Originally posted by Swazo: Our founding father Thomas Jefferson was the guy behind seperation of church and state. I agree with him and am even more amazed with the man since he was in an age where organised religon was forced apon people.
Your statement is incorrect. He was ONE of the guys. Read James Madison's biography, you'll find he felt very much the same as Thomas Jefferson and others did specifically in reference to freedom of religion and state sponsorship religion issues.
In 1776 James Madison was a member of the Virginia constitutional committee, a body that drafted Virginia's first constitution & a Bill of Rights which later became a model for the Bill of Rights amended to the U.S. Constitution. Madison very actively supported religious toleration & was a leading advocate for the separation of church & state. In this work he found a life-long partner & friend in Thomas Jefferson.
Quote: When peoples religous views are SO important to THEM that they have to force it apon others, that's just like what Osama Bin Laden is doing. Organised religon does not equate morality, ethics and virtue.... history proves this time and time again.
George Washington disagrees with your assessment as my previous post indicates via his farewell address in speaking of the removal of religion from man's ability to be moral and ethical. Still, to each his own. As I've maintained, there is a marked difference between respecting each person's ability to voice their opinions in the public square, based upon whatever they feel is important (religion, faith, secular, etc.), and actively endorsed state sponsored religion. To deny religion has played an important part in our or any other nation's history is to deny our history. Please note I am NOT an advocate of state sponsored religion, and if you bothered to read my posts I think that would be obvious.
Quote: If people can listen to these money grubbing bible thumpers, than good for them. But not everyone needs to follow suit and their religous veiws should not become law for others of various faiths.
Agreed. You have every right to your opinions of course and I respect your views just as much as anyone else's and your right to express them. I wholeheartedly agree that religion should not become lawful, i.e., no state sponsored religion, however if what we're talking about here is that a person's view should in any way be less valid or pushed aside simply because that person's worldview may be based upon any one religion, that I disagree with vehemently.
Originally posted by Thomas Jefferson: The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter -Thomas Jefferson
I have examined all the known superstitions of the word, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth. -Thomas Jefferson
Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man....Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus. -Thomas Jefferson
Yes, Jefferson was widely known to be a deist. As one of my previous posts alluded to.
Apologies, I didn't mean to imply that he was the sole person behind seperation of church and state. But he seemed to have fought the hardest for it, atleast IMO. He was a christian, though he didn't agree with the gospel of the time.
I agree that religious people belong in politics just as much as an athiest, agnostic or whom ever. Their religous background is what makes them who they are. So you cannot exclude THEM as a person. I live in Salt Lake City and have had to deal with this problem a lot as a non-mormon.
I do not denounce religion at all. I denounce organised religion as a personal choice for myself. I get what Washington was getting to, it was basicly about unchecked power.... that people need to believe in a higher power because one day they will have to answer for their actions. With that in mind, a religous person is more likely to "Do on to others..." more or less, where as an athiest would do whatever they wanted because and keep themselves in mind with a "you only live once, so screw everyone else" outake on life. In my experiance I have seen both types of people on both sides of that fence.
2005 Ford F150 SuperCab FX4
1964 Chevrolet Impala SS
1998 CSVT: 354HP/328TQ @ 10 psi, now gone
