Florida, cutting edge leaders in trampling the constitution.

[S4L]

your information about Madison illustrates exactly his stance.....he was not anti religion, he did not object to the presence of religous representatives. He was opposed to them being paid by the US Gov.

The reason that "religious statues" of all sorts cannot be in federal buildings is simple.

By having the 10 commandments, in a federal building.....the gov. is in fact supporting, sponsoring and promoting one religion over any of the many religions that exhist.

people would be going crazy if we were talking about Muslim religious works or Bubhist idols. People like to be outraged that prayer is not allowed in school, yet if Muslims tried to pray in school they would be crucified.

Bingo

 

[BusaWhipped]

The reason that "religious statues" of all sorts cannot be in federal buildings is simple.

By having the 10 commandments, in a federal building.....the gov. is in fact supporting, sponsoring and promoting one religion over any of the many religions that exhist.

What religion is the Government establishing by having the 10 Commandments in a Federal building?

 

[moloko]

What religion is the Government establishing by having the 10 Commandments in a Federal building?

uhhhh, Judaism and Christianity... or was that a trick question?

Would you want this written on the wall of a federal building?

Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Creation,

The compassionate, the Merciful,

King of Judgment- day!

You alone we worship, and to You alone

we pray for help.

Guide us to the straight path

The path of those whom You have favoured,

Not of those who have incurred Your wrath,

Nor of those who have gone astray.

I sure wouldn't!!

In their wisdom, they decided that the government should stay out of religion. That is not the same as separation of Church and State. I seriously doubt that they intended their words to be used to support removal of crosses from monuments, blasting the 10 Commandments off of walls of governemnt buildings, blasting statues of Moses off of goverment buildings, rewriting the National Anthem and Pledge alegence to remove God, and the Sperationalists list goes on and on. Eventually, Separationalists will want the Declaration of Independence, The US Constitution, and all 50 State Constitutions be rewritten to remove all references to God.

There is all this talk of, oh we're gonna become a Muslim run government, blah blah, oh the horror! How is that any scarier than the Christian government?

Oh, you don't want Muslim symbols on your monuments? Well i'll tell ya what, non Christians don't want crosses on their monuments!

I use Muslims as an example simply because everyone wants to bash on 'em, Is scared of 'em, whatever. Hey, ya know what? Just another extremist group using fairy tales as truth to control nations of people.

Also, the pledge was modified (rewritten) in 1954 to include 'under god'

The National Anthem was a poem.. that just happend to end up becoming a very popular patriotic song and adopted as our Anthem. It wasn't purpose written as our countrys song. 'In God we trust' is taken from this song, oh, and get this... it was adopted as our motto when??? 1956. They were on a roll in the 50's weren't they.

All of that aside...

Religion has always been involved very heavily in politics, and it's been a huge downfall to civilization. Why do we keep letting imaginary men in the sky give us reason to destroy ourselves or each other? I just simply don't get it. It's incredibly counter productive, and just plain silly. Think about it...

I could move off somewhere, raise a group of youngsters to believe that Jack and the Beanstalk is real, I'd be considered a wacko, sick, demented cult leader. BUT, what if Jack and the Beanstalk is as real to me as Jesus is to you?

 

[BusaWhipped]

There is all this talk of, oh we're gonna become a Muslim run government, blah blah, oh the horror! How is that any scarier than the Christian government?

I'm just going to address this part for now. The belief that we will become a Muslim run Government is the same intolerant extremist attitude exactly opposite the intolerant extremist attitude wanting all religion obliterated from Government.

 

[moloko]

I'm just going to address this part for now. The belief that we will become a Muslim run Government is the same intolerant extremist attitude exactly opposite the intolerant extremist attitude wanting all religion obliterated from Government.

I think the attitude wanting all religion obliterated from the Government is more of a 'trying to save you from yourselves' attitude as opposed to outright intolerance.

I could care less if you believe in God personally. I don't think that makes you any less interesting, actually perhaps even more interesting, especially if you think the earth is only 5k years old, and we rode the dinosaurs around like the flinstones hehe. I don't think it makes you a bad person or no fun to be around etc. I do find it silly though. =P

I care a lot about having God play a part in our government, our dealings with other nations, etc. Religion only divides people and I don't think anything good has ever come from mixing religion and government. There are just simply too many different beliefs to use any one set of them to rule the world, or even a single country for that matter.

 

[BusaWhipped]

What religion is the Government establishing by having the 10 Commandments in a Federal building?

I guess its been long enough to allow those who wanted to respond. The answer is none.

Establishment of as defined in the Constitution requires the passing of a law which has not been done. However, we have been told in this thread that the words written in the Constitution can't be used to determine whether something is Constitutional or not, and that any promotion of a religion is sufficient to define establishment based on some recent court rulings. BTW, the definition by court ruling keeps changing because folks don't think the actual text of the Constitution needs ot be taken into consideration.

moloco makes many excellent points regarding when some of the expansion of "promoting" religion happened. Promotion of religion did, however, start with the first founding documents of this country and the republic for which it stands. God was written into the Declaration of Independence and the constitution was "Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven".

In the Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687 (1994), Justice David Souter, writing for the majority, concluded that "government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion." So that brings us back to the 10 Commandments displayed in or on Federal buildings. It may be the promotion of religion in general. However, general promotion of religion isn't preferring one religion to another.

As moloco pointed out, the 10 Commandments are part of the Jewish and Christian religions, so which of those are we promoting? Let's add little more confusion to the argument. Moses is one of the prophets of Islam. Moses receiving the 10 Commandments from Alla is part of their religion as well. So are we promoting the Jewish, Christian, or Muslin religion? Since there are slight variations in the wording when translated, one could argue that picking a selected translation would be promoting that specific religion over the others. Within the Christian religion, there are several versions of the 10 Commandments as well, so would we be promoting Catholicism over Baptism? How many people can look at the 10 Commandments on a wall somewhere and identify which religion or version is being displayed?

moloco, in response to "Religion has always been involved very heavily in politics, and it's been a huge downfall to civilization." That is not entirely correct. As James Madison wrote in his papers prior to authoring the Constitution, intollerance of religion is one of the major causes of the fall of the prior republics. It is intollerance that leads to division, warfair, and demise. Not just the intollerance of those who believe to those who don't, but intollerance of one religion by another. Muslems and Jews today are an excellent example of the latter.

Personally, if a new Courthouse was build in my neighborhood, it wouldn't matter to me whether the 10 Commandments were on the wall or not. My concern with this topic is not with regard to strenthening my religion, and I definately don't want our Government involved in the business of religion. I do care about our rights continually being diluted by political correctness and special interests.

 

[BusaWhipped]

There are just simply too many different beliefs to use any one set of them to rule the world, or even a single country for that matter.

I agree. However, your belief that religion is silly is no more or less important than my belief that God and Jesus are real. There needs to be tolerance on all sides. I think this thread is an excellent example of how people with varying beliefs can come together and voice their beliefs civilly.

I don't expect this thread alone will change anybody point of view, I only hope that maybe it will encourage some folks to do their own research and come to their own conclusions.