Quote:
Originally Posted by Excaliber
Razor, I would be interested in YOUR version of separation of church and state. Why you think this christian rally does not violtate that standard. Or why a fly over should or shouldn't be allowed at a Muslim Rally.
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A brief explanation would be that the first amendment was wanted by people of faith to protect them from the government. Just read Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, his experience was that Virginia was collecting taxes to support the Anglican Church which was the state church, and if you were not a member of the state church you couldn't hold office, and they even had the death penalty for grievous violations against the official doctrinal position of the Anglicans, although no one was ever executed in Virginia they were jailed, and their was a Quaker women put to death in Massachusetts for violating the laws supporting the state church. They found themselves living in the same environment as they had in Europe the only difference being a state church instead of a national church.
Today the general accepted understanding is the opposite it is a protection of the government from the church. I will give one example in the change of the thinking. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both attended Church services in the Capitol Building, which was used for church services until the 1860s. That certainly would not be allowed in todays world.
The term separation of church and state is not found in the Constitution or any other government document, it was used by Thomas Jefferson in a private letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 they were wanting clarification on religious freedom since it had not been enumerated as an unalienable right. The Baptist had suffered under the laws as they had been and wanted to know Jefferson position, he told them he was for religious freedom, as he authored the Virginia bill for the same in 1779, he wrote,
"...that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error and has nothing to fear from conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them"
As far as a fly over at a Muslim rally I'm all for it as long as the planes are fully armed
its a joke, its a joke.
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