Thread
O'Reilly's Most Ridiulous Item of the Day (yesterday) [san fran and free speech]
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Originally posted by boots: By allowing one religion (i.e Christianity) the right to be expressed without alternative expression (i.e In God we Trust; One nation, under God; etc.) |
You are making the assumption the word "God" is one of a Christian god. Don't other religions refer to "God" as well?
How about every few dollars we put: In Allah We Trust. Every few others: In Goddess We Trust. Etc.
I think that provision was to prevent the establishment of a state religion. If putting the word "God" on a dollar bill is establishing a religion, it shouldn't be done.
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Originally posted by joelcpa: Obviously the courts disagreed. |
The courts disagreed about the "inappropriate" part in one case. The other was not decided. (You read that far, right?)
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Originally posted by joelcpa: Re-read the constitution or if you're too lazy, zimphire's explanation above. Nevertheless, at least we can now see that your original point about the ACLU defending everyone's right to free speech was clearly wrong. |
No, it simply wasn't clearly understood.
I'll try to explain this carefully, so you understand: the ACLU's mission is to defend the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. The purpose of the Bill of Rights is to protect individual liberty from incursion by the government. Hence, the ACLU does not defend government agencies that post the 10 Commandments because the Bill of Rights is not intended to protect the government, only the individual and private agencies.
I love how conservatives try to spin the ACLU as some kind of liberal/atheist/pervert advocacy group. Conservatives always claimed to be against an intrusive, authoritarian government. Maybe that's just when they're not in power.
As for Zimphire's opinion, he's entitled to it. I don't agree with it; maxelson's argument is much closer to my own thoughts on the matter.
A last bit of trivia: the US Constitution makes no reference to God or a creator. I tend to think they didn't simply forget.
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Originally posted by davesimondotcom: You are making the assumption the word "God" is one of a Christian god. Don't other religions refer to "God" as well? |
No, this covers the "big three" but there are many that don't have a god figure (budhism) or multiple god figures (hindu).
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continued from davesimondotcom: I think that provision was to prevent the establishment of a state religion. If putting the word "God" on a dollar bill is establishing a religion, it shouldn't be done. |
The first part is debated by the "framers intent" and "letter of law" type people. I am not a lawyer, so I can't comment except to say I tend to agree more with the framer's intent people more often.
The second part is a battle yet to be waged...but I see it coming in the not too distant future.
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Originally posted by Nonsuch: As for Zimphire's opinion, he's entitled to it. I don't agree with it; maxelson's argument is much closer to my own thoughts on the matter. |
Then why isn't Bush's speeches deemed uncostitutional? Why was it during said time said thing was being written and a good while after, School were using the Bible to teach kids to read?
How come our "Founding Fathers" that wrote such things had no beef with this, but yet, now we do?
Do we know better than they as to what they meant?
I don't think so.
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Originally posted by Zimphire: How come our "Founding Fathers" that wrote such things had no beef with this, but yet, now we do? Do we know better than they as to what they meant? I don't think so. |
No, it is because there wasn't the same diversity of view. Not many buddist came over on the mayflower, ya know. There wasn't any reason to challenge it yet. Things have changed, and the framers same arguments still apply to the broader beliefs now espoused in this country.
Originally posted by Zimphire:
How come our "Founding Fathers" that wrote such things had no beef with this, but yet, now we do?
Do we know better than they as to what they meant?
Let's see:
Thomas Jefferson on religion:
"They believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition of their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. ...
"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State. ...
"If the obstacles of bigotry and priestcraft can be surmounted, we may hope that common sense will suffice to do everything else.
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot...
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for is faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."
John Adams on religion:
"The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooist brutality, is patently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with the dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes. ...
"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles. ...
"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religions in it."
Thomas Paine on religion:
"Practical religion consists in doing good: and the only way of serving God is that of endeavoring to make His creation happy. All preaching that has not this for its object is nonsense and hypocrisy. ...
"...any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system. ...
"Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good."
Special bonus non-Founding Father quote:
"The remaining part of the clause declares, that 'no religious test shall ever be required, as a qualification to any office or public trust, under the United States.' This clause is not introduced merely for the purpose of satisfying the scruples of many respectable persons, who feel an invincible repugnance to any test or affirmation. It had a higher object; to cut off for ever every pretence of any alliance between church and state in the national government. The framers of the constitution were fully sensible of the dangers from this source, marked out in history of other ages and countries; and not wholly unknown to our own. They knew that bigotry was unceasingly vigilant in its own stratagems, to secure to itself an exclusive ascendancy over the human mind; and that intolerance was ever ready to arm itself with all the terrors of civil power to exterminate those, who doubted its dogmas, or resisted its infallibility."
-- Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, by Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, Vol III, (1833) p 705.
How come our "Founding Fathers" that wrote such things had no beef with this, but yet, now we do?
Do we know better than they as to what they meant?
Let's see:
Thomas Jefferson on religion:
"They believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition of their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. ...
"But a short time elapsed after the death of the great reformer of the Jewish religion, before his principles were departed from by those who professed to be his special servants, and perverted into an engine for enslaving mankind, and aggrandizing their oppressors in Church and State. ...
"If the obstacles of bigotry and priestcraft can be surmounted, we may hope that common sense will suffice to do everything else.
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot...
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for is faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."
John Adams on religion:
"The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooist brutality, is patently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with the dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes. ...
"The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles. ...
"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religions in it."
Thomas Paine on religion:
"Practical religion consists in doing good: and the only way of serving God is that of endeavoring to make His creation happy. All preaching that has not this for its object is nonsense and hypocrisy. ...
"...any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system. ...
"Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good."
Special bonus non-Founding Father quote:
"The remaining part of the clause declares, that 'no religious test shall ever be required, as a qualification to any office or public trust, under the United States.' This clause is not introduced merely for the purpose of satisfying the scruples of many respectable persons, who feel an invincible repugnance to any test or affirmation. It had a higher object; to cut off for ever every pretence of any alliance between church and state in the national government. The framers of the constitution were fully sensible of the dangers from this source, marked out in history of other ages and countries; and not wholly unknown to our own. They knew that bigotry was unceasingly vigilant in its own stratagems, to secure to itself an exclusive ascendancy over the human mind; and that intolerance was ever ready to arm itself with all the terrors of civil power to exterminate those, who doubted its dogmas, or resisted its infallibility."
-- Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, by Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, Vol III, (1833) p 705.
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Originally posted by Zimphire: Then why isn't Bush's speeches deemed uncostitutional? |
Why should they be? His speeches aren't acts of public policy. Plenty of people have misgivings about the way Bush's faith informs his actions as President, but I haven't heard anyone argue that the Constitution bars him from speaking the way he does.
Now, his faith-based initiatives are a different story. That is an act of policy and has many people worried about its implications to church/state separation.