Posted on 12/23/2005 9:34:12 AM PST by wgeorge2001
If the Separation of Church and State never existed then why did the First U. S. Congress never allow prayer or divine services to be performed in the House or Senate Chambers during its daily meetings or at any other time?
Why did the First U. S. Congress refuse to issue a religious proclamation upon its own authority as the previous Congress had done?
Why did the U. S. Congress wait twenty-five years, until 1814, to pass another resolution asking for a second Executive Religious Proclamation?
Why was a Chaplain to the U. S. Congress paid only one fourth of what the pervious Congress paid its Chaplains?
Why weren’t the duties and responsibilities of the Chaplains to Congress ever reduced to writing as they were for every other employee of Congress on the “Civil List?”
Why were the Chaplains to Congress paid less than even the House and Senate assistant clerks?
Why was the Chief Clerk of the House paid $1.800 per year but a Chaplain only $250?
Why in the first eight years of the republic did the Chaplain’s do nothing but perform one divine service and a funeral every once in a while for a deceased government official?
Friday Slice
Congress was NOT to establish a religion, and they were NOT to prevent 'we' the people from practicing 'religion'.
Retain Mike wrote:
Clearly government cannot reach into the religious life of citizens.
My comment is:
If that is the fundamental principle of American Religious Liberty that is embodied in the U. S. Constitution, then a Total Separation of Church and State is required.
Religion is the duty we owe to the Creator. At least it was in 1789, according to James Madison, George Mason, Patrick Henry, the Virginia Bill of Rights of 1776 (The model for most of the other States) and the religion amendment recommended by the Virginia Convention of 1788 that ratified the U. S. Constitution.
If the government is prohibited from reaching into our duties to the Creator, then the President has no business whatsoever issuing advice that we have (or do not have) a duty to pray or give thanks, nor does a government school have any legitimate authority to recommend or even suggest that a student has a duty to obey the Ten Commandments.
Friday Slice
1slice@comcast.net
Retain Mike wrote:
Clearly government cannot reach into the religious life of citizens.
My comment is:
If that is the fundamental principle of American Religious Liberty that is embodied in the U. S. Constitution, then a Total Separation of Church and State is required.
Religion is the duty we owe to the Creator. At least it was in 1789, according to James Madison, George Mason, Patrick Henry, the Virginia Bill of Rights of 1776 (The model for most of the other States) and the religion amendment recommended by the Virginia Convention of 1788 that ratified the U. S. Constitution.
If the government is prohibited from reaching into our duties to the Creator, then the President has no business whatsoever issuing advice that we have (or do not have) a duty to pray or give thanks, nor does a government school have any legitimate authority to recommend or even suggest that a student has a duty to obey the Ten Commandments.
Friday Slice
1slice@comcast.net
The separation between church and state...
Your rephrasing presents a logical fallacy. The demand for a wall of separation between church and state is extraconstitutional - it denotes a barrier of separation that is insurmountable from either side.
The constitution forbids only the regulation or prohibition of the church through the government's role of lawmaking. Our founding document does not prohibit accomodation and acknowledgement of religion by any and all governmental entities.
Retain Mike wrote that:
Citizens are not to be obstructed in any way from dictating to government in accord with their religious beliefs.
My comments is:
Genuine religious freedom is all about obstructing and preventing any individual or group thereof from dictating to the government that it assume an unlawful authority over any matter pertaining to our beliefs regarding the duties we owe to the Creator.
Many Americans in the 1830’s believed it was their religious duty to keep the Sabbath. They organized under a leadership of some Presbyterian ministers and unsuccessfully attempted to direct the Federal Government in accord with their religious beliefs regarding the Sabbath. They demanded that Congress abolish the policy of delivering mail on Sunday, claiming that the Post Office policy required a violation of the Fourth Commandment. (To keep the Sabbath)
One of the legal arguments advanced by the Presbyterians was that the Post Office policy was a law respecting the establishment of the duty to keep the Sabbath. The House of Representatives appointed a committee, in 1832, to study the issue. The committee issued a famous report written by Colonel Johnson, a Representative from Kentucky.
