Separation of church and state

This is perhaps your most ridiculous attempt at revisionism yet. The founders were fundamentally men of the Enlightenment - Ben Franklin was both a statesman and a scientist, for God's sake! The notion that the framers of the Constitution were somehow opposed to the advancement of human knowledge, that they fundamentally feared it, is completely ridiculous. Franklin was one of the great scientific minds of his day; this means of communication we're using now is based on his original discoveries. Jefferson was a statesman, historian, inventor, architect.The US Constitution is a document that embraces change, embraces the advancement of knowledge. The founders were men engaged in an act of overturning tradition - the tradition of divine-sanctioned rule by kings - not men who feared change. Change was the entire point of the nation.There's nothing in any of the founding documents or the writings of the founders that suggests that their greatest fear is that one day humans would know too much. You're just making history up, at this point. Sorry, buddy. Taking incredibly counterfactual positions frequently leaves you out in the cold.

Is it is. Tyranny of the majority is not allowed in this country. If a majority of voters decided that catholics could not run for office do you think it would be allowed. You have a very poor understanding of the constitution and how things work. The courts would find the law unconsitutional and over turn it. No matter what the voters decided.We are seeing this play out in California right now.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

I think what he's saying is that there's no way to stop voters from voting against a candidate because they don't like his religion or sexuality.He's right about that, at least, but that's not any form of "religion having a major role in government." That's voters being prejudiced.

It existed, it was probably debated amongst the founders. It existed in the thoughts of Jefferson and 1 or 2 other founders. It didn’t exist in an important sense to most of the founders, or it would be in the Constitution. My inclusion of Joseph Story’s name in the above paragraph was careless of me, though a very minor detail in the entire context. If that’s a big deal to you, keep hammering on it. Would the meaning of that paragraph have been completely gone with his name absent? Would you have had no comment on it then? The constitution shows a mistrust of human governance. The way political power is carefully divided among people who are up for re-election every so often. Humanism/secularism shows no mistrust of human governance, by specific humans.The general Christian tradition conveyed to the founders a "prime importance of conscience, a strict personal morality, an understanding of human dignity as well as depravity, and a conviction that vital religion could contribute importantly to the general welfare."http://www.thelockeinstitute.org/...s/luminary_v2_n1_p4.html If a source is valid for one thing, it doesn’t automatically mean it’s valid for everything. Some things about it can be more verifiable than others. As one against a group, I'll respond as I see fit to stay on topic. If you think I missed something relevant, present it again - make it convincing that it's important to the topic, use as many words as you need. Then I'll reconsider addressing it.

Misinterpreted what he said. His arguments have been so beyond the pale that I guess I assume the most ridiculous argument. You hit it on the head. Always his arguments are based upon some warped attempt at revisionist history, but he doesn't even seem to know history. Just knows how to parrot fundie talking points.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

But it is in the Constitution, in the form of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from establishing a state religion or from prohibiting the free exercise of any religion. True, but the Bible doesn't. The message of the Bible is "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's"; the Bible's message is obedience to governing figures, not skepticism about their legitimacy or governance. Quite wrong. Secularism embraces the notion of flawed human governance and applies skepticism to the actions of governing figures. The Christian approach to governance is to identify the individuals who are most "Godly" and then unquestioningly obey them, because God won't let them make mistakes.

I don't think that anyone here has ever argued that separation of church and state hasn't evolved. If that's your only point, we could have cut this thread quite short. Ah, I see you're branching out, displaying your ignorance in new and different fields.Science follows the principal of methodological naturalism. This simply means that it restricts its areas of inquiry to what can be found in the natural world. If we cannot perceive it with our senses, science doesn't deal with it. This doesn't mean that science says the supernatural doesn't exist. It means science doesn't address it. Science is against religion the same way that chess is. In other words, not at all. Thus, promotion of science is not any kind of attack on religion, nor does it even imply that there's anything wrong with religion. It simply doesn't address religion.Now, explain to me why the government should be allowed to promote religion to offset something that has nothing to do with religion. Are you serious!?! I can name at least five different places off the top of my head to find U.S. Supreme Court opinions in full, and several more that give summaries. A simple google search would find those plus hundreds of others. I suspect that your real problem is that the demagogic neocons that you're relying on just aren't telling you the whole story.You know what the difference is between you and me? You read what one side says and swallow it hook, line and sinker. I read what all sides have to say, then check what the courts actually say, then come to my own conclusion, mostly based on what the courts actually say. That's the difference between you and me (well, among other things). Neither do I. I'm relying on what I learned in law school, plus what I find on the internet. I'm willing to go this far. I'll agree with you that you haven't yet produced any evidence of it. The real question is whether you will continue to cling to your delusion now that the absence of evidence has been clearly demonstrated to you, or if you will stubbornly insist that you are right even though every example you bring up has been completely debunked.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson

