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Non-separation of church and State.

Albert Raley

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Frostburg Md.
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I don’t think there should be a separation. Our country was founded on religion. It would help unite our country as well as restore morals and values.
 
I don’t think there should be a separation. Our country was founded on religion. It would help unite our country as well as restore morals and values.

When people say this, 9/10 times what they really mean is you think there should be no separation.......as long as it is a religion YOU support. I doubt you would want laws based on Islam or Satanism. And freedom of speech goes out the window with blasphemy laws. No thank you. If you want a theocracy, there are plenty of countries like Iran for you to choose from that have religion as the state.
 
I don’t think there should be a separation. Our country was founded on religion. It would help unite our country as well as restore morals and values.

Jefferson, Madison, and Adams vehemently disagreed with you.

The US was founded on freedom of religion, which is the opposite of having the state enforce religious morals and laws based on religious beliefs on everyone. We cannot have equal religious and secular rights if the majority can exert the tyranny of the majority to trample the secular and religious rights of everyone else.

Your idea would create a theocracy, which are never free and are never a stable government.
 
I don’t think there should be a separation. Our country was founded on religion. It would help unite our country as well as restore morals and values.

No, we were not founded on religion.

That is not to say that many Americans weren't Christians, just that when the Founders and Framers put the Constitution together, they did not want religion as part of the government.

Let me point something out to you. At the time that the Bill of Rights were debated and then added to the Constitution the religious make up of the nation was the following: 99% identified as some form of Christianity, there was a smattering of Jews and then a tiny portion of African tribal religions that came with the slaves with an even more tiny group of slaves that were Muslim.

So, at this point, you are probably going “See! See! America was a Christian nation and we were founded on religion!!” Not so fast. I pointed the religious make-up of America at that time to point another little fact out.

The 1st Amendment does a few things: it guarantees your right to worship and freedom of speech and prevents the government from favoring a religion over others, or the creation of a theocracy or state religion. Right?

So, what religion were they trying to prevent from taking over the government, the religion they feared take away the right of other faiths? Well, there was only religion at the time that could do that...Christianity. And they were justified in their fear when Jefferson received a letter from the Danbury Baptists who wanted him, as president, to use his power against a congregation that outvoted the Baptists constantly in local elections. This is where we get Jefferson's “separation of church and state” policy that is based on the 1st Amendment.

Now, at this point, you may try to bring of the Pilgrims. At which point, I will remind you that not only had they already escaped religious persecution in England by going across the Channel to Amsterdam, where freedom of religion was practiced...but that the Pilgrims left Amsterdam NOT because they were being persecuted, but because their church was dying as members left to join other churches. I would also remind you that England had already been setting up commercial colonies in North America before the Pilgrims got there.

So, no, we were not founded on religion. I could go on about the Deists and the Enlightenment and the Jefferson Bible...but I think you get the point.
 
I don’t think there should be a separation. Our country was founded on religion. It would help unite our country as well as restore morals and values.

No it wasn't


How does making us become Muslims "unite" the country ?
 
The idea of a separation was in place when the country was founded, because you had Catholics in Maryland, Quakers in Pennsylvania and so on. The idea was not to make any religious organization supreme, like the Church of England. While most of the founder fathers were theists, if not Christians, religion and one organized, official church are different things entirely. There isn't technically a separation of religion and state. There is a chaplain of the senate.
 
The FF wanted every religion to be equal under the law. So you wouldn't have to be a certain state approved religion to hold office, or be a military leader, or even be a school teacher (although Catholics were not welcome in public education in the past). The FF didn't go so far as modern courts; they had no problem with prayer in schools, so long as no one religion had a monopoly. They had no problem with prayer, or religious symbols in public places, so long as it was what the local population was comfortable with.

And for all those reasons, mainly to keep religious organizations non-political, they made religion tax free. Churches aren't supposed, under this doctrine, to make political statements, or favor one candidate over another, or make campaign contributions. They ARE allowed to say, here are our values, vote for the person who best reflects our values. But they cannot directly endorse a particular candidate.
 
I don’t think there should be a separation. Our country was founded on religion. It would help unite our country as well as restore morals and values.

