The beginning of the jihad in Europe?

Your claim wasn't that MLK was faith based, your claim was that his civil rights movement was inspired by Jesus Christ which was incorrect. Further, Ghandi's position on religion was rather broad.While for a time he considered himself a Jain, he latter professed to have no one single religion as he viewd all religions to have fundamental flaws that prevented any of them to be perfect.

So your point is what exactly? That faith-based=good?MLK's movement was successful because it had broad pluralistic appeal. If MLK was lobbying for prayr in public school I belive his reception would have been much different.Further, your point is moot. Because plenty of christian, faith-based, organizations decried MLK and his movement. Many of their arguments were based in scripture.

Can you respond to the post again.This time try to refraim from broad generalizations about my personal beliefs and/or agenda.1) you don't know me.2) attack my arguments, not me.Try again.

The big difference being that he was not enacting religious change.I think using religion to motivate people to do good and be active in government is a wonderful thing. Just as long as they aren't trying to establish a religion or policy in congruence with explicitly religious principles (prayer in school, state sponsored religious activites, etc).In MLK Jr's case it was the fight simply to establish equal rights under the secular US Constitution.

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No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

You are correct Randman. I agree with your entire post. I think though you and Yaro are speaking past each other a bit. I think this may be because there is no real way to test what exactly is legislating religion.What MLK Jr was doing is clearly not legislating religion. Congress adding 'under god' to the pledge clearly is.

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No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

I appreciate your competent refutation to Crashfrog and to others (especially your 3 references).Why should I become beclouded by such *tolerationalism* taken to its extreme?Over and beyond our numerous political-religious sins that mar our present and past . I’d surmise:1) Such tolerationalism might ultimately kill tolerationalists and *innocents* (Evos, YECs, Islamics, and whatever).2) Would the blood of those innocents be upon extreme tolerationalists (like Crashfrog and/or myself) as well? (I don’t know?)3) Excellent LAW (like the law of Moses) seems ultimately required to address such lawlessness *at home*: I.e., driving out the lawless aliens, stopping oil-trade with the aliens abroad, destroying all feasible levels of contact with those aliens (militarily), etc.4) Repeatedly *Turning the other cheek and martyring our families to murderers* (like the Anabaptist law of Christ) only invites Islamic terrorists to continue persecuting our children.5) Teach our children the abomination of Easter-Islamic religion.

How? Why? Excellent law like eating shrimp is and abomination and making it illegal to wear wool-rich clothes? How is that related in any way to the topic under discussion? Sounds pretty silly to me. Is there some reason why people should not study Islam?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Who's got the right laws?There are literally hundreds of thousands of religions, sects, and other such groups living in the US. Each one believes different things than all the others. Some of their beliefs range from the radical (Islamic sharia) to the innocuous (you can't wear mixed fabric). And many of those beliefs have no basis anywhere else than their religionWhy should everyone have to wear head covering if a party of Islamics came to power? Not everyone is Muslim.Why should we have any mention of a god anywhere on public property? Who's god, if any. Some religions don't even believe in a god.If religious laws are to be displayed in our court houses, who's laws? And why should they be there? Should individuals religious law shape the laws of our society? After all, one religion may not like pork and suddenly we have penalty taxes imposed on pig farmers. Perhaps one religious group comes to power who are entirely vegetarian, and they wage a war on meat.Perhaps to a believer in Christianity, the religion du jur, find the above statements far fetched. But to non-believers like us, when we hear about a bill supporting creationism/ID/banning gay marriage etc., it smacks of the same rubbish as above.So, why do all the above concepts sound distasteful to us in the first place?Well, for one thing, there is NO REASONABLE ARGUMENT FOR SUCH LEGISTLATION, OTHER THAN WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THE RELIGIOUS BELEF OF THE PARTY IN POWER. In other words, there is no argument, aside from religion, as to why there should be laws governing pork consumption, head scarves, or the curtailing of science in public classrooms.Religions believe all sorts of dumb stuff and are often based on unsubstantiated stories in old booksEvery religion has a set of core beliefs. A great majority of religious belief revolves around common myths often said to originate from some sort magical man-thing in another dimension somewhere were nobody can verify that he is actually there or not.If this is the case, why should we listen to laws purportedly spoken by a magical being?For example, the 10 commandments are said to have been given to some obscure Hebrew tribesman with glowing horns on his head. Some sky spirit somehow made stone tablets with the laws on them and spoke through a burning tree. What about this story gives those laws legitimacy?The Mormons contend that a 19th century charlatan uncovered golden tablets and spoke to a winged glowy person who told him to move to Utah and Have dozens of wives.Even modern religions have weird ideas. Lets not forget Xenu and the Thetans. Imagine laws being passed allowing jobs to discriminate against people who haven't reached the state of “clear” yet. ConclusionReligion is a dumb basis for legislation. Legislation should be based on empirical data gathered from assessing actual, emperical, facts and executed in conformity with the constitution, laws of the land, and consent of the people.This message has been edited by Yaro, 11-09-2005 03:27 PM

