I hear many quote seperation of church and state.........but I ask you is it really seperated? Most of the laws of the Untied States remained based on religious ethical basis, and with in "God We Trust" on money produced by the United States.....how exactly are church and state really seperated??

Guess what the founding fathers did a crappy job in this department.

They wanted separation but did not know how to do it well.

We are just figuring out how to do it better now.

Keep the church out of it all.

seperation of church and state is a paraphrase of whats in the constitution and not ACTUALLY in the constitution


it would more accurately be called seperation of RELIGION and state(although congress is federal and not state)

the constitution states

'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof'


to date, I know of no 'laws' on the books requiring or denying anyone their beliefs or non beliefs...

although there are plenty of policies which restrict EXPRESSION of such beliefs,,,


individual religious or non religious beliefs are fairly well protected in this country,, in my opinion,,, besides the restrictions on speech and expression which exist to keep beliefs 'in the closet'

They need more laws to protect the laws from being influenced by religion in general.

We wouldn't have any of our tax dollars being wasted on preventing people from marriage in of age and consent cases if religion didn't have it's ugly head all up in the mix.

If we could only prove which values people hold 'just' because of religion

it might be simpler

thats the unsurmountable issue when trying to make laws that dont involve 'religion' at all...

It's based in the First Amendment. The Government is not supposed to be seen as promoting religion in any form, particular by sect or generally. Ethics are not religiously based. They are universally adopted as a social ideal by all mankind - religious and atheist alike.

The founding fathers didn't seperate churh and the government did in the 1980's

I think we need a little remedial history here.

"The term is an offshoot of the phrase, "wall of separation between church and state," as written in Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists Association in 1802."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state

no where in the constitution doe it say separation of church and state

Yea, founding father.

Well, I guess you have discovered something that nobody else has ever seen. How astute. all those Supreme Court decisions . . . 200+ years of legal bedrock. It was all a sham . . . and you just discovered it! Bravo!

We are learning and fighting for the separation now for sure. We see the damage of religion in government now more than ever.

I agree with MsHarmony on this one. There is nothing in the constitution saying we have to "remove" any form of religion away from anything that is associated with the government. It only says the government wont prohibit the free exercise of religion. In fact a law requiring the removal of any form of religious affiliation within the government would actually be unconstitutional IMO because it would be a law prohibiting an expression of religion.

this is how it is in the constitution====

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Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note

Congress shall make

no law respecting an establishment of religion,

or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.


http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Preamble

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notice the phase """or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;""" thus all the laws stopping public persons from practicing their religious beliefs are technically illegal

Hey Robin, yea but the "respecting" part is important.

No respect should be given by the government to any religion.

Respect mean acknowledgement from the government which is already violated by our president on down.

But, there are no laws stopping public persons from practicing their religious beliefs. What are you talking about?

where is your proof of your statement

i showed what the constitution says

and hhhmmmmmmm just cause a law is made does not make it legal constitutionally

i disagree barb

i think it means respect should be given to all religions not none

What is it you are asking me to prove?

I know dammit.

Like I said before we need more laws to protect our laws from religion. And then stop them from thinking prayer is a national past time because it isn't and we don't wanna witness it either. Go home and be uber religious to umptenth degree or go to one of the many tax free churches and be manic religious all you want.