RE: Ken Ham petulantly stamps his feet at reality, internet replies, "this is stu...
February 11, 2015 at 2:04 am
(February 10, 2015 at 11:22 pm)YGninja Wrote: You are misinterpreting the law and if you had any semblance of critical thinking you'd realise it.
Ah yes, the old "if you were smart, you'd agree with me!" ploy. Done poisoning the well, or do you just want to empty the whole bottle in?
Quote:1: Separation of Church and state is not a law, it appears no-where in the constitution.
It is, however, present in the establishment clause, which is in the first amendment. Enough with the sophistry.
Quote:2: "wall of separation between the church and the state" was a phrase originally used in letter by Thomas Jefferson. The point was to support the Connecticut Baptists, and so he told them that this wall had been erected to protect them. The phrase was only ever used to keep the state out of the church's business, not to keep the church out of the state's business.
Part of keeping the state out of the church's business is ensuring that the state doesn't begin privileging any one religion over the rest. Keeping the church out of the state is
essential to keeping the state out of the church, or are you just assuming that the only religion that will ever be in the majority is the Connecticut Baptists? Why is it that you religious folk are so bafflingly sure that only religious parties that you agree with will ever see fit to meddle in the law?
That's special pleading, in case you weren't paying attention; expecting that only your religion will be allowed to meddle is a special case exemption based on nothing. And if you aren't making it, then you also aren't keeping your church protected, as your initial objection claimed, because you're offering no means by which that particular religious group could be defended if an opposing one began altering the government.
So which is it? Are you using a blatant fallacy, or are you saying nothing at all?
Quote:3: The establishment clause is again to protect the religion of the people from government interference. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This gives you no grounds to remove religious paintings from a majority Christian school. If the government were to do that, they would be breaking the law.
That's not what the legal precedent states, or are you just ignoring that because it's inconvenient? What's more likely; that the courts, who are composed of people trained to interpret this stuff, have it wrong, or that you do?
Moreover, why are you assuming that you'll always be in the majority? History shows that you probably won't be, and when you're in the minority you'll be clamoring for the same protections you're saying don't exist, now that it's convenient. Equal protection for religions requires no favoritism.
But hey, let's just pretend you have it right, because
clearly the unambiguous wording of the establishment clause secretly contains the caveat "... except if you're in the majority."
Quote:4: If you engaged your brain for two seconds, maybe you'd ask yourself why...
a: Emblazoned over the Speaker of the House in the US Capitol are the words "In God We Trust."
Because it's a motto the US garnered in the midst of the red scare, to separate themselves from the godless communists? What was that you were saying, about engaging your brain?
Quote:b: The Supreme Court building built in the 1930's has carvings of Moses and the Ten Commandments.
Which isn't all that's there. Have you ever told more than the first half of a story in your entire life?
Quote:c: God is mentioned in stone all over Washington D.C., on its monuments and buildings.
And if it was Allah, would you be defending that, or would you recognize the appeal to tradition for what it is?
Quote:d :As a nation, we have celebrated Christmas to commemorate the Savior's birth for centuries.
Christmas is a secular holiday mostly, or at least it is now. You don't get to appeal to tradition fallacy your way around that.
The rest is just the standard Christian Nation crap, which the Treaty of Tripoli rather unambiguously dispels.
Quote:Whats more likely: that the very people who made this law as you imagine it, immediately went about breaking the law they just made, continually and repeatedly on a national scale for two centuries, during which no-one raised any objection? Or you have interpreted the law wrong?
I notice that nowhere in your list of options is the possibility that
you are interpreting the law wrong from the beginning.
Well, ignorance and confidence so often go together.
I'll just leave these words here, so that the people can see what's
truly more likely:
Quote: the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion
