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Founding fathers and religion

There is no doubt that the founders of this country considered this a christian country. And, that seperation of church and state meant something different to them, than it does currently. The establishment clause has evolved.

Would it be ok today if Congress ordered Bibles from a publisher for distribution by the Government? No it would not, but it was certainly done back in the founders generation.

Our constitution has "changed". And the change has been caused by the Supreme Court. Members of the Court have chosen to change meanings based on whatever personal preference they may have at that moment, and that may even change next week. They may feel this way today and tomorrow think of something else. As it stands right now, they decide what rights you have, or what you don't have, all based on what they want. The Constitution in regards to rights guarentees nothing. The only guarentee being, they will tell you what rights you have or don't have. Thats it.

Justice Scalia put it correctly when he stated, "The Supreme Court has liberated itself from the text of the Constitution". It now means whatever they say it means. Based on whatever.

Your property rights have "evolved". The Government can now take your property and give it to Wal-Mart. Thats it. The Supreme Court has spoken.

Whatever the founders thought about anything originally is meaningless. Our "founders" are alive and kicking, all 9 of them.
 
bandaidwoman said:
I agree with you. in addition, I get really irked when people tell me American law is derived from the Ten Commandments .

Our laws don't specify a single god who must be worshipped, ban graven images, require us to take a day off work every week, mandate that we "honor" our parents, make it illegal for men to "covet" other men's wives or sleep with unmarried women, or make it illegal to lie ( in fact the "right to lie" is protected under the First Amendment).

The only things in common between the Commandments and most state or federal laws are prohibitions on killing and stealing, which seems pretty universal to most religions to me.

That really gets me too. How can you say that America's laws are founded on the 10 commandments? The 1st ammendment and the 1st commandment directly contradict each other.
 
mike49 said:
There is no doubt that the founders of this country considered this a christian country. And, that seperation of church and state meant something different to them, than it does currently. The establishment clause has evolved.

Would it be ok today if Congress ordered Bibles from a publisher for distribution by the Government? No it would not, but it was certainly done back in the founders generation.

Our constitution has "changed". And the change has been caused by the Supreme Court. Members of the Court have chosen to change meanings based on whatever personal preference they may have at that moment, and that may even change next week. They may feel this way today and tomorrow think of something else. As it stands right now, they decide what rights you have, or what you don't have, all based on what they want. The Constitution in regards to rights guarentees nothing. The only guarentee being, they will tell you what rights you have or don't have. Thats it.

Justice Scalia put it correctly when he stated, "The Supreme Court has liberated itself from the text of the Constitution". It now means whatever they say it means. Based on whatever.

Your property rights have "evolved". The Government can now take your property and give it to Wal-Mart. Thats it. The Supreme Court has spoken.

Whatever the founders thought about anything originally is meaningless. Our "founders" are alive and kicking, all 9 of them.

Pure BS rant with not a snowball's chance in hell of backing any of it up. Appointment to the SCOTUS is a very serious step in the careers of these justices. They uphold their promise to, fairly and without bias, apply the Constitution in the cases brought before them. They do not make decisions willy-nilly and without regard for the constitution and this whole myth of the activist judge is absurd. There are a range of idealogies on the SCOTUS bench and they deliberate very seriously the legal issues brought before them. Idiot politicians scream activist judge when the ruling goes against their agenda.
 
jallman,

Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of The Redeemer of mankind. It's impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian... This is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation... we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth... These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation. Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, The United States Supreme Court, 143 U.S. 457, 12 S.Ct. 511, 36 L.Ed. 226 (1892)

Thats one point of my previous post.
 
Whereupon, Resolved, That the United States in Congress assembled, highly approve the pious and laudable undertaking of Mr. Aitken, as subservient to the interest of religion as well as an instance of the progress of arts in this country, and being satisfied from the above report, of his care and accuracy in the execution of the work, they recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States, and hereby authorise him to publish this recommendation in the manner he shall think proper.

Library of Congress, American Memory
 
mike49 said:
jallman,

Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of The Redeemer of mankind. It's impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian... This is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation... we find everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth... These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation. Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, The United States Supreme Court, 143 U.S. 457, 12 S.Ct. 511, 36 L.Ed. 226 (1892)

Thats one point of my previous post.

I'm sorry, I fail to see what your point is. Did you have one concerning your assertion of activist judges or did you just dig out a ruling over one hundred years old and call yourself satisfied? The law, like the society it governs, is a living entity which will evolve and change along with the consituency of the nation. Whereas we did not have the amalgam of religion in this country when the founding fathers were forming our great nation, now we do. thus, the rulings of the SCOTUS, if applied fairly, must interpret the words of the fathers as they are applicable to our time and with the range of citizenry and its religions in mind. Denial of this fact is pure wishful thinking on the parts of a small group of religious wingnuts who have no regard for harmony of nation, but rather a directive to steer our nation away from its fundamental principles of pluralism and inclusion in favor of a fundamentalism of their faulty design.

Your "point" and the one following are moot and irrelevant to our times.
 
jallman,

There is sense in your last post. You see the court as the vehicle for change, that it is up to them to re-interpret the "meaning" of the original document instead of the text.

