Joined: Aug 2006 Gender: Female Posts: 3,492 Location: Olympia
Re: Aquinas's proofs of God « Reply #45 on Aug 9, 2010, 9:43pm »
And what people forget, it seems, is that the Catholics always have three chunks of Scripture in the mass. Now, to be fair, I don't know how far back that goes, and it's assuredly not the whole of the Bible, but yeah.
Joined: Nov 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 244 Location: San Antonio, TX
Re: Aquinas's proofs of God « Reply #46 on Aug 19, 2010, 6:15pm »
I just wanted to chime in (for the shiggles, if you must know the motive) and say that I am proud of being an arrogant atheist. Considering that I've seen Carl Sagan called a militant atheist, I consider it a compliment.
Also nice to see the whole persecution complex is in effect. Yes, we don't want you to force people to pray in public schools, or erect religious monuments in public facilities in a country that's pretty much founded on separation of Church and State. Sorry.
Also nice to see the whole persecution complex is in effect. Yes, we don't want you to force people to pray in public schools, or erect religious monuments in public facilities in a country that's pretty much founded on separation of Church and State. Sorry.
The so-called "seperation of Church and State" is intended primarily to protect the church, not to persecute public religious expression, as it is somtimes being used to do now.
Prayer in school never forced anyone to participate. Religious monuments in public facilities are free expression and should be protected as such. They can only be seen as Congress passing a law to establish a state religion (which is what the 1st ammendment is talking about) by the very paranoid or with those with a bone to grind against organized religion in general.
And before you ask, yes I would accept Muslim or wiccan religious displays on public grounds if they were representative of the views of the community (i.e. in a primarily muslim or wiccan community).
'How shall a man judge what to do in such times?' 'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves, and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'
But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Given that Jesus prayed often in public (the Lord's Prayer which follows this passage being the most famous instance), Matthew 6:6 cannot be seen as a total prohibition against all forms of public worship. Rather I read it as a prohibition against ostentatious (and hypocritical) public worship, as the Pharisees of the time engaged in. The context of the passage (mentioning alms giving and fasting as well) would seem to support this.
'How shall a man judge what to do in such times?' 'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves, and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'
The so-called "seperation of Church and State" is intended primarily to protect the church....
Nonsense. The separation of church and state embodied enlightenment principles developed during decades even centuries of religiously motivated and justified wars. Those wars devastated the people of Europe and the cause was largely the belief that religion was a primary symbol of loyalty.
It was a meant to assure that the government would not not apply explicit or implicit religion based loyalty tests that excluded some from equal protection and access to the government. That includes the lack of a religious practice as well as differing practices.
The separation is vital to a fair and civil society where religious bigotry was and and still is an issue. Just ask the Moslems that want to build the community and religious center in NY City.
It has the additional benefit of being better for churches, but I would submit, that today, most proposed monuments are not an expression of the broader community, but are politically motivated to promote certain versions of certain religions. If people want to make public displays of there faith, they should do it where they are free to do so without the need for government approval, on their own property.
As far as ostentation public prayer, I suggest much of that today's public religious practices do cross in to ostentatious. May people seem unable to differentiate between religious faith and principles of effective government and are willing to invoke God into their politics by fighting to put monuments on public grounds, for instance.
And before you ask, yes I would accept Muslim or wiccan religious displays on public grounds if they were representative of the views of the community (i.e. in a primarily muslim or wiccan community)
Can I put up a statue of the Flying Spaghetti Monster along side the Wiccan monument. How do you make a rational and fair test for such allowance?
Joined: Aug 2006 Gender: Female Posts: 3,492 Location: Olympia
Re: Aquinas's proofs of God « Reply #52 on Aug 23, 2010, 1:48pm »
Which belief in separation of Church and State you're looking at actually does indicate which they were trying to protect. The early Massachusetts Bay colonists were primarily interested in protecting the Church, but by the time of the Revolution, Constitution, and so forth, it was protecting the State. Indeed, at the time, a lot of people were afraid that a government primarily ruled by Episcopalians, say, would unfairly discriminate against, say, Baptists. The change should be obvious--in the early days, there was one religion involved. By the time of Jefferson, there were many, and practically all of them had been banned from one colony or another at some point in Colonial history.
The so-called "seperation of Church and State" is intended primarily to protect the church....
Nonsense. The separation of church and state embodied enlightenment principles developed during decades even centuries of religiously motivated and justified wars. Those wars devastated the people of Europe and the cause was largely the belief that religion was a primary symbol of loyalty.
