WTF???

[AngryBiker]

I'm all for secularism. I don't see our govt. 'forcing' religion anywhere. With all due respect, it seems to me that you guys are swattin' butterflies.

Lets put the shoe on the other foot then: Every day your child has to go to school to recite this: "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under Allah, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Would you be OK with that?

You can replace "Allah" with "Yahweh," "Christ," "Buddha," "L. Ron Hubbard" or "no god." All of these alternatives are a violation of separation of church and state, including "no god." That's the whole point of secularism (which, incidentally, is not synonymous with atheism): the state cannot invoke any religion, nor can it prohibit citizens (as citizens) from holding and practicing their own personal religious belief (or lack thereof). It is a two-edged sword. Secularism simply means the government must butt out.

Where the government fails to do so, it should be challenged. And atheists are not the only ones that do this.

L. Ron Hubbard. I love it. There is no provision of separation of church and state. If there is, kindly point it out to my ignorant @$$. I don't need to be educated on the meaning of secularism. At the risk of sounding belligerent myself, many of you atheists come off as a bunch of arrogant pricks. BTW, there's not a whole lot of difference betwixt you an d I.

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I should also point out something that just came to mind. Even if the constitution doesn't need interpretation, and the founding fathers never meant for there to be a "separation of church and state", that doesn't mean that it isn't a good idea, or that we shouldn't strive to accomplish it.

This is a point that I find puzzling about US Americans... the Declaration and Constitution are important documents, but it is not sacred writ, and the Founding Fathers (look, I capitalized that even) are not infallible gods. And yet many of us refer to the Constitution JUST LIKE the Bible and as if Washington, Jefferson, et al were like Moses, Joshua, and so on.

The idea of the various freedoms that are proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution are worthwhile and important, but they are not simply BECAUSE those documents say so. I am unable to muster that sort of reverence myself. In THAT context, I don't give a damn what Jefferson or Franklin thought.

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All right, I'll roll with you on that. All I was looking for was intelligent discourse. Thank you for that.