How about instead of an "I say so, so it's true" argument you give some solid evidence that our country was founded on religion
 
How about instead of an "I say so, so it's true" argument you give some solid evidence that our country was founded on religion

The US was not founded on religious belief but instead of equal religious freedom for all people regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof. Jefferson and Madison were adamant about this idea.

His declaration to Benjamin Rush that “I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man,” was made in the context of religious freedom: any government effort to control religious beliefs was “tyranny over the mind of man.”3

Jefferson saw religious freedom as essential for a functioning republic. Without religious freedom and a strict separation of church and state, “kings, nobles, and priests” threatened to create a dangerous aristocracy. As Peter Onuf explains, “Jefferson defined the old regime as an unholy alliance of ‘kings, nobles, and priests’ that divided the people in order to rule them.

Jefferson (serving in Paris as ambassador). Beating back the effort to impose religious taxes in a sometimes bitter legislative battle, the triumphant Madison was able to have Jefferson’s Statute adopted, one of the great successes of Jefferson’s life. Jefferson reported triumphantly that the legislative effort to insert “Jesus Christ” in the preamble to the Virginia Statute was defeated, establishing that religious freedom was “meant to comprehend, within the mantle of it’s protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination.”
 
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I don’t think there should be a separation. Our country was founded on religion. It would help unite our country as well as restore morals and values.

The state cannot enforce a religious morality because there are as many ideas of what is moral as who is or isn't god/s or what sect you belong to and obey. That action would be a blatant violation of both religious clauses of the First Amendment because the state would be enforcing a religious idea, which violates the strict separation of chich and state and it would be trampling on the religious and secular rights of people who were not a member of the religion or sect views being enforced.
Can you be forced to obey the hundreds of edicts of Islam, Buddhism, Eastern Orthodox, Catholicism, and Paganism among more than 100 other religions, or is it just your religious beliefs that others would be forced to comply with via the power of the state?
 
I don’t think there should be a separation. Our country was founded on religion. It would help unite our country as well as restore morals and values.

No our country was not founded on religion. Just ask the folks who founded it:

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries...Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?"
-James Madison

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution...In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not.”
-James Madison

"It was the belief of all sects at one time that the establishment of Religion by law, was right & necessary; that the true religion ought to be established in exclusion of every other; and that the only question to be decided was which was the true religion. The example of Holland proved that a toleration of sects, dissenting from the established sect, was safe & even useful. The example of the Colonies, now States, which rejected religious establishments altogether, proved that all Sects might be safely & advantageously put on a footing of equal & entire freedom.... We are teaching the world the great truth that Govts do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Gov. "
-James Madison,

"The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity."
-James Madison

"Mingling religion with politics may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America...All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
-Thomas Payne

"'The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion"
-John Adams

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

"I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvres to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Elbridge Gerry, 26 January 1799

"The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature: and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history... It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven... it will for ever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses... Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind.”
[A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States of America, 1787]”
― John Adams, The Political Writings of John Adams
 
You went here on your fourth post? Damn, go big or stay at home. I have yet to see you defend it though. Good luck with that. I won't be helping you as I am an atheist. However, you are just so so wrong as so many others are going to point out.
 
I don’t think there should be a separation. Our country was founded on religion. It would help unite our country as well as restore morals and values.

Which religion? Islam?
 
The US was not founded on religious belief but instead of equal religious freedom for all people regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof. Jefferson and Madison were adamant about this idea.

Ignoring the obvious. The United States when it was founded was overwhelmingly Christian and the founders had no reason to think it would ever be otherwise.
 
