The Oklahoma Supreme Court rules against 10 Commndment monument

[Leonhard]

I'm not sure the Ten Commandments are a founding document, but I don't get why they can't be in a Court House.

[Sam]

The 3/5 compromise reduced the slave owner's influence without completely taking away the voice of the slaves.

Was this sentence intended to be so weirdly ironic?

[Jaecp]

Was this sentence intended to be so weirdly ironic?

Wouldn't that require your average internet conservative to be able to understand irony?

[Tassman]

Wouldn't that require your average internet conservative to be able to understand irony?

Chortle!

[Bill the Cat]

Wouldn't that require your average internet conservative to be able to understand irony?

I'm assuming you have proof that they don't...

[Sea of red]

I'm assuming you have proof that they don't...

The entire civics forums.

[Bill the Cat]

The entire civics forums.

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[Tassman]

If that's "what the founders wanted", rather than what the culture of the day had established, then they did a pretty bad job of writing the Constitution. You can whine about "leftists" all you want ... the fact that the Constitution does not allow the preference of one religion above others is now a closed subject. Opposition from would-be crusaders or jihadists won't change that.

And this is the point seer refuses to acknowledge.

Whatever may have occurred in the states according to the cultural and/or religious practices of the day, they were not sanctioned by the supreme law of the United States, namely the Constitution. The Constitution is resolutely secular and one can only assume that the founding fathers knew what they were doing when they drafted it...even though many Christian preachers at the time attacked it specifically because it lacked any overt protection or promotion of Christianity.

Thus we have the absurdity of contemporary conservative Christians arguing that their religious beliefs are actually embedded in the text by implication when, at the time The Constitution was being voted on, they complained that it was too secular.

[Jaecp]

The entire civics forums.

Lol, and how about that obviously fake abortion website that got them in a huff.

There's good reasons why almost all comedy is done by liberals

[seer]

Thus we have the absurdity of contemporary conservative Christians arguing that their religious beliefs are actually embedded in the text by implication when, at the time The Constitution was being voted on, they complained that it was too secular.

I never claimed that. But the establishment clause was never meant to prevent a religious monument on public ground. It was meant for one thing - to prevent the establishment of a National Church.

[Tassman]

I never claimed that. But the establishment clause was never meant to prevent a religious monument on public ground. It was meant for one thing - to prevent the establishment of a National Church.

"The First Amendment's Establishment Clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” This clause not only forbids the government from establishing an official religion, but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion over another. It also prohibits the government from unduly preferring religion over non-religion, or non-religion over religion".

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/establishment_clause

The erection of a Judeo/Christian monument outside the Oklahoma capitol building is clearly favouring "one religion over another" and "preferring religion over non-religion". Hence the monument must be removed.

[Starlight]

Have it your say Sam... BTW - are you still a Christian?

I love it. No better way to show how wrapped up Christian identity with nationalism is in your mind than to start questioning another's faith when he points out that lip service to a "religious ideal" at the start of the nation doesn't justify religious icons placed on public property.

I think seer's implicit question is "Sam, have my terrible arguments in favor of Christianity made you despair and abandon it yet?"

Sam reminds me of myself 10 years ago... I was constantly wincing at Christians holding terrible theology and advocating silly ideas and views. For the most part I was able to mentally write it off as "those American fundamentalists are cuckoo and not real Christians". It was only when it became clear that the vast majority of mainstream Christians in my own country were dead set against gay rights that the falling piano crushed the camel's back and I washed my hands of the whole thing. I could tolerate stupid, but I wasn't going to continue to belong to a group actively promoting evil and oppression.

[seer]

"The First Amendment's Establishment Clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” This clause not only forbids the government from establishing an official religion, but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion over another. It also prohibits the government from unduly preferring religion over non-religion, or non-religion over religion".

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/establishment_clause

The erection of a Judeo/Christian monument outside the Oklahoma capitol building is clearly favouring "one religion over another" and "preferring religion over non-religion". Hence the monument must be removed.

Really Tass, where did the founders say that the government could not prefer one religion over another (apart from establishment)? They did just the opposite and did favor the Christian religion both on the Federal and State level. Your idea is a recent legal invention by radical courts.

The Continental-Confederation Congress, a legislative body that governed the United States from 1774 to 1789, contained an extraordinary number of deeply religious men. The amount of energy that Congress invested in encouraging the practice of religion in the new nation exceeded that expended by any subsequent American national government. Although the Articles of Confederation did not officially authorize Congress to concern itself with religion, the citizenry did not object to such activities. This lack of objection suggests that both the legislators and the public considered it appropriate for the national government to promote a nondenominational, nonpolemical Christianity.

Congress appointed chaplains for itself and the armed forces, sponsored the publication of a Bible, imposed Christian morality on the armed forces, and granted public lands to promote Christianity among the Indians. National days of thanksgiving and of "humiliation, fasting, and prayer" were proclaimed by Congress at least twice a year throughout the war. Congress was guided by "covenant theology," a Reformation doctrine especially dear to New England Puritans, which held that God bound himself in an agreement with a nation and its people. This agreement stipulated that they "should be prosperous or afflicted, according as their general Obedience or Disobedience thereto appears." Wars and revolutions were, accordingly, considered afflictions, as divine punishments for sin, from which a nation could rescue itself by repentance and reformation.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel04.html

[seer]

I could tolerate stupid, but I wasn't going to continue to belong to a group actively promoting evil and oppression.

As we have see Star, in your godless universe there is no objective evil, just opinion. So your opinion on this matter is really meaningless.

[Starlight]

As we have see Star, in your godless universe there is no objective evil, just opinion. So your opinion on this matter is really meaningless.