imported post
AWDstylez wrote:
Oh the irony...
Something about, congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...
How would you feel if the money said "In Alah We Trust" or "In Budda We Trust" or "In Ourselves We Trust"?
Who says it doesn't? It doesn't say "In Christ we Trust" or "In the Christian God we Trust". It says "In God We Trust". Allah is just another name for God in a different language. Buddha was a man and Buddhism is a belief in the nature of suffering to achieve enlightenment, so Buddhist who don't believe in god can view IGWT as In suffering we trust. And so on with Shinto-ists, Mormons, Wiccans etc.
And what do Atheists really care? If they don't believe in god then tough, though the minority may be protected they do not have the right to subjugate the majority.
You are correct, congress shall make no law establishing a religion. And if the money said, in the pope we trust, or in Buddha we trust then that is establishing a religion. Having faith in a Supernatural being isn't a religion...its faith and they are completely different things. If one would follow your thought pattern then the Big Bang theory or Evolution shouldn't be taught in schools because that is the sanctioning of a scientific religion.
You see AWD, you wish to challenge my assertion by thinking that I am some xenophobic bible thumper, hell, you even assume that i am a judeo-christian and maybe even an evangelical from the right...nothing could be farther from the truth. But I do believe that our rights were bestowed upon us by some higher power and I will not stand silent while the belief is stepped on.
Brad Corwin: Jefferson strongly supported the separation of church and state....
True...but he didn't support separation of church FROM state. Else nowhere in his writings would he have included any reference to a Natural God, Creator etc. that bestowed anything like that. He was against the National Church of America. A church where you HAD to belong to it and any other type of worship was punished. That is what jefferson was against. God is a universal term and can be applied to many religions and simply because it is printed on our money does not force non-believers into becoming believers.
As for you Yale:
don't have to believe in a god to believe that all people, regardless of gender, race or even nationality, have certain basic human rights which are well articulated in the BoRs. Freedom to assemble, petition government, worship (or not worship), freedom to be secure in your home with your property and, of course, the freedom to own weapons to defend yourself are all rights anyone should be expected to have no mater who you are, where you live and what you believe in.
Any right granted by the goodness of man can quickly be taken by the basest of man. The First and Second amendment rights not bestowed by a higher power? Then they were bestowed by man and can quickly be scratched out by man. But then we cry out "Those are our unalienable rights" and we are replied with "Men over two hundred years ago wrote these rights and they were wrong, times have changed and you no longer have these rights".
Your belief or non-belief is of no concern of mine. Much like the war protestor who still lives in freedom because of the soldier, so do non-believers garner the rights bestowed upon all by the creator.
I'll place my sacrosanct second amendment rights in god's hands instead of Barack Obama's.