Professor stupidmonkey wrote:
gbaji wrote:
But somewhere along the line the 1st amendment got re-interpreted to assume that nothing which is funded by any amount of government dollars may have religious stuff involved. We can debate that interpretation if you want, but you have to at least agree that we didn't always interpret it that way.
Pretending that the law has always been applied that way is absurd. It quite obviously has not. So it's circular to defend that change by simply saying that's what the law says. The words in the 1st amendment haven't changed Joph. The interpretation of them have. It's a total cop out to just say "well, that's the law!" and leave it at that.
The definition of Freedom of Religion was changed because it came to include more than one religion, more than just the majority religion, which is why it is interpreted differently.
I don't believe that's correct (cause religious protections have existed for more than one religion since the beginning of this nation), but even if we assumed it was, that comment doesn't at all address the point I was making. No amount of shifting from a belief that the only religion that should be protected is Christianity to a belief that all religions should be protected requires that one bar any religious symbols on public property. You're assuming a binary "for/against" position with regard to Religion and suggesting that if we accept some limits on religion on the public square that we must therefore accept complete barring of religion in the public square. There is a point in between.
Quote:
We could go back to the Puritan view, if you want. We could also go back to slavery.
And we could go back to human sacrifice! OMG!!! So we should reject any and all rules or ideas that are "old" because some old rules and ideas were bad. Hell. Let's chuck that whole "thou shalt not kill" thing while we're at it.
Jophiel wrote:
What we need is a nice big Ramadan display in a public park with lots of Islamic iconography. I bet it would go over like gangbusters given how much we value cultural displays and new ideas.
If it were allowed while Nativity scenes in the same park were banned during Christmas, there should be an uproar. Because it's not about my religion versus someone else's, but that our government would be doing exactly what the 1st amendment says not to do: Playing favorites based on religion.
Professor stupidmonkey wrote:
I just saw
this, thought it was pretty interesting.
The link wrote:
In at least seven U.S. states, constitutional provisions are in place that bar atheists from public office and one state, Arkansas, has a law that bars an atheist from testifying as a witness at a trial, the report said.
That law that's been on the books since 1874 and hasn't even been attempted to be enforced in 80 years? Get back to me when they remove the law that requires you to have someone walk behind your car with a red lantern when you drive at night. Then we can talk. This hardly represents some kind of movement towards discrimination against Atheists.