Pledge of Allegiance Case Takes Center Stage at SCOTUS

[Sava]

Well, then. Which specific religion endorses this belief?

any monotheistic religion... DUH!

Right. The constitution is rather clear on this matter.

yes it is... no religion... period.

[Ben Kenobi]

that would be Christianity... Judaism 3.0 is Islam.

What a radical thought! All religions are the same! They all teach the same things, which is why we never have any arguments between different faiths!

[Ben Kenobi]

any monotheistic religion... DUH!

I suppose then that Islam and Judaism and Christianity are all one religion.

Glad to hear.

yes it is... no religion... period.

Then why were most of the Founders Christians? How did they reconcile this conflict? I would think my opinion is supported by numerous Supreme Court Justices.

Where's your champion, Sava?

[Sava]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


What a radical thought! All religions are the same! They all teach the same things, which is why we never have any arguments between different faiths!

they have differences... hence the numbers... DUH... but they all came from the same place. They all worship the same God (although Christians are the only silly ones to believe their God once existed in human form).

are you smoking pot Kenobi? you seem to be more off than usual... everything okay?

[Aeson]

Yah, because 2.0 is the same as 3.0... both being the same as the original. That's why Civ I, II, and III are all the same game, cause they (er, it) has "Civilization" in the title.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Well, then. Which specific religion endorses this belief?

the point is that it supports MANY religions!

That would be a specific endorsement of Satan, over other gods.

This is a specific endorsement of other gods over Satan.

Hey, if a Mennonite wants to become a citizen from the US, he has to swear an oath of allegience to the state. Same with Jews, conflicting their oath with Israel.

By this logic, any oath could be struck down as violating freedom of religion and the establishment clause.

Instead, we have the rather more careful standard that prevents the oath from endorsing any one particular religion over another.

No an oath couldn't, because an oath that completely ignored religion would - get this - have nothing to do with religion!

Again, which religion are the selling. The establishment clause does not mean religion ought to be expunged from the public realm, but rather, that you do not have an establish church of America, as the Church of England would be in Britain.

And endorsement of the existance of a god is an establishment of religion!

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Your statement contradicts itself. Endorsing all religions is a far cry from establishing one.

No it isn't. It endorses all religions that believe in a god. You can have religions that don't. In fact, given the capitalization, it endorses only monotheistic religions... and there are a vast number of polytheistic religions.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I suppose then that Islam and Judaism and Christianity are all one religion.

nobody said that... and that's irrelevant... it's wrong no matter how many faiths a religious phrase endorses...

Then why were most of the Founders Christians?

they weren't... most were deists.

How did they reconcile this conflict?

they made an amendment saying the government shouldn't be religious... quite a simple solution... it's a shame nobody is obeying the constitution.

I would think my opinion is supported by numerous Supreme Court Justices.

Supreme Court justices can be wrong too you know

Where's your champion, Sava?

Franklin, Jefferson, Adams... most of them are dead.

[Ben Kenobi]

Same God, yes, different religions.

One could make the argument from the perspectives of the founders, that different Christian denominations would count as different religions, in the sense of the establishment clause.

you seem to be more off than usual... everything okay?

Actually, just had a rather long discussion with my girlfriend. Not really the result I wanted.

[Ben Kenobi]

nobody said that... and that's irrelevant... it's wrong no matter how many faiths a religious phrase endorses...

Makes all the difference in the world, wrt to the Establishment clause.

they weren't... most were deists.

Just Jefferson. Most were Christians.

they made an amendment saying the government shouldn't be religious... quite a simple solution... it's a shame nobody is obeying the constitution.

It seems more sense to me, that given a diversity of religions, they would allow them all to practice, without the state supporting one church over another, as found in Britain at the time of the revolution.

Supreme Court justices can be wrong too you know

Unanimously wrong? Less likely than Sava being wrong.

Franklin, Jefferson, Adams... most of them are dead.

Really. I suppose they left writings that would defend your claim for them to support your interpretation and not mine.

[Ben Kenobi]

You can have religions that don't.

You can make substitutes for God, that resemble religions, but generally they all put something else in the place of God.

I would argue both, that to be a religion requires belief in a god, and that atheism still can be considered a religion.

[Kuciwalker]

Then, this is really just discrimination against one particular "religion" - atheism.

Would you be OK with someone that endorsed "everything but christianity"?

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Giancarlo
It was in since 1953 or 1954 I think... either it was the Truman or Eisenhower adminstration that put the phrase in (not to mention in the currency aswell).

It was Eisenhower.

IIRC, he stated at the signing of the amendment to the pledge that, with the addition of "under God," school children all over America would begin each day acknowledging the existence of God.


There's a religious downside to this amendment that no one if focusing on. In order to support the current wording, defenders have to argue that "God" does not have religous significance...otherwise the govenment is taking an official position on the existence of God.

This is similar to the position courts have taken in permitting mangers scenes onto public grounds during Christmas by asserting that the Baby Jesus is a holiday symbol much like a snowman or a candy cane.

Personally, I believe that both God and Baby Jesus have religious significance.

[Sava]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Just Jefferson. Most were Christians.

wrong...

Thomas Paine --

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of...Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."

from searches on the net: http://www.dimensional.com/~randl/founders.htm

George Washington, the first president of the United States, never declared himself a Christian according to contemporary reports or in any of his voluminous correspondence. Washington Championed the cause of freedom from religious intolerance and compulsion. When John Murray (a universalist who denied the existence of hell) was invited to become an army chaplain, the other chaplains petitioned Washington for his dismissal. Instead, Washington gave him the appointment. On his deathbed, Washinton uttered no words of a religious nature and did not call for a clergyman to be in attendance.
From:
George Washington and Religion by Paul F. Boller Jr., pp. 16, 87, 88, 108, 113, 121, 127 (1963, Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, TX)

John Adams:

It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion."
From:
The Character of John Adams by Peter Shaw, pp. 17 (1976, North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC) Quoting a letter by JA to Charles Cushing Oct 19, 1756, and John Adams, A Biography in his Own Words, edited by James Peabody, p. 403 (1973, Newsweek, New York NY) Quoting letter by JA to Jefferson April 19, 1817, and in reference to the treaty, Thomas Jefferson, Passionate Pilgrim by Alf Mapp Jr., pp. 311 (1991, Madison Books, Lanham, MD) quoting letter by TJ to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, June, 1814.

from Thomas Jefferson's writings:

The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power, and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained.

and

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." -- Thomas Jefferson

James Madison

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution."
From:
The Madisons by Virginia Moore, P. 43

or how about Benjamin Franklin

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion...has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble."

in addition to this Kenobi

The Treaty of Tripoli, passed by the U.S. Senate in 1797, read in part: "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."

YOU HAVE BEEN OWNED BIYATCH!

As with gay marriage, abortion, and every other issue, YOU ARE WRONG KENOBI!


Have a nice day! And if you feel like getting proven wrong again, let me know. I have a lot of free time.

[Kuciwalker]

I have a lot of free time.

Isn't the fact that you post on Apolyton evidence enough of that?