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Originally Posted by StewiesMom The right to personally bear arms is not in the constitution either, but crazy right wing extremists and pro gun people still love to pretend it is.
In the United States, separation of church and state is governed by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and by legal precedents interpreting that clause.
There are a variety of views regarding the degree of separation that should exist between church and state. Some, often referred to as secularists, assert that state should be kept entirely separate from religion. Others assert that the state ought to be permitted to become involved with religion (such as by giving financial support), but ought not establish one religion as the state religion, require religious observance, or legislate dogma. Others, sometimes known as theocrats, assert that the state should be inseparable from religion, and advocate an established church. A related topic is civil religion.
That is true, the phrase "separation of church and state" doesn't appear in the Constitution. There is a problem, however, in that some people draw incorrect conclusions from this fact. The absence of this phrase does not mean that it is an invalid concept or that it cannot be used as a legal or judicial principle.
The principle of a "religious liberty" exists behind in the First Amendment, even if those words are not actually there. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
The point of such an amendment is twofold. First, it ensures that religious beliefs - private or organized - are removed from attempted government control. This is the reason why the government cannot tell either you or your church what to believe or to teach. Second, it ensures that the government does not get involved with enforcing, mandating, or promoting particular religious doctrines. This is what happens when the government "establishes" a church - and because doing so created so many problems in Europe, the authors of the Constitution wanted to try and prevent the same from happening here.
Can anyone deny that the First Amendment guarantees the principle of religious liberty, even though those words do not appear there? Similarly, the First Amendment guarantees the principle of the separation of church and state - by implication, because separating church and state is what allows religious liberty to exist. wikipedia/about
Kids should NOT (typo before) pray in public schools in an organized manner. No one should push their religion on me and I'll glady go to work on Christmas if it means that the religious right is no longer ruling this country. |
I am assuming these comments were in response to my post. I am pretty certain the above comments except for the last three lines were cut and pasted directly from a website. I can certainly copy a website and paste some words that would say the exact opposite of those posted above for it has been and always will be a debated subject with very good points on both sides. However, I prefer to speak my own opinion, and not those of others.
If my post was correctly read, you would see that I say I don't know for sure what the answer is. I do know however, that separation of church and state is censure. By saying that religion of any form is not tolerated in the government, you are denying those in the government their freedom to practice the religion of their choice. I think everyone should be able to practice whatever religion they choose, however, to do so you also have to tolerate the practice of every one else's religion. That is my point. I'm assuming you are an atheist, and I respect that, but you must also respect the fact that I am a Christian, and not force me to censure my beliefs because they disagree with yours.
As a 3rd year law student, I certainly know that there are several judicial principles (i.e. freedom of speech and others) that have evolved over time from the Constitution, although they are not specifically written there. However I also know that doesn't always mean they were always correct. One thing we do know is that our forefathers who drafter the Constitution were religious men, they spoke of God regularly, and drafted several of our government's defining documents with religious words in them, so to say they advocated total separation of church and state when it is plainly obvious that they intentionally incorporated religious aspects into the goverment is absurd to me.
Also, I don't know what constitution was looked at when writing the first few sentences of that post, but the constitution cleary mentions a right to bear arms in the second amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Oh, and for the record, I totally disagree with this and hate guns.