People are being killed all over the world in the name of one religion. Are we going to keep pretending this religion's beliefs isn't at odds with our own written law?
If I owned a newspaper it's headline Saturday morning would have read 'Freedom of Religion' with a large picture of all the dead French in the road.
They are not allowing us freedom from their religion, and thus, do not belong in our countries that share this ideal.
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[–] SecularPenguinist 4 points 3 points 7 points (+7|-4) ago
Your play on words doesn't compute. Switching them around changes the meaning.
Indeed freedom from religion is the correct interpretation. Why do you think we seceded from England in the first place?
Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and John Adams were quite secular.
[–] Joe_McCarthy 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
Eh, Washington favored retaining Anglicanism as the state religion of Virginia. Ditto for Adams and Congregationalism in Massachusetts.
That sounds like the Taliban. Even today's religious right in the US wouldn't go so far.
[–] SecularPenguinist 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
I guess it depends on which historical accounts you believe. But listing the founding fathers was a bit of an afterthought and perhaps inappropriate.
Just so we have our definitions in order here, I want to clarify what my interpretation of what freedom from religion means.
Freedom from religion means that I should not be held accountable to the doctrines of any specific religion as spelled out in the first amendment.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
To me it's pretty clear this encompass both my right to practice whatever religion I choose and also to be exempt from having any specific religious dogma imposed upon me by the state.
[–] [deleted] 1 point 1 point 2 points (+2|-1) ago
[–] iamjanesleftnipple 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Check again, god is not in the Constitution. You're thinking of the Declaration of Independence. In that case, Nature's God is the only mention with the word "God" and later the word Creator is used, so if we're talking the first god of nature I assume you mean Anu, the Sumerian sun god, who is one of the oldest recorded we have on record and thus the closest to "Nature's God"
Nope, god was not in the original pledge, that was added in 1954 - http://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm
[–] SecularPenguinist 1 point 0 points 1 point (+1|-1) ago (edited ago)
The revolutionary war was about many things, namely independence. Taxation and autonomy from the church of England were indeed paramount.
"under god" was not added to the pledge until 1954.