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The term, Separation of Church and State has been so abused/misused as to render it meaningless. Separation of Church and State has nothing to do with saying Christian prayers in school or teaching Biblical Creation in a science class. Separation of Church refers to the ancient tradition of The Christian Church in Europe having its own Charter, which included vast tracts of land, the powers to raise armies, police, courts, banks, pawn shops, businesses etc. As well as the power to generate income from things like tithes.
What these people are pushing for is a total union of Church and State, with the Church docile to the State (in which case the church is as crappy as cable tv or free radio and hence, not worth the time and the fees/commercial breaks). In the old days these kinds of bullies used to burn churches down, kill the priests and terrorize the congregation. Nowadays, they are much more clever.
If/as these people's power grows, I wouldn't expect the real church/a strong church to survive in the open. And, in fact, it does not seem to be. Churches today seem weak and only getting worse. Like the stock of a dying company, the decline of anything is often full of mini-rallies, on its way to the poor house.
Last edited by Chef Boyardee; 02-05-2010 at 04:15 PM..
Freedom of Religion laws are still in the law of America no matter what the civil libertarianism idea or thoughs who want to re-interprete the law to water it down...... Jesus says ``chear up for I have overcome the World``, in other words Bless your enemies with life prayer and Jesus will hold you up in Heaven and heal the land.......After the second coming of Jesus Christ theocracy, where Lord God is the King and ruler will overtake the whole world, and there will be no laws of Separation of Church and State, ,,,, The Lord God had this in Israel from Moses to before King Saul,,, Israel was a theocracy,,,,, it will be a time when the world will be new again,,,, all the old ways will be gone, the Church of Jesus Christ will not be fragmented like today, but absorbed in to one Church under the rule of life of Christ King and ruler.... Worship free at last.
Freedom of Religion laws are still in the law of America no matter what the civil libertarianism idea or thoughs who want to re-interprete the law to water it down...... Jesus says ``chear up for I have overcome the World``, in other words Bless your enemies with life prayer and Jesus will hold you up in Heaven and heal the land.......After the second coming of Jesus Christ theocracy, where Lord God is the King and ruler will overtake the whole world, and there will be no laws of Separation of Church and State, ,,,, The Lord God had this in Israel from Moses to before King Saul,,, Israel was a theocracy,,,,, it will be a time when the world will be new again,,,, all the old ways will be gone, the Church of Jesus Christ will not be fragmented like today, but absorbed in to one Church under the rule of life of Christ King and ruler.... Worship free at last.
The term, Separation of Church and State has been so abused/misused as to render it meaningless. Separation of Church and State has nothing to do with saying Christian prayers in school or teaching Biblical Creation in a science class. Separation of Church refers to the ancient tradition of The Christian Church in Europe having its own Charter, which included vast tracts of land, the powers to raise armies, police, courts, banks, pawn shops, businesses etc. As well as the power to generate income from things like tithes.
What these people are pushing for is a total union of Church and State, with the Church docile to the State (in which case the church is as crappy as cable tv or free radio and hence, not worth the time and the fees/commercial breaks). In the old days these kinds of bullies used to burn churches down, kill the priests and terrorize the congregation. Nowadays, they are much more clever.
If/as these people's power grows, I wouldn't expect the real church/a strong church to survive in the open. And, in fact, it does not seem to be. Churches today seem weak and only getting worse. Like the stock of a dying company, the decline of anything is often full of mini-rallies, on its way to the poor house.
It depends on how you define a church. Christ clearly has a church seperate from many churches. As the world regresses the church of man clearly will gain dominance. It has showed its form in many facets even today. The pace quickens and time grows shorter.
It depends on how you define a church. Christ clearly has a church seperate from many churches. As the world regresses the church of man clearly will gain dominance. It has showed its form in many facets even today. The pace quickens and time grows shorter.
Yes sir. I like to think of a story I read in, "The Politically Incorrect Guide To English Literature." A man was complaining about how all the good things were old. He was a barbarian, who lived after The Fall of The Roman Empire.
In particular, he was talking about the quality of a sword. Even he could figure out that the swords his people made, were quite inferior to the swords that had been made by the people of The Roman Empire and he longed for that quality to return. It did, but like it says in, "The Swiss Family Robinson," chapter 1, paragraphs 19 and 20, "God will help us soon now, won't He?... don't you know that we must not settle what God is to do for us? We must have patience and wait His time."
At the beginning of civilization, religion, or perhaps the political, or perhaps a combination of the two, dominated the culture. What else was there? As men progressed, other systems formed or broke away from the religious and/or political domination that these were hidden it, such as science, education, the economy, the military as an independent science, science, etc. All of these systems in the modern state make it up and each have a particular discourse that belongs to it alone (think of talking about an economic transaction while in a conversation about the weather). Religion has its own discourse (and of course so does the sects that compose religion-but these are still part of religion). It is true that if the political takes this discourse over and fills religious discourse with political discourse (such as the republican to the right leaning or the democratic to the left leaning christianity-of course I am not saying one can not vote however one wishes but these political discourses need to remain outside of the theological) then religion is useless as it now becomes part of the political (why even get up on Sunday?). The two are separated (as well as the other parts of the social system) by the coding of the discourse (religion as distinct from the political, economic, military, etc). I think we may be seeing the political beginning to absorb science in this global warming thing as at first glance the issue seems to divide along political ideological lines, that is convenient and just nuts-everyone should be concerned about this but evidently our truths are wrapped up with our party affiliations. Science should get at the fact of the matter as best it can with out satisfying a political agenda (the commies did this in the old soviet system by telling the economy how much to produce, what to produce, what scientific findings will be acceptable to the party, etc; in a sense, the commie party wished to return to an ancient form of the state where the party dominated all discourse). Religion should fight to maintain its own independent discourse-so should science. The political has no right to dictate (and it can't because it is only political discourse) how these systemic discourses should be constructed, but it has a right to monitor them and and attempt to influence these other discourses and these others have a right to monitor the political and influence it as well. If one does not like this arrangement then one wants a primitive culture. The extreme Islamist dream is our current example and the atheistic soviet state is the other extreme.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
This was put into the constitution for the clear purpose of prohibiting state sponsored religion in any form. Officially sponsored Christian prayer was removed as it WAS ABSOLUTELY in violation of this law. If it remained then (because the state cannot prefer any particular belief system over another) a Hindu principal or a satanist teacher or a *insert belief system* could lead official prayers as well.
I have NO clue why Christians think it's appropriate to ever gripe about the decision to remove officially sponsored prayer from state run schools. There is no law requiring you to send you child to a state school. My children never set foot inside of a government school but if they did I certainly would NOT want the state school employees leading my children in any kind of prayers. Any citizens group are free to start their own school and pray to God or the man in the moon or to whoever they wish. That is religious freedom.
Really folks - think this through. Do you really WANT state sponsored prayer? What if it's to some goddess you don't believe in? Or to satan himself?
Render to Caesar what is Caesars. Long live SEPARATION of church and state. (Translation: "Thank God that the government has to stay the hell out of my spiritual life").
Okay - that's my spiel on separation, I know the OP is making an entirely different point about it which I will look into and comment on now that I have my little rant out of the way.
Separation of church and state is not meaningless unless applied rightly. It is the government staying out of religion and not the religion staying out of the government.
Location: Just East of the Southern Portion of the Western Part of PA
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I agree there should not be state sponsored prayer in schools, but the interpretation gets blurred when kids are forbidden from praying on their own in school or mentioning thier faith during graduation ceremonies or sporting events. This is where things get complicated.
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