Amenment XXVII: A Modest Proposal

All non-Christians will still be allowed to practice their religions tho their proselytizing activities will be regulated.

So what you're saying is that those who do not believe would never be able to criticize Christianity, point out its logical flaws, debate Christians in public nor would they be able to exercise any civil right in a way that is not in the Church's interests. Trust me, Christian persecution in the US would make the Sudan look like the Garden of Eden if such an amendment were to go through. The bloodshed would make the days of Emperor Nero look like the good old days for Christians in America.

In my humble opinion, I think the Church of Scientology has a better chance of becoming a "state church" in Taxachusetts than the Catholic Church.

I started thinking about the process of how a state would choose a representative church, I believe that it would probably be much like wireless telecommunication lottery. First a church would need to be licensed then it would be allowed to bid for the right to be named state church. Based on the above scenario, I would expect most of the I95 corridor states to be won by the Jehovah Whiteness’, all states west of the Mississippi would be Mormon. In no case would a state ever choose a group comprised of Christian fundamentalists as their representative due to their vertical demographics, lack of wealth and weak organizational skills.

SkyRat wrote: I guess all States with an official C[h]urch can ban the teaching of Evolution in schools too, since this could be seen as anti-christian teachings? Do we have to teach that the center of the solar system is earth too?

That would be determined in court on a case-by-case basis, I suppose.

Also, could a non christian religion become a state church?

Yes, if the majority of legislators in a given state voted for that to happen. It's not bloody likely, however, in any state I can think of (except possibly Utah).

Would you live in a state with an offically Islam church? Moslems do not establish or attend churches.

I'm an atheist...

Why?

...but I dont care if the pledge of Alliance includes "under god" or not. I also dont care if there is going to be a cross at the world trade center. But with people like you, pushing state sponsored mandatory christian churches, you shouldnt wonder why so many people become anti-christian.

First: I'm not pushing a state-sponsored Christian churches. If I'm "pushing" anything, it's the idea that the law should officially recognize that the culture and laws of the United States and of Western Civilization are founded upon the Christian religion.

Second: if people become anti-Christian merely on the basis of my feeble proposals on an internet message board, then they're pretty weak-minded people. The idea of somebody using me as an example of a "typical Christian" is the funniest thing I've heard in years. Like St. Paul said, "...Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief." [1 Timothy 1:15].

B-chan

Read your Constitution. The Founders never said a word against States having official churches. The First Amendment only prohibits Congress from establishing a national church, not the several States, which is why these established official churches existed.

From William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States, 1825:

"The first amendment prohibits congress from passing any law respecting an establishment of religion, or preventing the free exercise of it. It would be difficult to conceive on what possible construction of the Constitution such a power could ever be claimed by congress. The time has long passed by when enlightened men in this country entertained the opinion that the general welfare of a nation could be promoted by religious intolerance, and under no other clause could a pretence for it be found.

"Individual states whose legislatures are not restrained by their own constitutions, have been occasionally found to make some distinctions; but when we advert to those parts of the Constitution of the United States, which so strongly enforce the equality of all our citizens, we may reasonably doubt whether the denial of the smallest civic right under this pretence can be reconciled to it.

"In most of the governments of Europe, some one religious system enjoys a preference, enforced with more or less severity, according to circumstances. Opinions and modes of worship differing from those which form the established religion, are sometimes expressly forbidden, sometimes punished, and in the mildest cases, only tolerated without patronage or encouragement. Thus a human government interposes between the Creator and his creature, intercepts the devotion of the latter, or condescends to permit it only under political regulations. From injustice so gross, and impiety so manifest, multitudes sought an asylum in America, and hence she ought to be the hospitable and benign receiver of every variety of religious opinion.

"It is true, that in her early provincial stage, the equality of those rights does not seem to have been universally admitted. Those who claimed religious freedom for themselves, did not immediately perceive that others were also entitled to it; but the history of the stern exclusion or reluctant admission of other sects in several of the provinces, would be an improper digression in this work. In tracing the annals of some of the provinces, it is pleasing to observe that in the very outset, their enlightened founders publicly recognised the perfect freedom of conscience. There was indeed sometimes an inconsistency, perhaps not adverted to in the occlusion of public offices to all but Christians, which was the case in Pennsylvania, but it was then of little practical importance. In the constitution adopted by that state in 1776, the same inconsistency, though expressed in language somewhat different, was retained, but in her present constitution, nothing abridges, nothing qualifies, nothing defeats, the full effect of the original declaration."

f I'm "pushing" anything, it's the idea that the law should officially recognize that the culture and laws of the United States and of Western Civilization are founded upon the Christian religion.

Wrong. Western Civilization draws its roots more from pagan Athens and Rome. The Christian West did not produce anyone on par with Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Virgil or any of the great Roman Republican statesmen until the 17th century. The West was philosophically dead until Descartes, Locke, Hume, et al. began spreading their revolutionary ideas that were Western ideas, not Christian ideas. Christianity modified the Western tradition in some good ways and some bad ways. However to call the Western tradition Christian is to have no comprehension of history.

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