Whenever I think the kooks on the right have come up with the most nonsensical thing ever, they whine about a Hindu getting to pray in the Senate.
You know, the Constitution only mentions religion twice. Once to say there will be no religious test for office and the second time to say that there will be free religion and no government establishment thereof. The Founders who wrote that would have no problem with a Hindu praying in Congress.
I also love how Hindus praying in Congress will hurt Nathan's freedom of religion. What a fragile thing his freedom must be then, that someone else being free destroys his.
Want some cheese with that whine?
You're right that the prayers in the Senate (or any other public body, for that matter) do not affect anyone's freedom of religion.
However, if you're really saying that Judeo-Christianity is recognized by the government as carrying more weight, how can that be interpreted as anything other than an establishment of religion?
The Founders who wrote that would have no problem with a Hindu praying in Congress.
Then why didn't they talk, write, and speak about other religions and invite leaders of the these other religions to pray? B/c they were mostly Christian and relied on God.
if you're really saying that Judeo-Christianity is recognized by the government as carrying more weight, how can that be interpreted as anything other than an establishment of religion?
What deity did the Founders talk, write, and speak about? God. Look at the Constitution in context and it's simple to see that establishment of religion meant nothing more than preventing a national denomination from being established. Why else would the next clause of the First Amendment read, "...nor prohibit the free exercise thereof..."
Nathan, you're hopelessly full of it, be it by willful self-delusion or basic lying. The Christian god is not once mentioned in the Constitution, and one cannot blame the then-nonexistent ACLU, "liberal activist judges," or any other entity for this. Had the Founders wished to impart a preference for Christianity into our government, they simply would have done so. That isthe beginning, middle, and end of the story. All of your blather about "context" and the personal religious preferences of the Founders is nothing but desperate, puerile hand-waving.
The simple and obvious fact is that the Founders foresaw people exactly like you, who would make nonsensical, wildly speculative statements such as "While God did not write our laws, He was certainly a consultant in the process." The very fact that you can make such foolish claims with impunity and suffer no worse than being set straight by your interlocutors here is prima facie evidence that Hindu prayers in no way affect your freedom to worship whatever skygod you yourself wish to worship.
why didn't they talk, write, and speak about other religions
Because they did talk, write and speak about other religions, you simply read history selectively, leaving out the parts that don't suit you.
Thomas Jefferson, talking about the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom:
Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.
Why else would the next clause of the First Amendment read, "...nor prohibit the free exercise thereof..."
There's nothing in that sentence that implies that religion should be read to mean only Christian denomination.
In fact, if the Constitution is read using its plain, English meaning, the two clauses make perfect sense. No establishment of religion and no prohibiting the free exercise of religion. See, makes perfect sense, without implying that the Founders, who knew that other religions existed, and knew the difference between the word religion and denomination were nonetheless too stupid to write denomination when they meant denomination.
What pretzel logic you have to twist into, Nathan, to believe that the Founders were simultaneously great and smart men but also too stupid to write what they meant. To actually vote against versions of the First Amendment that said what they meant!
Nathan: "If we start allowing any faith to lead the elected body in prayer, that will minimize our religious freedom"
Thomas Jefferson: ""It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg . . ."
Nathan,
My precious brother in Christ: We Christ-followers are called to be SALT and LIGHT (words of Jesus Himself, the Sermon on the Mount, remember)...not just "NOISE" and "HEAT."
These people doing the demonstrating totally embarrassed themselves, the rest of the Christ-followers in this nation, and the God they claim to be defending.
God is big enough to defend Himself...just read the Bible, if you are worried about God defending Himself...He has a proven track record.
I'm saddened that such a spectacle was carried out by the "religious right" who once again proved they are just "embarrassingly wrong."
Strange. Why do I get the feeling you'd be a strict originalist/textualist regarding Constitutional interpretation vis a vis our Judicial Branch. Yet in your own words, you require that we read the Constitution "in context" in order to suss out that the Christian God is the one being referred to. In fact, there is NO mention of God in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. In fact, the only mention of "A" God comes in the Declaration of Independence, which references "Nature's God". That certainly doesn't read as an endorsement of the Christian God. Surely if the Founding Fathers wished this country to be a Christian one, they could have spelled it out in the text of one of these documents?