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We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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It has always struck me as odd that fundies devote so much time and effort into trying to find a naturalistic explanation for their mythical flood, while looking for magical explanations for things that actually happened. -- Dr. Adequate

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...creationists have a great way to detect fraud and it doesn't take 8 or 40 years or even a scientific degree to spot the fraud--'if it disagrees with the bible then it is wrong'.... -- archaeologist

Hopefully Theodoric took note of that, since it was him who brought it up and not me. It’s not that simple. All too often today, it means that any traditional, moral consideration of the Christian religion in general, held by almost all of the population at the time the US was founded, will be blocked by the courts so that only science/naturalism is the lone consultant for morally troublesome decisions. I agree that it is. Nothing in there about dogs, nothing in there about cats, nothing in there about separation. I have no beef with the first amendment, I have a beef with separation of church and state. Re-read my opening post. My beef is with history revisionists who claim that separation of church and state has always been part of US foundings. It has not been, it has evolved.

I agree, but naturalism and all its various sects (atheism, humanism, pantheism, wiccanism, agnosticism, others) can have faiths that are comparable with those of Christianity. There is clear evidence that science can, and has, been used by politicians and special interests to forward agendas that are perfectly comparable to any religious dogmatism. Global warming is an example, it’s obviously more than a disinterested search for truth when we see destruction of data and attempts to prevent facts (and the facts of the coverup) from being published in leading journals. When multiple governments have billions of dollars invested in the global warming crusade and facts get in their way, their actions can be just as dogmatic as a spiritual leader of one religious denomination who seeks to maintain his political power. Your two examples are very far apart. That homosexuals should not marry is basic to much of Christianity. Admittedly, it’s changing fast today, but only because so much of Christianity is compromising with the scientific community.From the US founding to today, the eighth amendment prevents anyone being stoned to death as punishment.As a representation of humanism, it’s equally unjust for the scientific community to claim that global warming can be controlled by certain elite humans, (requiring public sacrifice of liberty/money), or that a hospital or a bridge can’t be built where humans badly need it to be because of some danger to an endangered species of microscopic bugs. Or to teach children in public schools that life came from non-life by naturalistic means. These are naturalistic doctrines held only by a certain religious group, naturalism/humanism. Many naturalistic proclamations, in addition to the few I described above, are found to have no objective grounds for enforcement among many US citizens. I’ve been told here before that doesn’t matter — that science is not a democracy. Scientists know, scientists rule.. The founding fathers would call them tyrants. In the founders writings that are associated with their ideas on how the government should work, they seemed to use the word tyrant a lot more than they used the word separation. Defining ‘evidence’ is the hard part. Science claims to have an advantage with evidence, largely because they have an education. The US constitution doesn’t recognize education in any way, shape or form. The Christian religion claims to have evidence, in historical evidence of human nature. That kind of evidence can be just as complex and detailed as what scientists see when they look through microscopes and telescopes. When objective evidence of human behavior shows that special rights for homosexuals could very well be a burden on a society that is already trillions of dollars in debt, the core of the problem could very well be the religion of humanism, and those who choose it. Just like the religion of humanism is appearing to be behind global warming much more than scientific fact. It’s taught in schools, it’s publically established, it’s not separated from state. It needs balance.

Evidence please? Bullshit. You attempt to make an argument and were shown that almost allow your examples were wrong and you tried to sneak in someone that was 7 at the time. OK, I admit you didn't try to sneak it in, you just didn't know. Confirm your fundie sources before you post their crap. The first part is what Jar calls word salad. You say nothing and provide no evidence for your argument. You make assertions with no evidence and still have not shown the christian parts of the bible. You think the founders wanted non-human governance? The things you claim could be better ascribed to the classical greeks.
The second part is a bald assertion. Any chance you can back that with any evidence? Wow take a quote out of context much. This is the full quote.

