Air Force Academy creates worship area for Pagans, Druids, and Wiccans

Don't Wiccans and other non-Christian individuals have the right to worship according to the dictates of their own conscience? Aren't they guaranteed the exact same freedom of religion granted to Christians? Don;t they have the right to a place of worship and consideration from the military chaplains just like Christians do?

True enough. Though that's still a step closer to Fred Phelps and his "thank god for dead soldiers" nonsense than I thought our Buz would go.**(Phelps thanks god for his "righteous punishment" in the form of dead soldiers for the US's crime of generally accepting homosexuality. It's the same thought process Buz is demonstrating in that he believes the acceptance on non-Christian religions will bring down god's wrath, though thankfully I don't think Buz would make that final step into being happy were said wrath to be expressed)

So, the freedom of religion actually means "you're free to worship Jesus however you want?"That's not a difference of opinion, Faith. That's pure idiocy and bigotry, nothing more or less. Edited by Rahvin, : No reason given.

Faith, if people like you ever gained a sufficient political foothold in the US to actually enforce your Theocratic Christofascistic agenda, I would immediately flee the country.You disgust me. You want to turn the US into a Christian version of the United Arab Emirates. You spit on the very notion of freedom, by changing the definition from "the ability to choose for oneself" to "the ability to choose what the Christian majority approves of."You don't have the faintest clue what the Constitution means. Your "opinions" are in direct opposition to the writings of the Founding Fathers, as well as every rational concept of liberty and justice.

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

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The Constitution does not say "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of non-Christian religion, and shall prohibit the free exercise thereof."The very wisdom of teh FOundign Fathers that you claim to respect resulted in a founding document that respected individual liberty, including the basic and inalienable human right to choose how, when and what to worship according to the dictates of one's own personal conscience, not what the government or Faith has decreed is acceptable. The Constitution says that if I am a Christian, I have the right to worship however I choose. The Constitution says that if I am a Satanist, I have the right to worship however I choose. The same is true of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Wiccans, pagans of all flavors...and if I choose not to worship or acknowledge any of those, I have the right to do that, too.The provision by the Air Force Academy of a place for Wiccans to express their Constitutionally granted right is not a State endorsement of their religion - it is simply granting them the same consideration granted to larger religious groups like Christians and Jews. Our men and women in uniform deserve to reap the benefits of the very same rights they seek to protect. Your stance here dishonors the memory of every fallen American soldier, because you would seek to undo what they fought and bled and died for.How dare you ever claim to be an American when you oppose the basic rights this country stands for.

We're denying that those things are legal, Faith.It's illegal for a school administrator to prohibit a child from bringing a Bible to school. Or praying in school. Whether an administration has ever done something like that somewhere is immaterial - people break the law all the time.

Faith, there is a rather large difference between prohibiting the formation of a school club (which would receive money/space/whatever from public dollars and thus constitute an official endorsement of that religion over others) and prohibiting the possession of Bibles or prayer by individual students.And when a teacher or other employee of a public school endorses their own religion over others (by wearing religious iconography on front of students, or having their holy book of choice on display), that also constitutes a government endorsement of one religion over others, and is a no-no.Think of it this way. Do you want your tax dollars paying for a Muslim/Hindu/Wiccan club in your local public high school? No? Then you can't fund the Christian version, either.Do you want to send your child to a 2nd grade classroom in a public school if the teacher has a Quran on her desk and wears Muslim religious iconography and verbally praises Allah in front of the kids? No? Then Christian teachers have to leave their faiths at the door, too.At the same time, the teacher cannot tell the kids not to pray, or confiscate their holy books, or tell them that their religion is false.Do you not see the difference here?

The purpose of law and justice is to serve the people.

Why do we have justice, Faith? Why do we want it?

The scales symbolize fairness, and the blindfold symbolizes a lack of favoritism or prejudice.Why do we want those things, Faith?

You didnt answer the question.Why do we want those thintgs, Faith? Why do we want to overcome the human tendencies for prejudice and unfairness?

So...the purpose of justice and fairness is in fact to improve the lives of people over what our lives would be like in an anarchy?So...the purpose of justice and law is to serve the people?Like I said it was?

Who wants to count the historical inaccuracies, distortions, and lies in this post?1:Columbus didn't land in the United States. He landed in the Caribbean. In freaking 1492, long before the United States was even a figment of anyone's imagination.2:In one of the most supremely ironic events in history, the Pilgrims of Massachusetts set out to avoid religious persecution and to establish a colony where they would be free to practice their own religious beliefs. This, of course, turned out to be a theocratic hellhole that itself denied the Freedom of Religion...and they created their colony in the 1600s, again long before the founding of the United States. Their form of theocracy was expressly denied by the Constitution.3:And yet the Constitution, the document that actually founded the US as opposed to the foreign colonies that preceded it, expressly forbids the use of a religious test as a requirement to hold public office.4:Washington wasn't President when the Treaty of Tripoli was signed. That was John Adams, in 1797. And of course, as a treaty, it was ratified by the entire congress.The actual words of the treaty, of course, disagree with your silly interpretation:

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Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,

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You can't get any more clear than that. The US Government is NOT based in any sense on the Christian religion.ABE: It's rather amusing that Christianity supports a Theocratic Monarchy, not Democracy. Not once in any part of the Bible is the concept of rule by the people supported or even mentioned - always it's a claim of a LORD and a KING and a Kingdom. Nothing at all about our system of government is derived from the Bible, and to assert such is quite simply absurd.Edited by Rahvin, : No reason given.

Be specific. What, precisely, do you think Adams wrote that actually overrides a direct and clear statement in a treaty that is in fact the law of the land?Anything Adams wrote personally is his opinion.The Treaty of Tripoli is an official government document with the force of law.

And yet the Treaty of Tripoli, a government document carrying the full force of law, ratified by Congress and signed by the President, states in unequivocal, simple, direct language that the government of the United States is in no sense based on the Christian religion.Odd, that he would sign a document if he genuinely believed that the government of the Unites States is based on teh Christian religion. Odder still that a majority in Congress would ratify the same document if they also believed the government to be based on the Christian religion.Even odder still, the COnstitution of the United States does not mention God, Jehovah, Yahweh, the Bible, Jesus, or any other character of the Christian faith even once. It carries no reference to a creator; no mention of any Commandments.In fact, in a most bizarre twist for any nation supposedly created as a Christian state, the Constitution specifically outlaws any sort of official state religion, including Christianity, while expressly providing the inalienable right of all citizens to worship what and how they choose, without any sort of addendum that restricts such freedom to Christianity.The document even disallows any sort of religious test for holding a public office, which is why we can have elected representatives who are Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Atheist, Wiccan, Agnostic, Scientologist, Mormon, or any other religious persuasion. Isn;t that a bit uncharacteristic for a nation supposedly founded on Christian principles?Especially considering that actual Christian governments, like those of the Pilgrim colonies that preceded the United States by over a century, did restrict freedom of religion to the point of banishment for any who denied Christ? Who did include a requirement that officials be Christian? That did mention Jesus and God and Christianity in their founding legal documents?Isn't it rather odd that the laws of the United States, from the Constitution on down, bear such little resemblance to actual examples of Christian governments?Your opinions, Faith, strain credulity to the point that I doubt your ability to differentiate reality from your own personal fantasy-land.Your interpretations contradict legal documents, Faith.

Indeed he did, which is why the islands he discovered were called the "West Indies." Thoughts of conversion to Christianity came after the islands had already been discovered, for obvious reasons.Note, of course, that those islands are not and never have been part of the United States...and so Faith's mention of Columbus is rather irrelevant.