Jazzns, thanks for your post. Maybe Yaro and I are talking past one another. I think you may be right on that.It's an interesting issue. I am not sure things like "under God" or "In God We Trust" on the dollar are a violation of the separation concept since they don't really deal with a specific establishment of religion since the term "God" is so general, and I see the Constitution as more prohibiting one religion over another, not the concept of religion in general.And when you think of how Congress has always had a Christian chaplain, I really think the Consitution should be read more strictly as referring to governmental legislation not governmental participation. In other words, it's not wrong to open every legislative session with prayers in the name of Jesus, even though that involves a clear preference for Christianity over other religions, because there are no laws being passed concerning religion. That's the way I look at it.Public participation in religious worship or ceremonies, regardless of seeming entanglement, is not an issue I think the letter of Constitution forbids as long as there is no legal effect enforcing one religion over another.So a president can pray publicly or whatever. Military and Congressional chaplains are OK. Generic religious public statements, statues, whatever, are OK as well provided no laws or preferences are based on religion when it comes to legislative and enforcement action, hiring, etc,...Right now, I realize the courts seem to come down somewhere in between where I stand and your stance of thinking even "under God" is a violation, but I think we both abhor the concept, as nearly all Americans do, of actually using the government to force religion and religious practices on people.This message has been edited by randman, 11-09-2005 03:37 PM

His ideas were based on Jesus' teachings. It is true Ghandi inspired him, but he considered Ghandi to be following Jesus' teachings on non-violence. Ghandi also said he was following Jesus' teachings but said other religious traditions such as his own also had non-violent teachings.The fact Ghandi felt the Hindus taught non-violence in some traditions does not negate the fact he thought Jesus taught non-violence. Just because A advocated something does not mean B cannpt advocate it. The idea they are mutually exclusive is completely wrong.Moreover, the fact MLK mentioned Ghandi in no way means he did not think he was following Jesus Christ. The man was an ordained minister of the gospel for heaven's sake. He was preaching in churches. His political activism and methods were borne straight out of, and were identified with his religion.Lastly, the fact Ghandi's faith expanded to embrace more than one religious tradition does not make his beliefs any less faith-based.Jesus, MLK, Ghandi were all faith-based people, and both Ghandi and MLK applied their faith to the political arena with considerable impact.

While I TEND to agree that it is not a violation of the letter of the Establishment Clause I look at it from a position of ethics. If the legislative body is not supposed to be establishing a religion then the prayer is a bit dubious with regards to its purpose.That being said, I encourage prayer. I encourage our leaders to pray. I just don't think it should be on the agenda.Where I think you and Yaro are missing each other is simply motivation versus action. I don't think anyone disagrees that MLK used religion to motivate his cause. But his agenda was not a religious one such as some we are seeing today (gay marriage, gay adoption bans, abortion, ID in education, etc).

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No smoking signs by gas stations. No religion in the public square. The government should keep us from being engulfed in flames on earth, and that is pretty much it. -- Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

Women's rights initially came out of faith-based political action. Religion is a driving force in soceity. The Constitution does not seek to stop religion from being an influence. The Constitution merely forbids the State from coercing or limiting religious expression and legislating ecclesiastical affairs.Faith-based by the way does not necessarily mean "good" but most of the areas of overlap where faith-based ideals and values can affect civil policy and legislation are "good" since they tend to relate to fairly universal values, at least in my opinion.

Really? Show me. I haven't read Ghandi saying that he followed Jesus' teachings. I may be wrong, please show me. I agree, and I never said they were mutually exclusive. My point is simply that the movements they inspired were not religious movements but rather social ones. If Ghandi was protesting Englands consumption of beef, or MLK was lobbying for Jesus being written into the constitution I think they would have failed. So why did he go to india to meet with Ghandi's followers in order to get tips? His beliefs may have been. But that's independant of the movement. It just so happens that the particular beliefs him and MLK chose were ones compatible with the majority of a pluralistic population. I disagree. Not everyone working in Civil right was Black, or christian. Likewise I doubt everyone who followed Ghandi held his religious belifs. It so happens that the movements both leaders inspired were in a common line with the broad desires of a populace.

Yaro, are you stating it is OK to be religiously motivated if some non-religious people agree with you?What's your position?Clearly, both Ghandi and MLK applied their theology to politics. Under the concept of separation you stated earlier, they were mixing religion and politics and thus would be wrong.Now, you are saying because non-religious people agreed with them that it was OK.So let's apply that, say, to gay marriage. Polls indicate over 80% of America disagrees with gay marriage. So since a large number of people agree with the Christian right, they are not actually trying to do anything wrong? They are not trying to force their religious beliefs into law?Is that what you are saying?Or is just that it's OK for religious people to be motivated to enact legislation and policy when you agree with it, but it's wrong if they want to enact stuff you disagree with?

I don't think any of those things are "religious" in nature. Gay marriage, ID in the class-room, abortion, etc,...are things I would argue are not religious issues.Conversely, I would say MLK's agenda and concepts of racial equality, love for all men, forgiveness even for one's enemies and non-violence were all very religious in nature and perhaps more exclusively religious than some of the issues you raised in the sense of thinking that civil rights are granted by God, not mere privileges granted by the State.So I am not sure on the principle here.On gay marriage, I'll admit that religious beliefs affect one's views on the subject, but that doesn't make it exclusively religious, nor a religious agenda. Same with abortion, and contrary to what many claim, I think ID is valid science but we won't go there for now.You just cannot say to people, well, you have a belief on this subject because you are religious, and we have a belief because we are not religious, and so only the opinion of the non-religious people is valid. It's just incorrect.Each issue should be treated separately and on it's own. I think, for example, there is a big difference between abortion and gay marriage. Abortion is a violation of the rights of a human being, specifically it is killing an innocent person. That's how it is viewed at least by pro-lifers, and so it has little to do with religion per se, except back again to the concept that our rights and laws should reflect God's granting rights to us as individuals and God's law or justice.Gay marriage is a completely different issue, and plenty of people that are not religious conservatives oppose it for some reason, something like 80%.Exactly why they oppose it if they don't all accept traditional religious beliefs, I am not sure, but that's where things stand.This message has been edited by randman, 11-09-2005 04:42 PM