ACLU..

[Exterminator]

There is one problem with your examples PH that I can see.  God is all inclusive and we are talking USA and citizens not immigrants or illegals rights.  No other country gives up their heritage for another countries or do they give a rats ass about it.  When you are in their country you adapt to their ways or don't stay if you don't like it they don't change to suit you.

WTF?  Are you implying that there aren't large groups of U.S. born citizens who belong to those other religions?

BTW, most of the immigrants to the U.S. are hispanics and most hispanics are Christians.  Aren't your Christian brethren important?  I mean, we're talking about god's family; aren't we?

[Palehorse]

There is one problem with your examples PH that I can see.  God is all inclusive and we are talking USA and citizens not immigrants or illegals rights.  No other country gives up their heritage for another countries or do they give a rats ass about it.  When you are in their country you adapt to their ways or don't stay if you don't like it they don't change to suit you.

BUT, a statue at one of our main ports of entry says,

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: 
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

doesn't it?

If we don't mean it then we need to take that bitch down too.

The whole basic premise of this country is freedom; religious, individual, speech, et al. And religious freedom doesn't just mean the right to practice your chosen faith, but also the right NOT to practice any faith or belief in a higher being at all. Freedom OF religion.

This nation's heritage is comprised of every culture of the world, and the right to practice that culture within the laws of the land.

If you are going to deny that, then what is this country's heritage? That it came to this land, slaughtered it's native peoples, forced organized religion upon those that remained, and raped the resources?

[me]

No one is saying they shouldn't have a right to their beliefs but we should not have to change our heritage to comply they are supposed to adapt which means they should accept our differences too not the other way around. If you come to live in my home I will respect your ways but will not adapt or change mine to suit yours too I will instead expect you to also respect mine. 

[Henry Hawk]

Continue to take things out of context and spin them to mean whatever you'd like, Henry.  And BTW, you keep telling us how your source is the Library of Congress but your 'proof' can be found all over the internet on right-wing sites, almost verbatim and presented in exactly the same order as you present it.  Coincidence?  Do you really think we're all that freakin' stupid?

THERE is NO spin ... it is all on the Library of Congress  ..big f'ind deal if others are also using it as a source...it is STILL a valid source with NO SPIN...I am beginning to think that you may very well be that stupid....(you asked for that one.. )

[Henry Hawk]

Times change, society changes, and with it the importance of adhering to those attributes as they were set back then. With the growth of religions, cultures, and society in general, came the magnification of conflicts within current practices and the intent of the founding documentation; and religion is a big one these days bucko.

so screw our heritage...and you are getting sidetracked from my question....did our FF's endorse religion for the common good of the people...the answer is YES they did.........bucko!
[/quote]

[Palehorse]

No one is saying they shouldn't have a right to their beliefs but we should not have to change our heritage to comply they are supposed to adapt which means they should accept our differences too not the other way around. If you come to live in my home I will respect your ways but will not adapt or change mine to suit yours too I will instead expect you to also respect mine.

Running to and fro bowing, praying, squealing, and collecting money on behalf of some higher being is NOT our heritage! Freedom IS. Freedom from it, freedom of it, as well as the freedom to do so if it is what you want to do.

You know, now that I've thought of it perhaps we ought to use Hanks little laundry list as a to do list. Take every single item on that list that still exists and eliminate them. Then, pass a resolution that admits to the error of our earlier administrations and apologizing for them to the entire nation.

Public displays within government of a religious nature, sponsorship of any religious group or a group that practices religious discrimination, etc. are against the law constitutionally. How is that so hard to understand for anyone? (Because their religious fervor blinds them to the truth).

I'll just bet you that if displaying the cross were suddenly deemed against the law the xtians would run squalling to the ACLU for help with that discrimination.And just watch when we remove their meal ticket, (tax exempt status).

[Henry Hawk]

Public displays within government of a religious nature, sponsorship of any religious group or a group that practices religious discrimination, etc. are against the law constitutionally. How is that so hard to understand for anyone? (Because their religious fervor blinds them to the truth).

Patronize me and show me where in the Constitution, does it say what you say it does....

"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."

Nowhere does the First Amendment suggest that Christianity cannot be heard in the public square....

I have read the true intention of the religion clause in the First Amendment: it goes like this,

"Regarding religion, the First Amendment was intended to accomplish three purposes. First, it was intended to prevent the establishment of a national church or religion, or the giving of any religious sect or denomination a preferred status. Second, it was designed to safeguard the right of freedom of conscience in religious beliefs against invasion solely by the national Government. Third, it was so constructed in order to allow the States, unimpeded, to deal with religious establishments and aid to religious institutions as they saw fit."

[Palehorse]

so screw our heritage...and you are getting sidetracked from my question....did our FF's endorse religion for the common good of the people...the answer is YES they did.........bucko!

Wrong again. They may have endorsed the ideal and freedom of/ from religion but in no case was it to be a part of government. Ouakers, Protestants, Jews, Pig Suckers, whatever. Don't matter. They don't lead.

Get a group of these braying jackasses together today and you won't find them any more able to agree upon anything than they were 233 years ago. They know it now and they knew it back then; which is why they wanted it kept separate from the government.

Our "heritage" is a fuggen joke. We came to a foreign land and killed its native peoples, raping the land and enslaving people of other races. Then we killed each other over it for a few years, then ignored the results for a lot more years.