Or must we resort to a more liberal interpretation?
God is God is God. What's the problem?
Hey Nathan, where's the "context" in the passage below that points to the Founders' undiluted preference for Christianity?
"Where is to be found Theology more orthodox or Phylosophy more profound than in the Introduction to the Shast[r]a [a Hindu Treatise]? "God is one, creator of all, Universal Sphere, without beginning, without End. God Governs all the Creation by a General Providence, resulting from his eternal designs -- Search not the Essence and the nature of the Eternal, who is one; Your research will be vain and presumptuous. It is enough that, day by day, and night by night, You adore his Power, his Wisdom and Goodness, in his Works."
-- John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, December 25, 1813.
Nathan, I was going to comment, but you're already getting killed here, I'd hate for a brother to pile on.
BNF
Notice how very very quiet Nathan has become, now that the facts have started to overwhelm his little fantasy world?
So, Nathan... you claim that your religious freedom is magically 'minimized' because a Hindu led a prayer in the Senate. Explain this to me, please. What specific actions relating to your personal worship of your 'God' have been somehow diminished or prevented because a Hindu led a prayer in the Senate? Tell me exactly what it is you can't do any more.
Are you claiming, Nathan, that your brand of religion is somehow deserving of greater respect and a higher standing in society than someone else's religion? If so, please explain how your view is any less bigoted than the view of someone who believes that their race is somehow deserving of greater respect and a higher standing in society than someone else's race.
Then tell me why anyone should respect your religion one iota more than you respect theirs.
Greg, glad you found a few isolated examples of writing about other religions but the fact is the Founders wrote far more about God than these few instances of mention of other religion.
Phil, can you imagine if the Founders saw what we have done with this country they worked so hard and sacrificed so much only to see us let these little attacks slide. Would you have said the same thing about God being able to defend Himself when Roe passed and a few Christians cried out that this was not God's will? I suppose you believe Christians should simply bend over and take whatever whooping humanists and liberals wish to give us.
Pete, love you brother, but you should know when a brother is "getting killed." These breathingists here actually believe there is a separation of church and state but I can't find it anywhere. Are you kidding? This is fun watching all these liberals link to my post and squirm.
What's even more humorous is demands from my "guests" to provide an explanation as to how my faith has been minimized by a Hindu prayer in the Senate. How absurd!
Homosexuals make the same arguement about how my marriage would be affected by legalizing gay marriage.
You've missed the point. The point here is that the Founders were mostly Christians. They didn't need to mention God. He seeps through in every word of the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. When you read the writings, letters, and speeches of their lives, you learn they weren't placing equal value on all religions. Believers of other faiths have equal rights to practice their religion here, but America is a nation of Christians and will be ruled as such.
Here is the challenge: YOU tell me how only permitting Christians to pray over the Senate for the last 200+ years has inhibited the rights of other faiths, since that is what you are implying.
Nathan, Please provide the links that squirm.
They're linked under the post; they're trackbacks. Or you can click the Technorati blog reactions.
Admin.
"You've missed the point. The point here is that the Founders were mostly Christians."
No one's disputing that, Nathan. People have tried to explain to you ever since I happened across this blog, and probably for a long time before that, that the Founders' personal religion didn't dictate their ideas about policy. One more time, with feeling: The Founders' personal religion didn't dictate their ideas about policy.
I'm a white male heterosexual atheist, but I don't believe that blacks, gays, or women should have fewer rights than me or that people should have to give up their personal beliefs about the supernatural just because they're nutty. Transfer this mentality to the Founders, and you might gain a glimmer of understanding as to where they were quite plainly coming from.
"They didn't need to mention God..."
Actually, they did need to mentionGod if they wanted America to be the "Christian nation" you wish it were. Laws are written down, not inferred -- otherwise everyone would just decide for themselves what is okay and what isn't, which, given that you're not alone in your unrestrained delusions and whimsical reconstruction of facts, would lead to utter chaos.