The House Post Office Committee Report judged James Madison to be the premier authority on the meaning of the First Amendment. The committee found the fundamental principle of the religion clauses in the Memorial and Remonstrance written by Madison in 1785. The fundamental concept expressed in the following excerpt from Colonel Johnson’s report sprang directly from the mind of James Madison.
“The question referred to the Committee does not come within the cognizance of Congress.”
.
In his 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance, Madison defined religion as “the duty which we owe to our Creator” and eloquently articulated his basic assumption that that religion is wholly exempt from the cognizance of government.
We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man's right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance. True it is, that no other rule exists, by which any question which may divide a Society, can be ultimately determined, but the will of the majority; but it is also true that the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority.
Because Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body. The latter are but the creatures and vicegerents of the former. Their jurisdiction is both derivative and limited: it is limited with regard to the co-ordinate departments, more necessarily is it limited with regard to the constituents.
In 1878, the men on the U. S. Supreme Court were of like mind with Colonel Johnson on the meaning of the religion clauses. They found, in the case of Reynolds v. United States, the definition of religion and the fundamental principle of the First Amendment exactly where Colonel Johnson found it in 1832. It was so obvious to the High Court in 1878 that they did not consider any other interpretation worthy of even mentioning.
The claim that the Separation of Church and State originated in the 1940’s and was derived from a letter by Thomas Jefferson is pure nonsense.
Friday Slice
1slice@comcast.net
Retain Mike wrote that:
This separation of church and state nonsense comes from a sound bite from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson when he was president to shine on a Baptist minister.
My comment is:
Separation of Church and State was just one of the many ways Jefferson referred to the principle of no government authority over religion that was the cement that held the Republic together. At least that is what Saint George Tucker believed.
The Baptists pioneered the concept. They had espoused it and been persecuted for it, for at least two hundred years before Jefferson was even born.
As a youth, Jefferson attended many a Baptist meeting with his favorite aunt who was Baptist. Dolly Madison claimed Jefferson told her that the Baptists were the source of inspiration for many of his ideas about government.
The leader of the Danbury Baptists was Ephraim Nehemiah who was, what today would be known as, Jefferson’s campaign manager in Connecticut. If the exchange of letters between the Baptist and Jefferson was the source of the concept of no government authority over religion then the credit should go to Mr. Nehemiah.
It is not much of an exaggeration to say that the only thing Jefferson really did in his letter to the Baptist was merely repeat back to them what they had written in theirs about religious freedom and the meaning of the First Amendment.
If liberal judges concocted the concept of no civil authority over religion, then it was liberal South Carolina Judges that did it. In the 1843 case of Harmon v. Dreher, the Court of Appeals of South Carolina summarized the religion clauses of the First Amendment with the following:
The structure of our government has secured religious liberty from the invasion of the civil authority.
It is noteworthy that South Carolina Court respected the authority of the First Amendment and James Madison’s interpretation thereof, even though the amendment did not technically apply to the State of Carolina.
The claptrap notion that the doctrine of no civil authority over religion comes from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson when he was President is foolish nonsense.
F. Slice
1slice@comcast.net
Retain Mike wrote that:
The Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty should also be read as a one way screen that in no way prevents citizens from compelling government on religious matters. May the Lord be praised!
My comment is:
Does anyone know if Mike studied religion at the University of Satan and was he sniffing glue at the time? After the enactment of the Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty in 1786 the Virginia Governors never even issued a Religious Proclamation and the General Assembly never asked him too. If the Virginian’s wanted religion in their government, then why was the clergy banned, in 1776, from serving in the Virginia legislature?
Why didn’t the Virginia legislature write prayers for students in government schools?
Why weren’t the Ten Commandments recommended to the people by the State?
Why did the Virginia State Seal include only secular symbols?
