Posted by Strictly Skewed at 199.199.216.61 on February 19, 2004 at 14:37:50:
In Reply to: Re: Here's a great article... posted by jason305 on February 19, 2004 at 14:16:45:
: : I gotta say, my biggest beef against Bush... is simply that he's ruling a country by his religion.
: Every president, be they born-again Christian, Catholic, Protestant or none of the above has ruled the country by their religion.
: Separation of church and state is a dream.
: We all have our own religious beliefs; in Christ, Buddah, Allah, or that there's no God or He is unknowable. We base our morals and values upon that belief. Believe the Bible is the Word of God and you'll base your decisions on it; don't believe in God at all and you'll base your decisions on your own opinion or feelings. But under it all is what you believe about God.
Yes, of course... true separation is impossible. But, we can strive for it as much as we can. Things are better now than they were 100 years ago because polititians are much less likely to push forward their religious beliefs, and try to enact them as laws. They have to justify their positions though secular arguments.
: I'm not going to get into a creation/evolution debate, but look under the science. People scream that we should only teach evolution as fact because teaching anything else is teaching religion. However, that means teaching children of all faiths that life appeared without God. That IS, by very definition, teaching religion.
No, you're missing the point of teaching evolution. Evolution is the best *theory* about how we came to be, based upon scientific observations. No school or teacher worth their degree tries to say that is definitely true, and they fully admit that there are plenty of other theories. The point is, they're teaching science, not religion.
: It is impossible to truly separate religion from anyone. Even if you remove God, then you are left with atheism or secular humanism. Both of which are legally defined by the Supreme Court as a religion.
But there are no laws based upon atheism or secular humanism (at least, I hope not) and THAT is the point of separation of church and state. When a legislative body enacts a law against speeding, which religion does it fall under? NONE, including athiesm and secular humanism.