No our country was not founded on religion. Just ask the folks who founded it:

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries...Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?"
-James Madison

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution...In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not.”
-James Madison

"It was the belief of all sects at one time that the establishment of Religion by law, was right & necessary; that the true religion ought to be established in exclusion of every other; and that the only question to be decided was which was the true religion. The example of Holland proved that a toleration of sects, dissenting from the established sect, was safe & even useful. The example of the Colonies, now States, which rejected religious establishments altogether, proved that all Sects might be safely & advantageously put on a footing of equal & entire freedom.... We are teaching the world the great truth that Govts do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Gov. "
-James Madison,

"The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity."
-James Madison

"Mingling religion with politics may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America...All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit."
-Thomas Payne

"'The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion"
-John Adams

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

"I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvres to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Elbridge Gerry, 26 January 1799

"The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature: and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history... It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven... it will for ever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses... Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind.”
[A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States of America, 1787]”
― John Adams, The Political Writings of John Adams

1) Wow, you found four of the founding fathers to quote. One of which (Jefferson) is hideously overrated.
2) They're dead. No one cares anymore. A dead dog is greater than a living lion.
 
Ignoring the obvious. The United States when it was founded was overwhelmingly Christian and the founders had no reason to think it would ever be otherwise.

The founders wanted a system of religious freedom for all people and not an abusive theocracy of various Christian sects because that would have created a situation that was just beginning to be solved in western Europe where the Protestants and Catholics were warring for social and political control.

We would not have the 2 religious clauses in the First Amendment that separated church and the state and guaranteed religious freedom for all people equally as well as a ban on a religious test for civil servants if it were your way. God, Jesus, or christ as a religious endorsement appear nowhere in the Declaration', the Articles of Confederation or the US Constitution.

Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance against religious endorsements make this idea every clear. Madison opposed even having chaplains in Congress and the military because it was too much religious endorsement by the state. Patrick Henry wanted a relgious govenment but he was overruled.
 
1) Wow, you found two of the founding fathers to quote. One of which (Jefferson) is hideously overrated.
2) They're dead. No one cares anymore. A dead dog is greater than a living lion.

Two of those quotes are primary framers Of the Constitution. The other two are considered founding fathers. In case you’re counting, that’s four, not two.

————————
Now if you’re saying that you don’t care, then you’re no longer talking about the United States. You’re talking about a theocracy. There have been many examples of that throughout history, and none of them worked out too well. Europe in the dark ages and the Islamic Republic of Iran currently are some examples.

The reason religion as a moral unifier is not such a great idea is because:

1) it is too easy for clergy, prophets, and clever politicians to exploit for political gain and power. It’s easy to question an individual in power. It is much harder to question them when they are telling you what they want is God's will. When people are told something is God’s will, traditionally most people just obey blindly and without question. That has not proven to be such a great thing, at least for the people. But admittedly, it works great for the politicians and clergy.

2) It tends to close minds, eyes, and ears. If you think you know the ultimate truth in the word of God, there’s no reason to stay open to new ideas and new ways of doing things. That’s why some of the most backward and closed-minded areas of the world today are also usually the most religious.

Instead of being accountable to some God, we have found that we do better by consulting amongst ourselves, experimenting with ideas and seeing what works and what doesn’t. It is admittedly more messy and complicated. But at least for the last 200 years in the United States and Europe, has provided her happier, more stable, and more dynamic societies.
 
1) Wow, you found four of the founding fathers to quote. One of which (Jefferson) is hideously overrated.
2) They're dead. No one cares anymore. A dead dog is greater than a living lion.
There is no evidence that the US was ever envisioned as a Christian country, despite your attempts to spin it in that manner.

Madison, Adams, and Jefferson are three founders. The writings of Thomas Paine were critical in winning the revolution and that would be four.

Washington and Franklin were avowed deists and Freemasons.
 
Ignoring the obvious. The United States when it was founded was overwhelmingly Christian and the founders had no reason to think it would ever be otherwise.

It was never intended to be a Christian nation. They have had enough of religion being used as a political club to beat everyone else over the head with.

“ Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?"
-James Madison
 
1) Wow, you found four of the founding fathers to quote. One of which (Jefferson) is hideously overrated.
2) They're dead. No one cares anymore. A dead dog is greater than a living lion.

I hate to ask, but who is the “living lion”?
 
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I don’t think there should be a separation. Our country was founded on religion. It would help unite our country as well as restore morals and values.

Actually it wasnt but thanks for playing.
 
Ignoring the obvious. The United States when it was founded was overwhelmingly Christian and the founders had no reason to think it would ever be otherwise.

Irrelevant. Christianity can no longer ruin the lives of people that suffered under christendom.
 
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