Prayer Warriors Fight Church-State Division

The New York Times ^ | 11.17.01 | John W. Fountain

[ConsistentLibertarian]

If Satanists said something like "Sweet Satan, you sucked the life out of God's only Son and you Rule the Earth and we Worship you Forever Oh Dark one. May you give us homosexual sex and drugs and rock and roll ..." Blah blah blah. That would be OK in school too? Just trying to get clear on what sort of principle you want to defend.

[rapture-me]

God (assuming he exists) helps those who help themselves

Your ignorance is showing. The Bible says just the opposite. The statement the "God helps those that helps themselves" in NOT in the Bible.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

Remind me: The part about the sun orbiting the earth, is that in the Bible?

[He Rides A White Horse]

Yeah, a couple of kids praying after school together is going to cause the whole country to come crashing down.

[ken21]

some fundamentalists that i know could not stand the so-called "godlessness" in california schools, and sent their daughter to a southern baptist school in the south.

and there in the bushes outside the school she got pregnant!

[rapture-me]

Not there. Of course, some could stretch the imagination to put it in. All kinds of things have been added by false interpretation.

[Cleburne]

What ahokey title. These kids aren't attemopting a melding of church and state-they merely ask for a brief period of silence, for cryin' out loud! A welding of church and state would be when the state amndates that all the students must attend mass or something, and we all must pay a tax to the church, and that no other religions are allowed, or at least not officially protected.

[Cleburne]

The first part of Psalms 104 has a pretty fair depection of the sun from an astronomical viewpoint. And the Bible does speak of the "circle of the earth" I believe.

[nicmarlo]

Ping.

I'm sick and tired of the ACLU and their ilk and their relentless assaults on my faith.

As am I. And I believe that God had many people on their knees back in November and December for so much more than Bush's election (and the ramifications against the Constitution which would have been involved with that). I have felt more of God's presence in our country over the past 10 months, and even more so the past two. Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow.

[Vercingetorix]

"Mr. Graves and Harvey's aldermen have pressed their case in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, and the subsequent national embrace of public prayer."

The first thing enemies do upon commencing hositilities is to exchange vices. Let's hope our secular nation does not devolve into a theocracy ruled by self-righteous Bible Thumpers who will be every bit as authoritarian as the Taliban given half the chance.

People who imagine they can talk to God are delusional. But people who claim that God talks back to them are either insane and dangerous or crafty con artists and dangerous. People in power who imagine that they have a book of instructions written by God tend to be intolerant of those who don't follow the instructions to the letter.

The separation of Church and State should be maintained absolutely. Otherwise the dominant religious group will monopolize the state institutions, come to think of itself as the owner of those institutions and eventually impose its collective will with the same methods the Taliban used. If kids want to pray publicly in groups they are completely free to go to the Church of their choice on their own time.

[nicmarlo]

And our Constitution does not say there shall be separation between Church and State. What it does say is that there shall be no established religion and no infringement upon the free exercise thereof.

[ken21]

i agree.

i grew up in a very strict fundamentalist church and unfortunately for me our minister's wife was my 3rd grade teacher.

a one-room country school, and she was one of the most abusive people that i've met in my life!

[nicmarlo]

separation between church and state does not exist in the Constitution. It was created by case law by the United States Supreme Court in 1964. One could argue the Supreme Court violated the Constitution.

[ohioWfan]

I have felt more of God's presence in our country over the past 10 months, and even more so the past two. Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow.

Amen!! And ping!! God is at work in America!

[nicmarlo]

Amen!! . . . God is at work in America!

:)