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[Mr. Blonde]

Once again the liberals on the Supreme Court show who's really running the court. There may only be 2 Democrats on the bench but Stevens,Souter,Ginsburg, and Breyer almost always vote together on the big cases and thus for them to be the minority all five of the other justices would have to agree.

I really hope Stevens retires while Bush is in office. I can't stand his court.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Um.... I'm confusing him with one of the other members of the Constituional Congress, then. There was a minority of Theocracy advocates.

Can you point to a reference for those who were Deists? Seriously, when I read up a bit on this a while ago I didn't find that many (granted, using the Internet as a source) and insted found rather a lot of anti-Church Christians.

 

[ronito]

Once again the liberals on the Supreme Court show who's really running the court. There may only be 2 Democrats on the bench but Stevens,Souter,Ginsburg, and Breyer almost always vote together on the big cases and thus for them to be the minority all five of the other justices would have to agree.

I really hope Stevens retires while Bush is in office. I can't stand his court.

Um..you're only seeing half the picture here. They allowed it Texas because it was part of a historical exhibit. However, the one in Kentucky they dissallowed because it endorsed the christian religion in a state building. Don't just point at the SCOTUS and say they're godless. Again I say if someone erected a status of Ganesh, Mohammed, or any other non-christian deity in a courthouse we'd have the whole country up in arms demanding that SCOTUS protect our religious freedoms. I actually think they made a good ruling. They didn't ban religion (see Texas) they banned a state sanctioned one.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

I just looked, and it was Patrick Henry I was thinking of. For some reason, I always confuse their names. And it's probably a bit strong to say he advocated Theocracy, but rather references to Christianity in the Constitution. He lost, obviously.

I'm as pro seperation of Church and State as anybody, but sometimes I think the religion of the founding fathers is exagerrated towards athesistic/Deistic a little much by the advocates of separation. I think it's more accurate to say a bunch of wise men of all stripes saw the benefits of separation, even the Christians. The founders were aware of "the tyrnanny of the majority"-- even their own.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Um..you're only seeing half the picture here. They allowed it Texas because it was part of a historical exhibit. However, the one in Kentucky they dissallowed because it endorsed the christian religion in a state building. Don't just point at the SCOTUS and say they're godless. Again I say if someone erected a status of Ganesh, Mohammed, or any other non-christian deity in a courthouse we'd have the whole country up in arms demanding that SCOTUS protect our religious freedoms. I actually think they made a good ruling. They didn't ban religion (see Texas) they banned a state sanctioned one.

I didn't say they're godless. I just said I can't stand the Stevens court. Almost every decision I disagree with has the 4 liberal justices(Stevens, Souter,Breyer, and Ginsburg) in favor of it.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

I love the system of checks and balances. We have a conservative congress and a conservative President, and 5/9ths conservative Supreme Court. And yet it's the courts that the conservatives are always complaining about!

 

[ronito]

I didn't say they're godless. I just said I can't stand the Stevens court. Almost every decision I disagree with has the 4 liberal justices(Stevens, Souter,Breyer, and Ginsburg) in favor of it.

Touche. My bad. Apologies.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

I disagree. It's more like 4 liberals, 3 conservatives, and 2 moderates.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

The whole contry is skewed to the conservative. By objective standards, I stand by what I said.

 

[heavenly]

Heavenly-- There's no need to legislate any of these commandments, or at least no need to base legislation off of them. You create legislation based on common good, not on 'holy tablets'.

Common good? How do you define common good? Does it change with every generation? Does it change with the evolution of man, perhaps? Was murder acceptable only until man realized that life was precious, and one shouldn't take the life of another? How about stealing or lieing? Common good is too relative for me. There has to be some absolutes, a beginning, per se. I believe every humanitarian law we have can be traced back to the last 6 commandments (which deals w/ our relationship towards our neighbor). It doesn't have to be stated verbatim.

Countless civillizations throughout the history of the world have always thought that 'murder' is a bad idea. That's fine and it's generally accepted by all of us, as well all don't like the thought of being killed. We want to live, and that's fine. So you legislate based on the fact that everyone, in general, likes to be alive. You don't legislate because of the commandments.

Countless civilizations? Are you sure about that? What about the cultures that believe in child sacrifices?

The moment you create any legislation based on those commandments is the moment you turn from a democracy into a theocracy,

So, can you imagine living in a world where the last 6 commandments aren't upheld? It would be complete chaos and every man for themselves like in the days of Judges (Bible book). I don't think you would want that. My point, every law we have that deals with our relationship towards man is inspired from the last 6 commandments, whether you accept it to be true or not.

