I watched, rather listened, to President Obama's Inauguration, today. When the pastor when to speak, all I could think was the is ridiculous. Personally I think the two should be separated with a huge gap. Your stance?
I found the pastor's bit to be kinda out of place as well. I believe there should be a strong separation between church and state since there are many religions in the world. Similarly, we should not let our beliefs run our government or affect it, since the US does not have a "main" religion. Religion is about prayer and coming together, yet much of what it has done is tear nations apart; therefore, I have a strong feeling towards the separation of church and state.
I completely agree with you, a huge gap between the two would be for the best. i don't understand how they are so obviously intertwined, religion plays such a huge factor in elections and such that it's saddening. I don't understand how they've become more intertwined at all... The republican party is so tied around religion at times that it's sickening. You can't say this country was built on christianity because that's bullshit, over half of the founding fathers were deists or atheists(imo- we've taken steps back intelligence over the years it seems...) [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."[/FONT] ~Ben Franklin [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth."[/FONT] ~Thomas Jefferson [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity."[/FONT] ~John Adams [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by the difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be depreciated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society."[/FONT] ~George Washington I won't turn this into a religion debate or anything, but when it comes to running a country, it doesn't have a place. The pastor at the inauguration was indeed retarded(hmmm maybe have all religions represented there? oh wait, thats not the "american way") but the republicans would have a fit if that wasn't in place.
I agree completely, it's written in the constitution, therefore should be obeyed by all. plus, what place does religion have an at inauguration? i mean really...
Actually, "separation between church and state" was written because our founding fathers did not want America to be run by a pope. It had nothing to do with pastors not being allowed to speak. The phrase was thrown out of hand by atheist media. Anyway, what's so wrong with someone talking about God?
If we separated churches from their states, where would the churches go? Would they be floating or would they become separate entities, like the UN in NYC?
It's not that it's wrong, just the fact that the speech is not "all-inclusive". This is not a Christian nation, so (I think) the speech was awkward-ish. Even if Barrack is Christian, not everyone else is. The pastor's speech would be lost on them pretty much. And I think the separation of church and state is exactly what it says. The Pope is not the church; the "church" is everything that encompasses religion. It, like you said, has nothing to do with pastors not being allowed to speak. They are allowed; but should they? (Not saying "should they be allowed to speak", but "should that guy have spoken".)
Separation of church and state was not for the sake of the pope. You'd have to be crazy to think that. The men were deists and if you've ever read any of my blogs they were atheists before Darwin. Hell, Jefferson wrote his own of the bible and took out everything he didn't like. If he was Christian I don't know which way is up anymore. "atheist media"? Seriously? I don't have any representation beyond the internet. The grass is always greener I suppose but to say that atheists have a medium in the media is loony.
Honestly though, how popular is that thing? (Hey, the link isn't working for me. ) Obviously there will be atheistic news groups, but how well represented are they? Finding one that isn't particularly known or popular to the general public is not the same as those news stations you see on TV. You have to admit, the scale of news folk that are atheists is nothing compared to the amount of news folk affiliated with a religion, Christianity in particular for America.
Actually, I can give you the title of the book to check out if you'd like to read how it really was written so the US would not be ruled by a pope. The name is "Stupid History". It comes along with a ton of other misconceptions. And what would deism have to do with anything? So what if they were atheists, they still didn't want it to be ruled by anything but a republic. My atheist media, I was not saying all media is atheist. I was saying the media that is atheist. Anyway, for whatever reason, screw political correctness. So what if most of them didn't care about the prayer. The president obviously thought that enough did.
Well, there is a difference between main and official. Our main religion is Christianity. Our official stance is freedom of religion. I believe it should be separate, but things like this is fine.
George Washington was in no way Atheist, here is one of my favorite quotes from him. "It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible" -George Washington And Rick Warren in no way is retarded, have you heard of the Purpose Driven Life? Yea, that was written by him. Published 2002, it had sold 30 million copies by 2006. Oh, and religion plays such a big part because they want to know at least a little bit about what that person stands for before they let him become the most important person on the entire face of the planet.
@Frozen - I've searched, and I've searched but I can not find one reference to the pope in the writings of ANY of the founders that claims their basis for separation was so to not be ruled by the pope. That almost sounds like a white supremacist arguement against Catholics. @Rampagin - George Washington was a deist (or an atheist before darwin as I refer to them). [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The original colonies were primarily peopled by refugees fleeing religious persecution in other countries. But almost upon arrival, the Puritans only continued that practice against native Shaman, then against Quakers, and even each other –over religious differences. Catholics to the South were even worse! The founding fathers however were largely Deists, the least devout form of theism. They were brilliant men who knew better than to let religion rule over law because theocracy has in all instances almost automatically violated human rights and it inevitably always does. Consequently, the irreligious and non-Christian framers of the American Constitution produced the first government ever to grant all its citizens the right to religious freedom, and they did so by forbidding the government from sponsoring or promoting one religion over any other. Because it is not possible to have freedom of religion without having freedom from religion. [/FONT]