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In summary, Madison's education at Princeton furnished him, from the wisdom of Greece and Rome, a lifelong realism about human nature, a comprehensive concept of political obligation, and an instinctive admiration of patience, prudence, and moderation. From the Christian tradition, he inherited a sense of the prime importance of conscience, a strict personal morality, an understanding of human dignity as well as depravity, and a conviction that vital religion could contribute importantly to the general welfare. From Locke, he learned that to be fully human, men had to be free, and that to be free, they had in some way to take part in their government' (Ketcham 1994, 50).

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This is not about "the founders". It is an observation made in a biography of James Madison. This is the opinions of a biographer writing in 1990 about JAMES MADISON. More importantly, it says nothing about how he felt about the separation of church and state. I notice that you have no argument against what the source stated. You just ignored it. Show why the part you used is valid but the part I used was not. Make it convincing that it's important to the topic, use as many words as you need. In other words you will ignore all evidence and not present any. When the world is against you it usually means you are the one that is wrong. We have plenty of fundies on this board. Their silence in supporting you should speak volumes.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

My original comment was not about the complexity or simplicity of religion. I suggest you reread my post.Hyro was responding to this line from you. You are the one making the comment about the simplicity of a religion.I took note of what Hyro said. I noticed it had nothing to do what I originally posted. Maybe if you reread the whole conversation you might start to understand what was actually stated by myself and Hyro. Then again maybe not.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

You're just building straw men. Find the words "know too much" in any of my posts.The US foundings represent a fear of "domestic faction and insurrection". Federalist #10 Global warming and atheistic teachings in public schools fall into that category amazingly well. So you think these forums represent the population at large?

There are no atheistic teachings in public schools. Public schools teach science, not atheism. They are not the same, no matter how many times you or any others of your ilk repeat the lie.If you feel that science is anti religion simply because it fails to provide support for, and actually undermines many of the claims of, religion, the fault is with religion, not science. Science is based on evidence. If science doesn't support religion, it's because the evidence is against it.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. -- Thomas Jefferson

​

We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

​

It has always struck me as odd that fundies devote so much time and effort into trying to find a naturalistic explanation for their mythical flood, while looking for magical explanations for things that actually happened. -- Dr. Adequate

​

...creationists have a great way to detect fraud and it doesn't take 8 or 40 years or even a scientific degree to spot the fraud--'if it disagrees with the bible then it is wrong'.... -- archaeologist

Huh?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This is false. Anthropogenic global warming is sound science; there have not ever been any attempts to "destroy data" or manipulate the publishing of facts except by global warming deniers. In that sense you're quite correct that there is a side of the global warming debate more motivated by faith and greed than by knowledge, a side not engaged in a disinterested search for truth, and that side is yours. Part of the reason that global warming continues unabated is that governments don't have billions of dollars invested in it; they have billions of dollars invested in the production, exportation, exploration for, and consumption of greenhouse gas-producing fossil fuels. Funny that it's so "basic", yet the words "homosexuals shall not marry" don't appear anywhere in the Bible. Origin of life isn't taught in any school, public or private, for the very simple reason that there remains precious little to teach. It's an emerging field of research, not yet a field with robust findings to be communicated to schoolchildren. Except that the founding fathers were elites! They believed in the merit of expertise, in the notion that one's hard work and perspicacity in a field of inquiry was something to be respected, not something to be resented. They cherished learning. Your notion that the founding fathers were just Sarah Palin-style Real Murikans who hated learning and expertise is belied by the fact that the founding fathers only gave the vote to white male landowners. Not exactly the actions of a group of people deathly afraid of the notion of being ruled by a "group of elites." Typically for you, you've ignored that they used the word "tyrant" most frequently to refer to the kings who asserted divine right of rule as described in the Bible, and the priests and churches that supported them in their assertions.People exactly like you, in other words. Well, except for the part where they only allowed those to vote who could be assumed to be educated - wealthy, white male landowners.I'm not saying they got everything right. But your notion that the founding fathers were a bunch of ass-scratching anti-intellectuals is an absurdity. The founding fathers were eggheads. Rich nerds. "Enlightenment thinkers" is the historical term of art. Because it's a fact, and the purpose of public school education is to prepare citizens for democracy by educating them in what is factual. That's an Enlightenment notion that dates back to - when else? - the thoughts of the founding fathers and their influences.