks (e.g., jews, catholics, mormons, etc.) It's not always atheist conspirators who deserve the blame (or credit) for "kicking God out of our schools/courts/etc."

As to the issue of whether the Ten Commandments is the basis for the U.S. legal system: I'm sure that the 10C must have influenced jursiprudence in some way or another. However, if the people who support the posting of the 10C in public places are really doing it for non-religious reasons, why aren't they pushing to have the Code of Hammurabi (the earliest known legal code, AFAIK) or the Magna Carta posted in every school?

lpetrich

Or Rome's Twelve Tables of 450 BCE, the first written law code of Europe?

Here are Hammurabi's Laws of 1750 BCE.

Also, the Exodus-20 10C's prohibition of working on a 7th-day Sabbath dates them to after the Babylonian Exile (587-539 BCE); that had not been much of an issue before that.

Furthermore, there is not only an additional set of 10C's in Exodus 23, and a big volume of other laws, such as Leviticus's instructions for performing various animal sacrifices.

And the New Testament contains some weakening and revocation of Old Testament laws, such as the dietary laws, the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" law, and the laws on the Sabbath and on adultery.

Mad Lion

Asheville, NC seems like a pretty liberal town. Or at least, they have an active liberal community.

orac

There's only one thing I like about the people who object to church/state separation:

Jesus had something to say about public prayer. He didn't say it was a good thing. (Matthew 6:5-6)

Every time a christian gets up to pray in public (sports events, government functions, etc, etc) they're disobeying Jesus.

It's small comfort, I know, but at least we know they're not doing it out of a true desire to follow Jesus. After all, if they actually wanted to do what Jesus said, they'ld have read their bibles, and would know that Jesus doesn't want their prayers at sports events any more than we do.

I still love the word that Jesus uses to describe these people

Shake

Yeah, I understand there's quite a large pagan community there. It's really a lovely town! If you go, definitely visit the Biltmore Estate!

I just love [/sarcasm] how that editorial attempts to link atheism with a lack of morality, but of course, fails to provide even a smidgeon of evidence. Just saying it doesn't make it so. They are probably the same ones who will use the quote, "There are no atheists in foxholes." as "evidence" that there aren't! It's true, 'cause I read it on the Internet! OK. Whatever.