Church - State Confrontation

[CivilDiscourse]

But gun rights are Constitutional, national, not so with local prayer. And it never was a national thing until recently. You can not show one Founder who would have had a problem with local school prayer... And again - it is NOT Congress making a law...

Gun Rights are part of the 2A.

The prohibition on respecting the establishment of a religion is part of the 1A, just like Freedom of speech.

You don't get to pick and choose.

[CivilDiscourse]

I am fine for keeping forced religion out of schools, but I think that voluntary prayer should be allowed. If students and teachers want to pray on their own time, I am fine with that. Even islam and other religions.

For example, I don't think there should be a teacher led prayer time in a classroom, but I think that anyone should be free to pray say during lunch time or on recess, or at football games.

This I agree with.

[CivilDiscourse]

Anything from The Washington Post should be taken with a grain of salt. If you take time to read the writings of the Founding Fathers and take into account some of the earliest traditions established by the Government, it is abundantly clear that they viewed "religion" and "Christianity" as synonymous terms.

So did America have a Christian Founding? History is complicated, and we should always be suspicious of simple answers to difficult questions. As we have seen, there is precious little evidence that the Founders were deists, wanted religion excluded from the public square, or desired the strict separation of church and state. On the other hand, they identified themselves as Christians, were influenced in important ways by Christian ideas, and generally thought it appropriate for civic authorities to encourage Christianity.

What do these facts mean for Americans who embrace non-Christian faiths or no faith at all? Although the Founders were profoundly influenced by Christianity, they did not design a constitutional order only for fellow believers. They explicitly prohibited religious tests for federal offices, and they were committed to the proposition that all men and women should be free to worship God (or not) as their consciences dictate.

As evidenced by George Washington’s 1790 letter to a “Hebrew Congregation” in Newport, Rhode Island, the new nation was to be open to a wide array of individuals who were willing to assume the responsibilities of citizenship...

Yet it does not follow from this openness that Americans should simply forget about their country’s Christian roots. Anyone interested in an accurate account of the nation’s past cannot afford to ignore the important influence of faith on many Americans, from the Puritans to the present day.

Christian ideas underlie some key tenets of America’s constitutional order. For instance, the Founders believed that humans are created in the image of God, which led them to design institutions and laws meant to protect and promote human dignity. Because they were convinced that humans are sinful, they attempted to avoid the concentration of power by framing a national government with carefully enumerated powers. As well, the Founders were committed to liberty, but they never imagined that provisions of the Bill of Rights would be used to protect licentiousness. And they clearly thought moral considerations should inform legislation.

America has drifted from these first principles. We would do well to reconsider the wisdom of these changes.

The Founders believed it permissible for the national and state governments to encourage Christianity, but this may no longer be prudential in our increasingly pluralistic country. Yet the Constitution does not mandate a secular polity, and we should be wary of jurists, politicians, and academics who would strip religion from the public square. We should certainly reject arguments that America’s Founders intended the First Amendment to prohibit neutral programs that support faith-based social service agencies, religious schools, and the like.

Finally, we ignore at our peril the Founders’ insight that democracy requires a moral people and that faith is an important, if not indispensable, support for morality. Such faith may well flourish best without government support, but it should not have to flourish in the face of government hostility.

https://www.heritage.org/political-p...stian-founding

Anything from Heritage.org should be taken with a grain of salt.

Do you have any evidence that the founding fathers DID NOT consider islam (Turks/Mahutmen), Hindu (Hindoo), and other "religions" or are you just making assertions?

[seer]

Gun Rights are part of the 2A.

The prohibition on respecting the establishment of a religion is part of the 1A, just like Freedom of speech.

You don't get to pick and choose.

You are wrong again, there is NOTHING unconstitutional about a school district having a morning prayer. That is NOT congress MAKING A LAW. Not only that no one thought so for most of US history...

[CivilDiscourse]

You are wrong again, there is NOTHING unconstitutional about a school district having a morning prayer. That is NOT congress MAKING A LAW. Not only that no one thought so for most of US history...

It is unconstitutional when you (according to your own words) limit it to ONLY one religion.

You are picking and choosing which Rights from the bill of rights you accept and which ones you throw out. You are acting like a democrat.

[rogue06]

Anything from The Washington Post should be taken with a grain of salt. If you take time to read the writings of the Founding Fathers and take into account some of the earliest traditions established by the Government, it is abundantly clear that they viewed "religion" and "Christianity" as synonymous terms.

Would the various deists among them agree?

[CivilDiscourse]

Would the various deists among them agree?

I think many of them used the words interchangeably many times. The same way we might (today) use the word "theatre" and "movies" interchangeably. However, we also recognize that the words actually have distinct meanings, and if we needed to be precise (i.e. as in writing a law) we would be using the specific word we wanted, not the colloquial confusion of the word.

[seer]

It is unconstitutional when you (according to your own words) limit it to ONLY one religion.

Who says? Not the Constitution.

You are picking and choosing which Rights from the bill of rights you accept and which ones you throw out. You are acting like a democrat.

That is wrong, I am following the actual text.

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.

No matter how you or a leftist Court twist it, a school district having a morning prayer is NOT Congress making a LAW!

[Mountain Man]

Anything from Heritage.org should be taken with a grain of salt.

Do you have any evidence that the founding fathers DID NOT consider islam (Turks/Mahutmen), Hindu (Hindoo), and other "religions" or are you just making assertions?

I recommend reading the whole article. What I posted was just the conclusion.

[Mountain Man]

Would the various deists among them agree?

The prevalence of deism among the Founding Fathers is greatly exaggerated. That's another point the article I referenced touches on.

[seer]

The prevalence of deism among the Founding Fathers is greatly exaggerated. That's another point the article I referenced touches on.

Yes it is...

[CivilDiscourse]

Who says? Not the Constitution.



That is wrong, I am following the actual text.



No matter how you or a leftist Court twist it, a school district having a morning prayer is NOT Congress making a LAW!

Neither is a city council passing an ordinance on gun control, but you recognize that as a violation of the 2a. You keep picking excuses why you want one violation to be different from another. Double standard much?

[rogue06]

The prevalence of deism among the Founding Fathers is greatly exaggerated. That's another point the article I referenced touches on.

I'm not saying that their presence hasn't been exaggerated, but their existence cannot be simply ignored. The fact is that several founding fathers were deists, so the question still stands.

Do you think that the deists also viewed "religion" and "Christianity" as synonymous terms?

[Mountain Man]

I'm not saying that their presence hasn't been exaggerated, but their existence cannot be simply ignored. The fact is that several founding fathers were deists, so the question still stands.

Do you think that the deists also viewed "religion" and "Christianity" as synonymous terms?

I don't know. What I do know is that the majority of our Founding Fathers were openly Christian and considered the United States to be a Christian nation.

[tabibito]

Neither is a city council passing an ordinance on gun control, but you recognize that as a violation of the 2a. You keep picking excuses why you want one violation to be different from another. Double standard much?

From what I have seen,
one restricts the right of Congress to enact a law
the other restricts government as a whole from enacting laws.

So Congress can't enact laws restricting religion, and no government may enact laws restricting the ownership of weapons.
No double standard to be found.

Of course, there are legitimate reasons for restricting both, and in the case of religion, such laws are enacted.

As to the comment about religion with regard to the exactitude of definitions: the definition of religion prior to the 18th century was "a belief in God." At the time of writing the constitution, religion did not mean belief in a god.