How do you feel about the separation of church and state?

[Nija]

I got this as an email today.. it currently had about 473 "signatures"... how does everyone else feel

*BTW I have no idea what this is refrence to...*

Petition for President Bush Please do not delete, send back if you don't want
to sign. Thanks.



Petition to President G.W. Bush To add your name to the bottom, hit "forward
message" and then add your name and then pass on. Thanks.



PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION BELOW AND PASS THIS ON UNTIL THERE ARE 500

NAMES, THEN SEND TO:



[email protected]

Bush:



Many of us were deeply touched to hear you recite a portion of Psalm 23 in
your address to this great nation in the dark hours following the terrorists
attacks. We were encouraged and comforted to know that we truly had a
believer working with us and for us in our nation's highest office.

We the people of America are requesting that you lift the prohibition of
prayer in schools. As the pledge of our great country states, we are to be
"One nation, under God." Please allow the prayers and petitions of our
children in schools without the threat of punishment. Currently, adults and
children in the schools are prohibited from mentioning God unless, of course,
His name is uttered as part of a curse or profanity. Madeline Murray O'Hare

is dead. Let her legacy of atheism in our schools die with her!



Sincerely , The People of America Mark 10:13-14 "People were bringing little
children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them.

When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little
children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs
to such as these."



PETITION TO REINSTATE PRAYER IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS


[B]*NAMES WOULD BE INSERTED HERE..*[B]

-----------------------

..and yes This is an attempt to find out how people feel about the sepreation of church and state, not a oppurtunity to blast each other's religions...

I, personally, feel as tho that there should be a seperation. One and the other should not be mingled.

[Memo]

I think they should be seperated as well.

[hapoo]

I have no problem with prayer in school as long as its in the form of "quiet time" so that everyone can pray (or not) in their own way.

[MJordanash]

Originally posted by hapoo
I have no problem with prayer in school as long as its in the form of "quiet time" so that everyone can pray (or not) in their own way.

I agree with this standpoint.

[soong]

if there is going to be "prayer" in school then it should take the aforementioned model, but i don't think its missed in school now as it is...

[The Continental]

I got my popcorn........Let The Games Begin........

[revil]

Originally posted by The Continental
I got my popcorn........Let The Games Begin........

You better be sharing that popcorn.

[topane]

/me grabs a handful of popcorn

There has been a push by the religious right (especially after 9/11) to get God everywhere. Unfortunately, there's now tons of 10 commandments plaques going up on government property where they do not belong. Also, our public officials should be doing other things than trying to post them everywere. Keep them separate. The separation of church and state not only protects the government, but protects religion as well. America was not founded as a Christian (or Jewish, or Muslim, or Buddhist) nation.

[Memo]

wait a minute......what is this SEPREATION you speak of?

[kimchicowboy]

there should be a separation. but they should definitely work together.

[Grimm]

Let's see... a Theocracy is the single most oppresive form of government on the planet. I'm all for it, so long as I get to be the god!

Otherwise I think it is a good idea for churches to stay out of government and for government to stay out of the church.

By the way, telling a kid that they can't pray in schools is religious oppression. We can't stand for that either.

[Burzhui]

get them as far away from each other as possible

[attgig]

kinda interesting that a religion should be totally separate from state until a 'cult' arises.... then, they get 'special attention' from the government....

[sbp]

The United States Constitution gives people the freedom of religion. In fact the founders of this great country never meant for there to be hostility to religion or no religion at all. The phrase and idea of separation of church and state never appears in the Constitution. That has been pushed by special interests groups over the past few decades onto the American people.

I admire the spirit behind this. Its true physical hunger is nothing compared to spirtual hunger and we see the results of that every day in this country. However, the time and energy can be better served in other ways. What happens when a child goes back to a communities where crap like promotion of out of wedlock births is done? The problems are much deeper and require more than prayer in school.

Praying can be done before school and after school. It can also be done in school as long as its unintrusive and not disruptive. Otherwise, telling someone they can't pray at all would be a violation of freedom of religion.

Yes government and religion can work and already are working together on some matters. Thats ok. Just know a lot of religious people are wary about government interfering in religion and overstepping its boundaries.

