Originally posted by RonHum
UNFORTUNATELY, the government has found a way to impose it's beliefs by denying the religeons to have freedom of expression.

That is why this is a touchy topic. Does freedom of religion mean i can express my beliefs? If it does then why are we having so many cases in court trying to stop Christians from expressing their beliefs.

Did you know,
The majority of settlers to this land came here for economic opportunity?

Did you know,
The ORIGINAL pledge of allegiance had NO PHRASE 'Under God' in it?. It was tainted by ignorant religious zealots.

Did you know,
In the constitution there are two clauses about religion?
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . ."
"or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"
If it is my religion to believe there is no God, You have NO constitutional right to prohibit my free exercise thereof. PERIOD.

So AntiPolitrix, DEAL WITH IT!
.

Originally posted by AntiPolitrix
Have the America people forgotten the United States of America was founded on Christianity?

More properly deism, and even then it involved lots of different christian sects.

Seems to me alot of people have. We have had several cases in court about whether or not it is constitutional to have "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance,

The pledge of allegiance was written by a socialist well after the founders created the country.

have the 10 Commandments on Display in front of State Court Houses.

The founders clearly wanted religion and the state to be kept seperate. Obviously one can't post the 10 commandments anymore than one can post the kosher laws in the torah or any hindu laws on right and wrong.
I'd like to see the reaction of some of the church goers to having to pass under a statute of Shiva on their way to paying a traffic ticket or some such.

It is said that 86% of Americans believe in God. Therefore I have a very hard time understanding why there is such a mess about having the 10 commandments on display or "In God We Trust" on our money and having God in the Pledge of Allegiance. Why don't we just tell the 14% to Sit Down and SHUT UP!!! or go back to their country to live.

Why in the world would anyone assume that the people who have a problem with the 10 commandments are immigrants? And its ludicrous to pretend that that 86percent is all non immigrants. And who said that its only that 14% atheist section that doesn't support having the 10 commandments up? That wasn't what the 'factoid' above was stating at all. Oh, and you do realize that one wouldn't tell them to leave the country because the founders didn't want a country like that, right?

the 14 percent need to just Deal With It.

Maybe the people who think that judge was allowed to have the 10 commandments are wrong and just need to deal with it. And again, since when is it only atheists who are saying this? Its clearly not.

I know we have freedom of religion in this country but know that this country, that lets you praise your own God, was built on Christianity.

It was built on secular rule of law. The people who founded it were deists, but that's hardly the same thing. The US is a secular country, and was founded to be as such.

That being said, i don't mind seeing the 10 Commamndments on Display

It really doesn't matter if you care or not. It was a matter for the court that had jurisdiction over the issue.

[edit on 25-10-2004 by Nygdan]

Originally posted by slank
Did you know,
The majority of settlers to this land came here for economic opportunity?

yes, and religious freedom, like displaying your own beliefs.

Did you know,
The ORIGINAL pledge of allegiance had NO PHRASE 'Under God' in it?. It was tainted by ignorant religious zealots.

Yes i am, but does it matter? It was freedom of religion that made it so it could be added.

Did you know,
In the constitution there are two clauses about religion?
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . ."
"or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"
If it is my religion to believe there is no God, You have NO constitutional right to prohibit my free exercise thereof. PERIOD.

Like the right that the Christrian have to express their beliefs. You have NO constitutional right to tell Christians they can not express their beliefs. Am i right?

So AntiPolitrix, DEAL WITH IT!
.

I've dealt with it slank, sounds like you should practice what you preach. Like i've said before, if you had read the entire thread, i do not know what or who created life on earth but i do not have a problem with people expressing their religion in public settings. You could put the "Star of David" on the US dollar bill and i will still spend it, i don't care.

America was not founded on Christianity. if it was, wed be burning athiests at the stake, banning miniskirts and bikinis, and every business in the country would be forcibly shut down on sundays.

America was founded on grecco-Roman concepts of the republic.

Freedom of religon, basic human dignity, the right to a fair trial, are not Christian concepts.

Christian govornments perfer to burn people at stakes, massacre heathens for failure to convert, and make phrases like "goddamnit" and "jesus Christ in a Taxi cab" punishable with fines and imprisonment.

Did any of you claiming the Christian nation bit bother to actaully read what I posted on the second page?

It is a listing of the many of the religious/non-religious paths that the founders/patriots were.

Hardly Christian paths they are, ergo .........

Misfit

Originally posted by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
America was founded on grecco-Roman concepts of the republic.

To further that, when the founders looked for something to base the country and government on, they didn't look to the Vatican or any religious nation-state or the early church community. Rather they looked to the Roman Republic (with its Senate and Representatives, and originally dual Consuls were proposed for the Executive Branch) and the Spartan City State (with it homoi or equals and the gerousia or older assembly and strong constitutional precendents) as models.
I'm sure most of the founders read Augustine's City of God and Plato's The Republic (something I don't think can be said of many people on either side of the question) and certainly realized exactly what they were doing and what precedents they were setting by making an issue of religious freedom and not estabalishing federal churches and favouring secularism over ecclesiasticsm.

Freedom of religon, basic human dignity, the right to a fair trial, are not Christian concepts.

Its also painfully obvious that the founders, while many were certainly religious, were not religious fundamentalists, and that the Revolution wasn't inspired by the gospel but rather by the same sources that the French Revolution, occuring immediately after, was founded on.

Also, its difficult to over emphasize that many of the founders were Deists, anti-authoritarian and non-biblicists, the sort of people that the conservative and more fundamentalist christians today would be thumping a bible at.