 

[Mr. Blonde]

Last 6 eh? Cheating on your wife, and coveting your neighbor's wife and/or goods aren't illegal. Lying isn't illegal either except under oath.

 

[videogamer]

Common good? How do you define common good? Does it change with every generation? Does it change with the evolution of man, perhaps? Was murder acceptable only until man realized that life was precious, and one shouldn't take the life of another? How about stealing or lieing[sic]? Common good is too relative for me. There has to be some absolutes, a beginning, per se.

I don't know how the other poster would respond, but some of these have reasons that make sense.
Murder: Causes emotional turmoil among family members, friends, etc that may create more physical conflict than necessary. Disrupts the economy and creates a state of fear that is unproductive.
Stealing: Breaks down economic system.
Lying: AFAIK, there is really no law against lying in normal informal life.

These are just reasons I'm throwing around for why these things are against the common good.

I believe every humanitarian law we have can be traced back to the last 6 commandments (which deals w/ our relationship towards our neighbor). It doesn't have to be stated verbatim.

Really now, how do we know that the "6 commandments" were not preceeded by earlier laws or religious codes? I'm not even thinking about going into law, so maybe some

Countless civilizations? Are you sure about that? What about the cultures that believe in child sacrifices?

Well, according to Wikipedia, archaeology suggests that, of the well known civilizations, the Incans and Carthaginians may have practiced child sacrifice. The idea that the Carthaginians practiced child sacrifice is disputed by historians. As for the Incans, they were a powerful Western South American group, but their ideas were not necessarily held throughout the empire. Although the Incans tried to assimilate their conquests, the subjugated peoples continued to practice their own religion and use their own languages.

So, can you imagine living in a world where the last 6 commandments aren't upheld?

Sure

It would be complete chaos and every man for themselves like in the days of Judges (Bible book). I don't think you would want that. My point, every law we have that deals with our relationship towards man is inspired from the last 6 commandments, whether you accept it to be true or not.

Not necessarily. The "last 6 commandments" are not exclusive in dealing with things such as adultery or murder. We can just substitute in the Eightfold Path, another religion or philosophy.

 

[demon]

Common good? How do you define common good? Does it change with every generation? Does it change with the evolution of man, perhaps? Was murder acceptable only until man realized that life was precious, and one shouldn't take the life of another? How about stealing or lieing? Common good is too relative for me. There has to be some absolutes, a beginning, per se. I believe every humanitarian law we have can be traced back to the last 6 commandments (which deals w/ our relationship towards our neighbor). It doesn't have to be stated verbatim.




Countless civilizations? Are you sure about that? What about the cultures that believe in child sacrifices?




So, can you imagine living in a world where the last 6 commandments aren't upheld? It would be complete chaos and every man for themselves like in the days of Judges (Bible book). I don't think you would want that. My point, every law we have that deals with our relationship towards man is inspired from the last 6 commandments, whether you accept it to be true or not.

What the god forsaken fuck are you talking about? Not every civilized society in history has needed the ten commandments to establish laws that prohibit things like murder and stealing and to establish a sense of morality. In fact if you've got a society that needs ancient religious tablets to understand that things murder and stealing are wrong, then your society is fucked from the beginning. We do not live in such a society, however, and people do not need religion to tell them that certain immoral acts are bad; the countless people who aren't religious and are still very moral (more moral than many religious people I might add) is proof of that.

Also, can there not be such "countless civilizations", as whytemyke stated, without there being a few that believed in sacrifice? (the answer is 'no', by the way). Also, your whole fucking argument falls to shit when you recall all the atrocities performed throughout history in the name of Christianity.

And yes, I can imagine a world in which the 6 commandments "are not upheld"; such a world can easily uphold the principles shared by those commandments without deriving that sense of morality from the commandments themselves. Let me enlighten you a little: the Ten Commandments, and even Christianity itself, are not the origin of human morality. If you believe otherwise, time to jump off your high Christian horse.

 

[alejob]

Ok I'm cool with what the supreme court said. A lot of this stuff has been displayed forever(historical value...) so I see no problem with keeping it there. The problem is when they try to display new things(or old things in more intrusive places) in public/government property.

The real question is how would christians react if we started displaying jewish, islam, muslims, etc... in government buildings? I bet bushy wouldn't like it one bit.

 

[Dan]

What the god forsaken fuck are you talking about? Not every civilized society in history has needed the ten commandments to establish laws that prohibit things like murder and stealing and to establish a sense of morality.