I reject that thinking. I would rather the court stick with the original meanings and then have the society decide if a change in the Constitution is needed. Because the Court is not the society. The court is a select few. Let them interpret as original and let us vote the new. Because the power is too great and it renders the Constitution meaningless.
 
mike49 said:
Here is an article that where the Scalia quote is explained:

Justice Scalia: "The Court has liberated itself from the Constitution"
A religious right wing site... yes exceptionally credible source. Not to mention the source itself is quoting the most open justice to merging of state and religion.
Stick to it's original means, abortion was not around so it's not part of constitutional right. COmplete BS, neither were a lot of things around. IE the internet or radio. Does that mean then that free speech is not free then on the internet or radio?
Seriously, compelte BS.
 
jfuh,

Right Wing site or not, it is what Scalia said.

Abortion is not an issue for the Court, or at least it was not prior to Roe v Wade. It was a State issue. If a State allowed Abortion the Court could not shoot that law down and make it illegal. It should not have created this right.

As far as speech goes, why would internet speech or radio or TV, be any different than the speech as intended in the first amendment? They had books back then and that was considered protected speech.

Your post seems to imply that your rights are given to you by the government, when in reality they are not supposed to be. They are prohibitions on government intrusion. We decide what rights we have. At least thats how it was intended. Now of course your rights are determined by the government.
 
mike49 said:
Abortion is not an issue for the Court, or at least it was not prior to Roe v Wade. It was a State issue. If a State allowed Abortion the Court could not shoot that law down and make it illegal. It should not have created this right.

As far as speech goes, why would internet speech or radio or TV, be any different than the speech as intended in the first amendment? They had books back then and that was considered protected speech.
According to the speech one of the reasons given were that abortion was not around during the days of the founding fathers, thus certainly they did not intend for such rights to be promised. Well by the same reasoning as given by the site free speech as you have pointed as well would protect books and print, radio and internet or TV were not around back then so of course then according to such logic it should all be regulated. I'm merely pointing out the fallacy of the opinion presented by the site.

mike49 said:
Your post seems to imply that your rights are given to you by the government, when in reality they are not supposed to be. They are prohibitions on government intrusion. We decide what rights we have. At least thats how it was intended. Now of course your rights are determined by the government.

You get to determine your rights, I don't get to determine my rights? What the hell? What kind of reasoning is this?
 
jfuh said:
According to the speech one of the reasons given were that abortion was not around during the days of the founding fathers, thus certainly they did not intend for such rights to be promised. Well by the same reasoning as given by the site free speech as you have pointed as well would protect books and print, radio and internet or TV were not around back then so of course then according to such logic it should all be regulated. I'm merely pointing out the fallacy of the opinion presented by the site.



You get to determine your rights, I don't get to determine my rights? What the hell? What kind of reasoning is this?


The speech you are talking about does not state that abortion did not exist. It in fact states the opposite.

And, I did not mean that I get to determine my rights and you do not. My point was that the Supreme Court decides what rights all of us have. And, what rights we do not have. I should have been more clear and I apologize.
 
mike49 said:
The speech you are talking about does not state that abortion did not exist. It in fact states the opposite.
You know what I meant, abortion did not exist as decent or a right. As was the case with homosexuality. Instead it was seen as pure evil.
I will agree with one portion of the article in that both sides of any argument will use the constitution to interpret into thier own reasoning. However it doesn't change the basic argument of this thread being that the founding fathers never intended for a christian state.
 
jfuh said:
You know what I meant, abortion did not exist as decent or a right. As was the case with homosexuality. Instead it was seen as pure evil.
I will agree with one portion of the article in that both sides of any argument will use the constitution to interpret into thier own reasoning. However it doesn't change the basic argument of this thread being that the founding fathers never intended for a christian state.

Truthfully, I believe that 230 years, several generations, countless scientific breakthroughs, technological advances, and philosophical advancements later...it doesnt matter one iota what the Founding Fathers thought about religion when they wrote the constitution. It also wouldnt be a bad move to amend some of it and add to it. You are talking about people who had wooden teeth, no electricity, no concept of the computer, limited surgery, and only creationism as an explanation for our beginnings. And you want to rely heavily on their knowledge to govern us today?
 
Benjamin Franklin was the most open founding father.


At his funeral he had all the churches in Philly (some 35 of them) and a Rabbi attend and bless him at his funeral.


When writing either the consitution or the decralation of independance, I can't remember which, he removed notions about god giving us rights and made them human. Inherently he saw god as bad in government.


I think Franklin was right.
 
jfuh said:
You know what I meant, abortion did not exist as decent or a right. As was the case with homosexuality. Instead it was seen as pure evil.
I will agree with one portion of the article in that both sides of any argument will use the constitution to interpret into thier own reasoning. However it doesn't change the basic argument of this thread being that the founding fathers never intended for a christian state.


I have never said that the founding fathers wanted a "christian state", what I have been saying is the "establishment clause" has a different meaning now than it did when it was written. Chief Justice Rehnquist provides a very good account of this in a written opinion, WALLACE v. JAFFREE, 472 U.S. 38 (1985), if you scrool down about 3/4 of the way you will be able to read his dissenting opinion, which provides a very good history of the "establishment clause".
 
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