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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[–] 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.
[–] Joe_McCarthy 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago (edited ago)
I don't favor imposing religion, necessarily, but it is worth noting that the language you're quoting in the First Amendment originally had a very different meaning from what you're ascribing to it. Most US states at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted had state established religions or in Virginia's case had just stopped having such. The First Amendment ONLY barred a national church because the US was too religiously diverse to allow for one. One couldn't impose a national church on a country with Anglicans in the South and New York and Puritan descended Congregationalists in New England. It would have flatly led to civil war. But this strong religious dimension indicates just how secular the US wasn't. Even Franklin, who wasn't a Christian, praised the US as one could travel far and wide and not find an infidel in this country.
Now I realize the First Amendment has come to evolve into something along the lines of what you prefer due to relatively recent court rulings and the incorporation doctrine, and I don't even necessarily oppose that, but I do dislike modern secularists backdating their beliefs onto early Americans. It does violence to history and American culture.