F. Slice
1slice@comcast.net
Just My Thoughts wrote that:
Congress was NOT to establish a religion, and they were NOT to prevent 'we' the people from practicing 'religion'.
My respectful comment is:
99% of the meaning of the First Amendment’s religion clauses depends on how you define the word “religion.” I define the word “religion” in the establishment clause the same way it was defined by James Madison, George Mason, Patrick Henry, the Virginia General Assembly, the Virginia Ratification Convention, the North Carolina Legislature, the North Carolina and the Great Saint George Tucker who wrote the first comprehensive systematic explanation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights after both were ratified and may have been the finest legal mind of the first twenty-five years of the Republic. Tucker was damn sure the best lawyer in Virginia in 1802, when he wrote his commentaries.
Religion = The duty that we owe to the Creator
You are generally correct, in my view anyway, if you are saying that Congress was not establish any sort of a duty owed to the Creator, or prevent an individual from discharging his duties to God as directed by his conscience and convictions.
How do you define the word “religion” in the establishment clause and why?
F. Slice
1slice@comcast.net
Some common sense from a court?
I wonder when this will get to the US Supremes?
USSC will either strike it down or send it back. Most likely, send it back.
Mort Man wrote:
The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state.
My comment is:
Does the Constitution demand a wall of separation between your right to make love to your wife and the authority of the state to decide who makes love to her?
Where does the Constitution say the government can’t decide who makes love to your wife?
Where do you find this mythical wall of separation between sex and state?
F. Slice
1slice@comcast.net
Where does the Constitution say the government can’t decide who makes love to your wife?
Where do you find this mythical wall of separation between sex and state?
Straw man fallacy. The constitution is silent on the subject - it is relegated to subordinate law regarding the issue of forcible rape, and to the individuals' consciences (and morals) with respect to consensual sex.
If you want to debate the subject, please find something germane to it. The constitution institutes a one-way restriction on governmental/church interaction. Specifically, the government is not allowed to "establish" a state sponsored church, nor can the government prohibit the people's free exercise of religion.
Care to try again?
Mort Man wrote:
The constitution forbids only the regulation or prohibition of the church through the government's role of lawmaking. Our founding document does not prohibit accomodation and acknowledgement of religion by any and all governmental entities.
My opinion is:
I acknowledge James Madison as the premier authority on the meaning of the First Amendment as it regards fundamental safeguards for the rights of conscience. What better authority could there be than one of the six men who actually wrote it? None of the other five men are known to have advanced an interpretation of the religion clauses, much less one that contradicted Mr. Madison’s. Why do you suppose that is?
Even the disgusting counterfeit Christian and tool of Satan, Oliver Ellsworth, the inaugural member of the American Religious Liberty Hall of Shame, never disputed Madison’s interpretation. This despite the fact that thirteen years after he and Madison co-chaired the joint committee that finalized the First Amendment, Ellsworth wrote a sickening report for the Connecticut legislature defending the same abominable practice that prompted the Danbury Baptists to write their famous letter to President Thomas Jefferson in 1801.
Before I examine your interpretation of the First Amendment, please tell me who is your authority and why?
F. Slice
1slice@comcast.net
Either debate the subject or don't, FRiend. You introduced spurious anecdotes to the discussion, and then want to duel on the basis of the source for an interpretation?
I dismissed him when he basically said you can't acknowledge something without advocating it.
I acknowledge there are bank robberies.
Advice, recommend, and suggest do not equal law, arrest and inprisonment.
In logic, this fallacy is called false equivalence.
Has nothing to do with intelligence. Its about their political views.
It's the money, pure and simple. Pay a lefty, atheist, attorney enough, and and he, or she, would defend Christ before Pilot.
Always Right wrote:
The ACLU makes repeated reference to the separation of church and state. This extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome.
My two cents worth is:
The Counterfeit Christians who think it is a good idea for the government to hand out religious advice make repeated reference to “a national religion or church.” This extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome
Slice
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