We believe in your right to freely exercise your religion, but resist anyone’s attempt to establish Christianity or any other religion as the National Religion, whether in name or in action.

I may not be a worthy opponent, but passing judgment on the spirituality of others is above my pay grade.

LOL, you mean someone else who completely mangles an interpretation of the First Amendment? You embarrassed yourself with that one, dude.

You’re a nice guy, Jim, but you often write like you’re hitting the bottle. Sober up before the next comment.

You can say that again. Fly weight.

Clearly my posts have failed when all they have attracted are a few ankle biters.

I forgot to add another quaint and old-fashioned symbol Democratic candidates begrudgingly and irritably drag out to satisfy the uneducated (or would re-educated be a better descriptor) and unwashed masses, the American flag. How corny and demeaning.

Actually, he was Senate Majority Whip for 2 years, but lost re-election to the post to Bobby Byrd.

>Perhaps the most extraordinary testament to Ted Kennedy is that for the many decades he spent in the Senate, he NEVER sought a leadership position (that would have been his for the asking).

You may want to brush the dust off that quaint old document that created our country and read it, talking crazy shit about inalienable natural rights endowed to us by a freaking ‘creator’

Among them the right not to believe in a creator.

and not a government?

So who is the government to say that I can’t be free from religion?

Maybe they understood from past experience the weakness and frailty of rights endowed by men.

So it’s the creator of the universe, and not men, who decreed that we have the right to bear (I almost succumbed to the NRA’s misreading and said “own”) arms and to not incriminate ourselves? Just how, other than to read the decrees of men, are we to know what these rights are?

the willingness to at least admit we are not smart enough to say we know for sure there is not a creator

Torture the language much to inverse the burden? You’re the one who insists that there is a creator and we cannot be free of such a belief.

I’m with Richard Dawkins; I don’t know there is not a creator just as I don’t know that there aren’t fairies at the bottom of my garden — or a Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Asgard, etc. I’m smart enough to understand just how stupid and intellectually dishonest your argument is.

Don’t fault Jim for not knowing the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Consitution as well as the Bill of Rights.

I love when incoherent statements are backed up with the admonition to go read something.

My characterization of the role of religion in the US government and it’s free expression, is entirely accurate. And moreover, the single wisest thing the founders did, among many wise things, was insist on the establishment clause. I think in your super-heated reaction to this you’re missing the point–official religion, always and everywhere ends up persecuting other religions, and the non-religious. That’s what the founders understood very well, and what they sought to protect their new country from.

This is well tread ground by now, but most of the foudners were deists, and not full-on Christians. They were products of the Enlightenment and their “holiest” models were the Greeks and the Romans–people like Cicero, Quintilian, and Demonsthenes.

I hate to sound smug, but you’re the one who could probably afford to crack open a book on this topic.

In one of those books you might discover the historian Richard Gummere write, “It is fair to say that Plutarch was to the rebellion what Cicero was to the Declaration and Aristotle and Polybius to the Constitution.”

No doubt religion played a role in all of this, but it was far, far from central.

And there are plenty of religions, including some with significant presence in the US, that don’t assert the existence of omnipotent creators like the one in the Mosaic religions. Would you afford freedom from establishment of religion only to people who belong to monotheistic religions, on the grounds that freedom is granted by a creator, the same grounds on which you would deny it to atheists?

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” [my emphasis]

You may want to brush the dust off that quaint old document that created our country and read it, talking crazy shit about inalienable natural rights endowed to us by a freaking ‘creator’ and not a government?

Now why would they agree to think such a thing, much less say such a thing on paper. They weren’t fools were they? Maybe they understood from past experience the weakness and frailty of rights endowed by men.

This is what makes our country unique Dan, and the willingness to at least admit we are not smart enough to say we know for sure there is not a creator. Because once man gets this smart and assured of your own intelligence, is when we begin to rely on man, once again, to endow us with alienable government rights. How’s that worked out in other countries Dan?

You might want to dust off that history book as well.

That’s not what the polls say Anna, when citizens are ask if they believe there is a god? And further, if you are right, then why is it atheist politicians feel in necessary to grovel before the alter of belief, hell even sitting in a church for 20 years listing to the ravings of a quirky reverend, in order to pay his deity dues?

Now, what did I say above that was not true regarding the behavior of government worshipers that have gotten total power in past history. It may take 50 years, but nothing can stifle and break the spirit of man forever. And it is religious leaders in those government dominated countries atheist fear the most……and for good reason.

Why did you and spill the beans?

I love when incoherent statements are backed up with the admonition to go read something.

My characterization of the role of religion in the US government and it’s free expression, is entirely accurate. And moreover, the single wisest thing the founders did, among many wise things, was insist on the establishment clause. I think in your super-heated reaction to this you’re missing the point–official religion, always and everywhere ends up persecuting other religions, and the non-religious. That’s what the founders understood very well, and what they sought to protect their new country from.

This is well tread ground by now, but most of the foudners were deists, and not full-on Christians. They were products of the Enlightenment and their “holiest” models were the Greeks and the Romans–people like Cicero, Quintilian, and Demonsthenes.

I hate to sound smug, but you’re the one who could probably afford to crack open a book on this topic.

In one of those books you might discover the historian Richard Gummere write, “It is fair to say that Plutarch was to the rebellion what Cicero was to the Declaration and Aristotle and Polybius to the Constitution.”

No doubt religion played a role in all of this, but it was far, far from central.