And it was largely to escape a political system that viewed religion as a symbol of loyalty that many early settlers came to the Americas to establish enclaves of their own faith.
Quote:
It was a meant to assure that the government would not not apply explicit or implicit religion based loyalty tests that excluded some from equal protection and access to the government.
Except that the Consitution already contained a provision forbiding religious tests for office even before the 1st Ammendment was added - in Article 6.
Quote:
The separation is vital to a fair and civil society where religious bigotry was and and still is an issue. Just ask the Moslems that want to build the community and religious center in NY City.
I agree that not allowing the state to dictate religious expression is vital to a fair and civil society.
And for the record, I support the Moslems who wish to build a mosque near Ground Zero - primarily on the basis of protection of their property rights, not on 1st ammendment grounds.
Quote:
It has the additional benefit of being better for churches, but I would submit, that today, most proposed monuments are not an expression of the broader community, but are politically motivated to promote certain versions of certain religions.
I see little evidence of this. The majority of fights I have seen involved the removal of monuments that had long been in place rather than newly-proposed monuments.
Quote:
As far as ostentation public prayer, I suggest much of that today's public religious practices do cross in to ostentatious.
I would agree, although we may be thinking of different specifics.
'How shall a man judge what to do in such times?' 'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves, and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'
'How shall a man judge what to do in such times?' 'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves, and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'
And before you ask, yes I would accept Muslim or wiccan religious displays on public grounds if they were representative of the views of the community (i.e. in a primarily muslim or wiccan community)
Can I put up a statue of the Flying Spaghetti Monster along side the Wiccan monument. How do you make a rational and fair test for such allowance?
If most of the people in your community support the Flying Spaghetti Monster then I see no problem with it.
'How shall a man judge what to do in such times?' 'As he ever has judged,' said Aragorn. 'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves, and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'
And for the record, I support the Moslems who wish to build a mosque near Ground Zero - primarily on the basis of protection of their property rights, not on 1st ammendment grounds.
I agree with you. In my case it is because if we equally enforce property rights, bigotry ceases to control the debate whether it be religion, race or municipal tax greed.
Interestingly it was the Republicans that past the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act that makes it almost impossible for local officials to stop the mosque or any religious structures from being built.
Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 4,620 Location: Lost Deimos Moonbase
Re: Aquinas's proofs of God « Reply #58 on Aug 24, 2010, 2:06am »
See this is one of the reasons I think that USAians are crazy. Every now and then some lunitic tries to convince people over here to adopt a formal Separation of Church and State coming up withe most flimsy of reasons of why it should be done, and they always get shot down by it being pointed out that we have a secular Government and a freedom of religion that is not only protected by our Government, but participated in. Rather than excluding all religions from our political arena, we invite all to participate as equals be they Anglican, Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or none at all. This has resulted in even having a number of religious based political parties and politicians actively courting religious groups for their support.
Yet still we are a secular nation. We have no State Religion, and in fact it is illegal for the Government to create laws that would favour any religion, or group of religions, over any other meaning that even if a religious party does manage to get sway in Parliment, they could do nothing that created discrimination against anyone, despite what some of them would like to think. In fact the United Future Party has been able to influence the last two Governments, and we haven't turned into a Theoracy yet.
What it all really means is that the Government doesn't tell the churches what to do, and the Churches themselves don't get involved directly (there was a bit of a stink a few years back when the Breathren Church appeared to be doing this) though they may offer unformal commentary and guidance much as anyone else in the cheap seats.
It also means that we can have white crosses beside the road up and down the length of the country, each a monument to someone that has died in that spot. In the States these would be considered religious monuments and not allowed on public property. Here the only issue here is if the LTSA thinks that they might be in a dangerous place, and then they request they are moved to a position that they won't cause further accidents due to people stopping in poor visiblity places.
Overall, I'm happy keeping our system.
« Last Edit: Aug 24, 2010, 2:09am by PhantomWolf »
It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. -- JayUtah
"On two occasions, I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
Joined: May 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 3,122 Location: Space City, Texas
Re: Aquinas's proofs of God « Reply #59 on Aug 24, 2010, 10:42am »
There is nothing in our system that prevents political parties centered around a religious base. Rather it is other features of our system that make small parties of all varieties nearly impossible.
It appears to me that people who live in smaller countries that developed with a fairly homogeneous population (my perception of NZ,) tend to feel they have more say so in the government. The US has toiled with various forms of fundamentalism and religious strife since it was founded. My own way of thinking is that religion should be a personal practice and not part of the government. This includes laws that apply to specific religions.
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