Do not accustom yourself to consider debt as only an inconvenience. You will find it a calamity. -- Samuel Johnson, 1758
As in almost any human endeavor, where large amounts of data must be integrated, and a human must make a personal decision (which can be argued), this issue falls along a spectrum of possible reactions.
Whenever two entities interact, the spectrum runs from (say) -10 to +10, where -10 is lifelong antipathy and overt attack, and the +10 would be something along the lines of the awe and passion that inspired the Bloodguard Vow.
Sound okay to you?
Okay, now let me quote a section of Law to you, if I may.
“Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof....”
A lot of anti-Christian and anti-religionists have been using a single scrap of prose from a personal letter written by President Jefferson ("separation of church and state") to distort that phrase in Law to the point where people are actually discussing (and with a straight face) changing the money so that it doesn’t read “In God We Trust” and issuing legal proclamations that prevent school kids from saying the Pledge of Allegiance.
We have “Winter Holiday” parades which include tributes to gay and lesbian American Indians, a karate dojo, but a church was banned for wanting to say “Merry Christmas” and sing hymns! How… how… gauche!
If we look at that spectrum above (and I hope you’ll forgive me for the crudity of the display, but I’m a thinker, not a graphics guy, and text is tough enough sometimes)…
-10 Actively Assault Physically
-9 Issue Specific Threats
-8
-7 Vandalize Property
-6
-5
-4 Insult
-3 Make Jokes About
-2 Publicly Snub
-1 Pointedly Ignore
0 Acknowledge and Tolerate
+1 Welcome
+2
+3 Publicly praise
+4
+5 Provide special benefits for
+6
+7
+8 Persuade others
+9 Bribe others into approval
+10 Coerce others into public favor, by force
I know that it’s crude, but I hope I’m making my point, even in such a hamhanded fashion.
The Constitution was intended to be fixed - by Law and forever - at that ‘0’ midpoint, with Congress recognizing the existence of religion and whatever Dieties/Holy Persons are recognized by those religions, and tolerating them equally and impartially.
An example is the relationship between myself and (say) a wooden chair owned by a neighbor of my dentist’s hypothetical hairdresser (not that I would know whether he has one - I don’t think so, he’s pretty much balding anyway). The fact of the (alleged) existence of that (hypothetical) chair is one of absolute indifference to me, and if I never heard anything about that (alleged) chair, my life would be changed in no degree whatsoever.
That is how Congress should be with regard to religion.
Let’s look at that section of the Amendment again…
“Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof....”
That says, in plain English, that Congress cannot write any legislation that creates a national “official” religion (as exist in many countries), and neither can it write any legislation that 1) prevents people from worshiping in whatever fashion their religion dictates; 2) forces people to worship in a certain way; or 3) forces those who choose not to worship to do so, or punish them for not worshipping.
It cannot create an official religion, and it cannot prevent people from worshipping (or not).
That’s it!!! It says nothing about “separation”, nothing about “wall”, nothing about any of the crap that’s being bandied about.
And before I get it from those tossing the Treaty signed with the Pirates out of Tripoli - or whatever it was, I’m sure someone out there will have the gall to bring it up - saying that the United States was not founded on a religious basis, that has nothing to do with the argument, because the US wasn’t founded on religious principles. That privilege is reserved for the theocracies out there. Like all those Muslim countries based on Sharia Law. Such as Libya. As in Tripoli. Where they had taken hostages and were refusing to release them. In fact, they were threatening to kill the hostages.
(Gosh, that sounds familiar...)
But that treaty both tells the truth - we weren’t founded on a religious foundation, even though we acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Judge and Creator - and is simultaneously irrelevant to the discussion. (In fact, it actually mentions two separate religions itself, and according to the argument used, would be unConstitutional and therefore void.)
Thoughts?
Less...
