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Author Topic:   Separation of church and state
marc9000
Member
Posts: 1509
From: Ky U.S.
Joined: 12-25-2009
Member Rating: 1.4


Message 1 of 4 (572499)
08-06-2010 8:09 AM


There are typical assertions about American history that seem to regularly pop up in creation vs evolution debates. The following are a few recent examples here. Though history doesn’t seem to be a main topic of interest in these particular forums, I think this is something that needs to be addressed, and hope this will fit an appropriate sub-forum here. Those examples (by several different posters);
Message 124
jar writes:
The US Constitution is NOT Biblically based in any way or form.
So far no one has been able to show ANYTHING in the US Constitution that is Biblically based.
Message 455
DC85 writes:
Do you mean like how the Texas School board and numerous other truly uneducated keep pushing the falsehood that the founding fathers were all Christian and that the United States was founded on Christianity even though evidence shows it to be very Different?
Message 466
Theodoric writes:
Oh please provide evidence for this. Do you realize who were the biggest supporters of separation of church and state in the formation of this country?
I thought not.
The religious that is who. They had seen through the experience of europe what happens to minority churches when one belief becomes one with the government. Do you have any evidence that the prevailing view was that a church and the government should be one entity? Any?
Message 449
subbie writes:
I'm fairly confident that I know more about separation of church and state than you do since it was about one half of my ConLaw II class in law school. So I'm not even going to ask you to defend that little bit of hysteria.
Separation of church and state had nothing to do with US foundings. It is nowhere to be found in the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, or Bill of Rights. James Madison is generally considered to be the most prominent founder of the U.S. His appointee to the Supreme Court, Joseph Story, made these observations about religion and government in 1833;
quote:
The promulgation of the great doctrines of religion; the being, and attributes, and providence of one Almighty God; the responsibility to him for all our actions, founded upon moral freedom and accountability; a future state of rewards and punishments; the cultivation of all the personal, social, and benevolent virtues; --- these never can be a matter of indifference in any well ordered community. It is, indeed, difficult to conceive, how any civilized society can well exist without them. And at all events, it is impossible for those, who believe in the truth of Christianity, as a divine revelation, to doubt, that it is the especial duty of government to foster, and encourage it among all the citizens and subjects. This is a point wholly distinct from that of the right of private judgment in matters of religion, and of the freedom of public worship according to the dictates of one's own conscience.
And
quote:
Probably at the time of the adoption of the constitution, and of the amendment to it, now under consideration, the general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the state, so far as it is not incompatible with the private rights of conscience, and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.
Justice Joseph Story on Church and State (1833)
Here is a listing of the religions of the US founders. Not one of them was an atheist.
Separation of church and state was an important part of a constitution, but it wasn’t the US constitution.
quote:
(2) In the USSR, the church is separated from the state, and the school from the church.
Soviet Union - Constitution
About 100 years ago, President Woodrow Wilson said this;
quote:
"A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.... America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the tenets of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scripture."
A few decades after he said that, in 1947, an activist US Supreme Court, packed by FDR during the 1930’s, separated church and state for the first time in the US.
So the fact is, separation of church and state evolved in the US — it was not part of US foundings. The scientific community really should stop implying that it was.
Edited by marc9000, : No reason given.
Edited by marc9000, : Added links and names to opening quotes
Edited by AdminPD, : Direct links to post.

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by AdminPD, posted 08-06-2010 8:39 AM marc9000 has replied

AdminPD
Inactive Administrator


Message 2 of 4 (572508)
08-06-2010 8:39 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by marc9000
08-06-2010 8:09 AM


Need Links
Before I promote this, I would like to see links to the quotes you have used from other posters. This allows readers to read the quote in context. Also provide the name of the poster since you are quoting them.
Thanks
AdminPD

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by marc9000, posted 08-06-2010 8:09 AM marc9000 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by marc9000, posted 08-06-2010 5:26 PM AdminPD has not replied

marc9000
Member
Posts: 1509
From: Ky U.S.
Joined: 12-25-2009
Member Rating: 1.4


Message 3 of 4 (572597)
08-06-2010 5:26 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by AdminPD
08-06-2010 8:39 AM


Re: Need Links
Understood. Edited as requested. I'm not sure how to link single messages from other threads - hopefully the way I did it will suffice.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 2 by AdminPD, posted 08-06-2010 8:39 AM AdminPD has not replied

AdminPD
Inactive Administrator


Message 4 of 4 (572639)
08-06-2010 9:23 PM


Thread Copied to Social Issues and Creation/Evolution Forum
Thread copied to the Separation of church and state thread in the Social Issues and Creation/Evolution forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.

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