We created documents and a constitution to free us of the yoke of religion and 233 years later bible thumpers try to twist its meanings just as they twist the source and intent of their religion's own icon and text, and for the very same motivation; wealth and power over the masses.

Christianity has slaughtered billions in the name of "God" over history, so it's "heritage" is just as tainted as that of this nation.

You ain't fooling me, you zealots are just as much a threat as 25 middle eastern terrorists with a bus load of nukes. The founding fathers knew it too, even back then. And you can't change the language on the paper.

[Exterminator]

THERE is NO spin ... it is all on the Library of Congress  ..big f'ind deal if others are also using it as a source...it is STILL a valid source with NO SPIN...I am beginning to think that you may very well be that stupid....(you asked for that one.. )

Yes, but the sources you got it from take it out of context and spin it to mean what they want it to say and you are gullible enough to believe them, ergo, my presumption that you are not reading all of the information and forming your own opinion is absolutely correct.

And I ain't stupid, yer stupid!

[Palehorse]

Patronize me and show me where in the Constitution, does it say what you say it does....

"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."

Nowhere does the First Amendment suggest that Christianity cannot be heard in the public square....

I have read the true intention of the religion clause in the First Amendment: it goes like this,

"Regarding religion, the First Amendment was intended to accomplish three purposes. First, it was intended to prevent the establishment of a national church or religion, or the giving of any religious sect or denomination a preferred status. Second, it was designed to safeguard the right of freedom of conscience in religious beliefs against invasion solely by the national Government. Third, it was so constructed in order to allow the States, unimpeded, to deal with religious establishments and aid to religious institutions as they saw fit."

You answer one of your own questions. (see bold) And yes that include Christianity!

Now who in hell's half acre said you can't stand in the middle of the square in a loincloth and spew your religious propaganda until you expire? I never did. Have at it kiddo, I couldn't care less.

But you cannot display upon a government building anything connected to religion. Now, point out some of that for me on governmental property and I'll start the lawsuit to have it taken down as soon as I can afford to do so.

[LOsborne]

You want me to PROVE that the Continental Congress in 1782, gave money to the mass printing and distribution of the Bibles?...

Oh wow. This just occurred to me. Ben Franklin was a printer. If the Continental Congress actually paid for the "mass printing and distribution of the Bibles," is this evidence that pork barrel spending was the norm even before this country won independence?

[Palehorse]

Oh wow. This just occurred to me. Ben Franklin was a printer. If the Continental Congress actually paid for the "mass printing and distribution of the Bibles," is this evidence that pork barrel spending was the norm even before this country won independence?

LMFAO! Good one! 

[dan foster]

so screw our heritage...and you are getting sidetracked from my question....did our FF's endorse religion for the common good of the people...the answer is YES they did.........bucko!

They may have done exactly as you say, but it was in private or at a church, where it belongs.  Provide a single quote from the Constitution (the construct from which our entire government AND legal heritage comes from) that supports the gov't to be involved with such endorsements.

[dan foster]

so screw our heritage...and you are getting sidetracked from my question....did our FF's endorse religion for the common good of the people...the answer is YES they did.........bucko!

Ahhh.  I don't think Jefferson did.  Was Jefferson a Founder?

"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose."

[Thomas Jefferson, to Baron von Humboldt, 1813; from George Seldes, ed., The Great Quotations, Secaucus, New Jersey: Citadel Press, 1983, p. 370]

"On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind."

[Thomas Jefferson, to Carey, 1816]

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his 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."

[Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT. "The Complete Jefferson" by Saul K. Padover, pp 518-519]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

[dan foster]

THERE is NO spin ... it is all on the Library of Congress  so screw our heritage...and you are getting sidetracked from my question....did our FF's endorse religion for the common good of the people...the answer is YES they did.........bucko![/i].. )

Ahhh.   Thomas Paine didn't think so.  Is Thomas Paine a Founder?

All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
-- Thomas Paine, (1737-1809), The Age of Reason, pt. 1, "The Author's Profession of Faith" (1794), quoted from The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations

Any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system.
-- Thomas Paine, as quoted by Joseph Lewis in Inspiration and Wisdom from the Writings of Thomas Paine (which contains no pagination or source citations)

It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man.
-- Thomas Paine, as quoted by Joseph Lewis in Inspiration and Wisdom from the Writings of Thomas Paine (which contains no pagination or source citations)

There is scarcely any part of science, or anything in nature, which those imposters and blasphemers of science, called priests, as well Christians as Jews, have not, at some time or other, perverted, or sought to pervert to the purpose of superstition and falsehood.
-- Thomas Paine, as quoted by Joseph Lewis in Inspiration and Wisdom from the Writings of Thomas Paine (which contains no pagination or source citations)

The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on nothing; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing and admits of no conclusion.
-- Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (1793-5), quoted from Jonathon Green, The Cassell Dictionary of Cynical Quotations

Everything wonderful in appearance has been ascribed to angels, to devils, or to saints. Everything ancient has some legendary tale annexed to it. The common operations of nature have not escaped their practice of corrupting everything.
-- Thomas Paine, as quoted by Joseph Lewis in Inspiration and Wisdom from the Writings of Thomas Paine (which contains no pagination or source citations)

No falsehood is so fatal as that which is made an article of faith.
-- Thomas Paine, as quoted by Joseph Lewis in Inspiration and Wisdom from the Writings of Thomas Paine (which contains no pagination or source citations)