But the Founders did no such thing, and the reason for this is plain to everyone here but you.
It's total folly that we commenters are stating basic facts -- chief among them that the Constitution does not once mention Jesus, God, or Christianity -- and you continue to respond with, "Yeah, well, we all know what they MEANT even if they didn't say it." That kind of goofball "reasoning" may allow you to sustain the illusion of a well-waged battle, but will never advance your arguments in the world everyone else inhabits (i.e., the real one).
Nathan, you addressed everyone but me, so I'll ask again.
You're right that the prayers in the Senate (or any other public body, for that matter) do not affect anyone's freedom of religion.
However, if you're really saying that Judeo-Christianity is recognized by the government as carrying more weight, how can that be interpreted as anything other than an establishment of religion?
"Nathan, you addressed everyone but me..."
Untrue. Nathan refuses to explain why a Hundu praying in the Senate "minimizes" his own religious freedom. Whining that the question is "absurd" and then running away does not count as "addressing" the question. It counts as pure, unalloyed intellectual cowardice.
Meatbrain, your comments here are a priviledge. Please read my comment policy and re-post your point without name-calling.
Thanks.
Admin.
The Founders' personal religion didn't dictate their ideas about policy.
I am a Christian, like most of the Founders. Everything I do is done through the eyes of God. My purpose for living is to glorify God. I realize this means nothing to an atheist, but it does show that, since the Founders were Christians, everything they did, including writing the Constitution, was done with His influence. I work for a company and I am a Christian. I can work, as a Christian, and never mention God, but live my life in a way that exemplifies Him to others. The Founders wrote the Constitution like I work for my company. Their lives demonstrated their belief in God.
... if they wanted America to be the "Christian nation" you wish it were.
America was not designed to be a theocracy. If it were, it would be law to be a Christian and other beliefs would not be welcome here.
...chief among them that the Constitution does not once mention Jesus, God, or Christianity
Nor does it mention a separation of church and state as you all contend "exists" here.
... and you continue to respond with, "Yeah, well, we all know what they MEANT even if they didn't say it."
Funny, you make the same arguement with separation, but you can't even argue context since the phrase was written by a guy that was in France and was responding to a letter concerning a ... that's right, a denominational concern.
Ed Brayton has pretty much demolished Nathan's pile of horse puckey. Way to go, Ed.
Still afraid of my questions, Nathan? No surprise there.
More from Jefferson: State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights.
State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights.
Right. And praying only to God, not the Hindu gods does not undermine any civil rights.
Meatbrain, my readers at STACLU made me aware of Ed's post, which I read, and found nothing new there. As far as your questions, I won't debate anyone who stoops to name-calling and senseless attacks. All that does is reflect on yourself. Looks like I've struck a real chord with you.
Here are the comments you're afraid to respond to. Why not let your readers decide if your refusal to answer them is justified?
Oh, I forgot... you're afraid of letting your readers see the questions that terrify you.
I wrote:
"the Constitution does not once mention Jesus, God, or Christianity."
Nathan responded:
"Nor does it mention a separation of church and state as you all contend 'exists' here."
Failed analogy. The language of the First Amendment makes it clear that the Founders wanted no religious sect given preference in any demonstrable way regardless of the words used. If I simply quote the Establishment Clause rather than invoke the term "separation of church and state," I make excatly the same argumentwhile your own immediately fails.
However, the lack of a specific mention of God or Jesus in the Constitution is not so innocuous, because the Founders and everyone else were well aware of the slew of other gods people worshipped other than yours. The failure of a bunch of men who were predominantly Christians and deists to mention god is conspicuousm, glaring, and absolutely deliberate, and everything Ed Brayton quotes -- stuff from Jefferson et al. that you simply hand-wave away as "nothing new" -- completely reinforces this.
A couple hundred years' worth of SCOTUS judges and others understand all of these things; why, in all seriousness, do you pretend to have a better understanding of the Constitution tha historians and levgals scholars when you lack a handle on basic grammar and spelling skills? I'm just asking you to be honest here.
