|
|
 |
|
 |
Member since: February 19, 2010
|
|
|
|
" state Sen. Brian Crain, R-Tulsa, offered a common sense suggestion: Take the $25 million in revenue that would have been lost to tax cuts and earmark it for education."
The trouble with that statement is that Crain is playing both sides of the street. He says that he is for more school funding but he voted FOR the tax cuts.
|
|
|
Report this comment |
|
|
|
|
|
And, finally, consider the document itself that was created in 1789.
The only reference to religion in it is a negative one: "No religious test shall ever be required...".
The people who created that document were quite intelligent. Do you not think that if, in fact, they intended to create a Christian nation, they would have figured out a way to specifically say that?
Given that they didn't do that, and instead added the First Amendment that spells out a complete separation of Church and State, it is obvious that they consciously, specifically, and intentionally intended to keep the two apart.
|
|
|
Report this comment |
|
|
|
|
|
Second - Bill Weir said: "The claim that nothing religous should be connected with governmental activity is
pure nonsense. Just read the history of our nation's founding fathers and their acknowledgement of God's sovreignty and providence and gracious blessing ."
I'm sorry that you are so ignorant of American history that you would make such a statement.
Some quotes that will help disabuse you of that idea:
Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize, every expanded prospect.
-James Madison, letter to William Bradford, Jr., April 1, 1774
"Religion and Government are certainly very different Things, instituted for different Ends; ...By mixing them together, feuds, animosities and persecutions have been raised, which have deluged the World in Blood, and disgraced human Nature." -John Dickinson, Pennsylvania Journal, May 12, 1768
Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion. - John Adams, letter to Benjamin Rush, June 12, 1812
|
|
|
Report this comment |
|
|
|
|
|
As one of the people quoted in the story, I want to make three points. First, the position of both Americans United and the Tulsa Atheists says nothing about your right to practice your religion. Americans United is officially non-sectarian and non-partisan. Its national headquarters are in Washington, D.C.. It has both religious and non-religious members, as well as members from various political parties. Many members of the clergy have been involved in the work of Americans United. Its current executive director, Barry W. Lynn, is an ordained minister in the United Chuch of Christ as well as an attorney long active on behalf of civil liberties.
What we are interested in is keeping government and Church (religion) separate.
As James Madison said (in a letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822): " I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."
|
|
|
Report this comment |
|
|
|
|
|