[Hoser]

If church and state are separate entities, why do you need a marriage license from the state to get married? Does anyone else see any problems with this? Also, why are churches excempt from taxes? Has this always been the case?

[attgig]

Originally posted by Hoser
If church and state are separate entities, why do you need a marriage license from the state to get married? Does anyone else see any problems with this? Also, why are churches excempt from taxes? Has this always been the case?

a judge can marry you. They allow clergy to marry to respect peoples religions/traditions..., but someone totally secular can get you married

and all "churches" are exempt from taxes. All religious groups are exempt...not sure why...but yeah, perhaps this creates more of a separation?

[topane]

Originally posted by sbp
The phrase and idea of separation of church and state never appears in the Constitution. That has been pushed by special interests groups over the past few decades onto the American people.

It does not appear in the Constitution, but a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association (1802) regarding the first amendment states "...I contemplate with solemn 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 and State..." As for the special interests groups pushing this idea on the American people: Maybe true, but you forgot about the special interests groups on the other side who are trying to stuff religion down our throats.

Originally posted by Hoser
Also, why are churches excempt from taxes?

Good question. For all their involvement in politics, they should be taxed.

Originally posted by attgig
kinda interesting that a religion should be totally separate from state until a 'cult' arises.... then, they get 'special attention' from the government....

I think that's only those whackos who go around burning cheese or something. Besides, all religions started out as cults at one time.

[jase71]

Religion has no place in government, simply because it's inclusion is automatically either exclusionary towards other religions, or so blandly generic as to be worthless.

We complain when a judge is censured for displaying the 10 Commandments in his courtroom. But would the same people be willing to see passages from the Koran on the courtroom walls? How about passages from Bhagavad-gita? The Satanic Bible? Under Freedom of Religion, each is as "correct" as the others. If you're willing to accept one, you have to be willing to accept all of them.

The US is not a Christian nation. It's not a Muslim nation. It's not a religious nation, period. And it remains a nation where we can all worship to our own satisfaction exactly BECAUSE the government takes no stand, and does not endorse religion.

The only way to maintain freedom of religion is to keep religion out
of the government.

[molecularfire]

There's a separation between church and state? Tell me this... name one non-christian president. Let's face it... the U.S. is a christian state. It's just very tolerant of other religions.

As for whether there should be prayer in schools... I don't think there should be a separate time for prayer in school. However, children shouldn't be punished for praying in school. Separation means that we shouldn't be able to encourage or discourage it. The only way that I see that teachers could appropriately encourage prayers in school is by giving out really hard tests.

[topane]

Originally posted by molecularfire
There's a separation between church and state? Tell me this... name one non-christian president.

Thomas Jefferson

[molecularfire]

What was TJ?

[Jihforce]

Originally posted by Hoser
If church and state are separate entities, why do you need a marriage license from the state to get married? Does anyone else see any problems with this? Also, why are churches excempt from taxes? Has this always been the case?

I'm guess you need a state marraige license because it legalizes it. Thus providing you with certain benefits. Or in some cases, spliting your wealth in half in case of divorce

Also, I think that the churches are excempt from taxes because most of their income is donations. I don't think you can tax that. Besides, churches are non-profit and they do (technically) a boat load of charity work.

These are all just my guesses by the way

[attgig]

agnostic?

I think....

he was "christian" but most people during the period of "Enlightenment" (and TJ was a big Enlightenment dude), adhered to the belief that God may exist, but he has separated himself/herself from Earth, and therefore doesn't play a real part in daily life beyond tradition.

[molecularfire]

Ok... given the other options available, I guess I'll consider TJ a non-christian.

Here's another question about TJ. I heard that he invented the Lazy susan... did he really invent that with the intention of putting food on it?

[jase71]

I've regularly heard him referred to as a "Deist". Which would imply: "The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation." Which is essentially what Attgig said...

I think Jefferson might be upset by the definition of himself as a Christian, considering some of his quotes regarding Christianty.

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies" (Letter to Dr. Woods).

"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one-half the world fools and the other half hypocrites."

Jefferson did claim some admiration of the teachings of Jesus, but claimed that his teachings in relation to the rest of the bible were "separating diamonds from a dung hill,".