An issue that goes unadressed in these discussions is the increasingly irrelevant role of the Bible or any religious text. In the 1700's we knew much less about biology, geology and everything else. We know now the world isn't 6,000 years old, that humans didn't all originate from Adam and Eve, and that the Shroud of Turin is a medieval forgery. "God" has few places left to hide, but unfortunates like you whose parents brainwash them from the crib to believe in nonsense stubornly carry on this foundering tradition of worshipping psychotic, insecure phantasms.
The bottom line, Nathan, is that the only people who believe the foolishness you do about the First Amendment are people who were bowing avidly to Jesus many, many years before they even heard of the Constitution. This is not a coincidence.
""They didn't need to mention God...""
And he calls US "Breathingists"? What a hypocrite
Nathan,
I've never contended for "separation of church and state..."
But I do believe in the "freedom of speech"...and that applies to Christians also.
And when "Christians" exercise their "freedom of speech" the "others" tend to get all worked up...because JESUS is truly an offense to many, many lost people.
Thanks for the blog...I love reading it.
I don't think I've noticed Hindus getting up in arms over the 60,000+ times that the Senate has opened their day with a prayer to the Christian God. But, the Hindus pray once before the Senate and people pitch a fit!
Does that mean the Hindu god is "truly an offense to many, many lost people."
You're wrong, Phil. It's convenient for Christians to pretend that people have some sort of inherent revulsion toward Jesus when in fact their resistance is rooted solely in wanting just what the Constitution dictates -- keep ALL religous sects out opf government affairs.
Your argument is similar to the canard about atheists not really being nonbelievers, but instead being "angry at God" or "afraid of God." Some people simply cannot accept that there are those of us with no use for imaginary beings, but if you find yourself stymied by this concept, ask yourself how you feel about the various Hindu gods. See? That's what atheists deal with daily.
Nathan. would you care to read and critically analyze this?
http://www.infidels.org/library/..._till/
myth.html
Good stuff. If you don't want to or are short on time, I'll do it on my blog and link to this post. Suffice it to say that the viewpoints presented conflict powerfully with your own.
You're right that the prayers in the Senate (or any other public body, for that matter) do not affect anyone's freedom of religion.
However, if you're really saying that Judeo-Christianity is recognized by the government as carrying more weight, how can that be interpreted as anything other than an establishment of religion?
"if you're really saying that Judeo-Christianity is recognized by the government as carrying more weight, how can that be interpreted as anything other than an establishment of religion?"
Nathan usually answers that kind of question by saying that acknowledging the obvious fact that America is a Christian nation through in throughis not the same as "establishment." When he needs to, which is constantly, Nathan simply invents new definitions for words so that he can in effect claim that A is not equal to A.
No answers, Nathan? Given up so soon? Gee, no surprise there. Whenever a few hard questions get asked, Nathan vanishes.
Kemibe: No, Nathan has always answered those questions quite differently... he argues that the USA was explicitly established as a Christian country, and only a Christian country. When confronted with the difficult problem of why there is nothing in the constitution that favours Christianity over any other religion, his response is roughly 'Well... there were no other significent religions around at the time, so why would anyone bother?' His position has been not just refruted, but throughly destroyed from every angle, more times than I can recall. It has been demolished with founders' quotes, with historical records, with early court precident, with congressional records, with speeches and with letters... and yet still he refuses to even acknowledge any of this material exists, instead choosing to quote-mine only for those sentences that support him while ignoring all the rest.
ha!
you claim the fact that our country is doing well is because we pray to only one god, but fail to mention how we stole a country full of natural resources from the indians - do you think perhaps having two vast oceans and seemingly-neverending resources had something to do with it?
any rational person can't read your blatherings without laughing.
congratulations, sheeple!
by the way, the founding fathers were all secular humanists or deists.
look it up! you can deny it, but HISTORY will tell you, they were mainly deists, and couldn't stand the way people like you try to force what you believe on others.
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