I forget where, but there was a culture completely untouched by modern humanity that had all kinds of societal rules including strict rules about treating prisoners of war with care. If I recall they even basically called timeout during battles in order to get the wounded away and care for them. The ten commandments are most certainly not the only way for decent values to be formed. This bullshit about the Bible being the ultimate source of good on Earth is just obscenely uneducated.

 

[Square2005]

"Also, your whole fucking argument falls to shit when you recall all the atrocities performed throughout history in the name of Christianity."

Many more atrocities have been performed in the name of atheism and ideas originating from it (Marxism) by far than Christianity. 100,000,000 killed during the nineteenth century by the Atheistic Soviets and Chinese. Most likely more than all religious wars combined of all the previous centuries.

And how long ago was someone killed in the name of Christianity?

 

[DarthWoo]

Well, some nutter priest crucified a nun to death not more than a couple weeks ago.

 

[demon]

Many more atrocities have been performed in the name of atheism and ideas originating from it (Marxism) by far than Christianity. 100,000,000 killed during the nineteenth century by the Atheistic Soviets and Chinese. Most likely more than all religious wars combined of all the previous centuries.

And how long ago was someone killed in the name of Christianity?

In the name of atheism, eh? What kind of ties to the "principles of atheism" are we talking about here, as opposed to, say, the crusades and Christianity?

And how long ago was it that cultures believed in child sacrifice? That was what I was originally responding to with the "christian atrocities".

 

[videogamer]

Many more atrocities have been performed in the name of atheism and ideas originating from it (Marxism) by far than Christianity. 100,000,000 killed during the nineteenth century by the Atheistic Soviets and Chinese. Most likely more than all religious wars combined of all the previous centuries.

Atheism was not the primary rationale behind the revolutions. Think "class struggle". You see, the declared reason for the movements was not to destroy the "opiate of the masses", but to bring in Socialism. Yes, the governments were technically atheistic, but that does not mean that they killed in the name of atheism. There's significantly more to this story. Contrast this with the Crusades, which were started by religious leaders for religious reasons. Or the results of the Inquisition and the Reconquista. Or the wars fought in Europe strongly influenced by battles between the Catholic church and Protestant ones. Or the poor treatment of American indigenous peoples and Africans because they were not yet or were then Christianized.

And how long ago was someone killed in the name of Christianity?

The posters have been talking about all of history, not just recent times.

It's been a while since I've studied this stuff, so bear with any mistakes...

 

[maharg]

Strictly speaking, some of the motives for the crusades were purely expansionist. The religious attachment was really more about getting people involved.

However, the problem with blaming 'atheism' for deaths is that it is not organized nor were most of those people killed specifically for being religious. Some were, but then most were killed for being political or otherwise unacceptable.

It's also worth noting that the world population was only estimated to reach 1 billion 200 years ago. For similar numbers of dead in one century before that point, 1/10th of the world population would have to be killed -- which it probably was in various wars, but not for any unified purpose.

 

[Nerevar]

Common good? How do you define common good? Does it change with every generation? Does it change with the evolution of man, perhaps? Was murder acceptable only until man realized that life was precious, and one shouldn't take the life of another? How about stealing or lieing? Common good is too relative for me. There has to be some absolutes, a beginning, per se. I believe every humanitarian law we have can be traced back to the last 6 commandments (which deals w/ our relationship towards our neighbor). It doesn't have to be stated verbatim.

Wait, are you honestly suggesting that the Ten Commandments are the basis for which all moral law comes from? Are you that dense that you don't realize there are hundreds of "codes" that predate the Ten Commandments? Even going by the FUBAR'ed Old Testament sense of history, the Hebrews were living in Egypt under the Pharaoh Rameses who, surprise surprise!, had a code of laws. Talk about asinine reasoning.

 

[xsarien]

Atheism was not the primary rationale behind the revolutions. Think "class struggle". You see, the declared reason for the movements was not to destroy the "opiate of the masses", but to bring in Socialism. Yes, the governments were technically atheistic, but that does not mean that they killed in the name of atheism. There's significantly more to this story. Contrast this with the Crusades, which were started by religious leaders for religious reasons. Or the results of the Inquisition and the Reconquista. Or the wars fought in Europe strongly influenced by battles between the Catholic church and Protestant ones. Or the poor treatment of American indigenous peoples and Africans because they were not yet or were then Christianized.

I was about to say something, but you snuck in past me, dammit.