Separation of "Church and State", does not mean, separation of" God and State", agree or disagree? Explain if you so choose.

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• Correct. But God is not the Church. By disagreeing, you are saying that the Church and God are the same entity. That is incorrect.

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  by LarryH54 on April 21st, 2011

• Atheist Materialists need to get a life and leave the sane and rational folk alone. Below is all I have to say on this subject and only Atheist morons want to read what is not there...
  
  Constitution of the United States of America; Amendment I:
  
  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.
  There’s nothing tough about this; you don’t have to be a legal scholar to understand the simple English of it. The clause in question is:
  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
  You can see at once that this clause places two legal restrictions upon the Congress, and no legal restrictions upon anyone other than Congress. The Congress is legally prohibited from:
  Legislating, regulating or otherwise establishing legal preeminence of any religion as any sort of official religion of the state.
  Legislating, regulating or otherwise establishing any rule or law Interfering in any way with any American citizen’s free and open exercise of religion.
  Note well that, nowhere in this clause, nowhere in this Amendment, and nowhere in the entire Constitution, do the words Separation Of Church And State appear. The so-called “Constitutional Principle” of Separation Of Church And State may not properly be called a Constitutional Principle since it may not be found anywhere in the Constitution. The Establishment Clause says nothing whatsoever about any such separation. The language is crystal clear.
  The intention of the Founders was similarly crystal clear. Most of the Colonies-becoming-States already had legally established official State Religions in their pre-existing formational Constitutions or Charters, and they (at first) fully intended to keep them. The Delegates from the individual Colonies were seeking to prohibit the larger Federal Government form legally establishing some official National religion right over the top of their own existing, legally established, official State religions.
  http://townhall.com/columnists/christophermerola/2010/03/12/the_separation_of_church_and_state_debate/page/2

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  by Anonymous on April 21st, 2011

• yes, fight amongst yourselves. it's all part of our master plan :P

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  by Anonymous on April 21st, 2011

• She just misunderstood what I said. I've done that myself, so I was just going to drop it.

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  by LarryH54 on April 21st, 2011

• you've foiled our master plan.

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  by Anonymous on April 21st, 2011

• Thanks Larry, I was not sure if I phrased it correctly.
  And misunderstandings happen all the time amongst believers, it's alright!

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  by PrimeFactor on April 21st, 2011

• Thomas Jefferson was also supposed to have said "Give me Liberty or give me death".
  He owned over 100 slaves at the time.

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  by Artful Bodger on January 11th, 2012

• Nice to know YOU are absolutely perfect, Bodger!

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  by LarryH54 on January 11th, 2012

• that was actually patrick henry who was supposed to have said that.

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  by Anonymous on January 11th, 2012

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• weather you want to say your rights are given to you by the state or by god, the state can still take them away.

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  by Anonymous on April 21st, 2011

• Yes, but since our rights are from God, it would be wrong for the state to take them away, and right for us to resist if they were to try.

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  by Christine on April 21st, 2011

• wouldn't it be right to resist if the state broke the social contract? that our rights come from god seems superfluous here.

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  by Anonymous on April 21st, 2011

• Our rights are based on the government. The government is elected by the people. Therefore the government reflects the current thinking of the majority it rules. Morality is subjective.

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  by Gingerminx on April 21st, 2011

• Gingerminx that may be the belief in some nations, but it is in complete contradiction to American law. Read the Constitution. Human rights MUST supersede govt edict or they are meaningless.

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  by LarryH54 on April 21st, 2011

• And who determines human rights? government, the people who make the laws.

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  by Gingerminx on April 21st, 2011

• Anonymous,
  
  That it is wrong to break contracts is a moral principle, something that cannot exist without God.
  
  Gingerminx,
  
  If you think morality is subjective, then there is nothing to discuss. Thank you for illustrating what happens when you try to exclude God from morality.

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  by Christine on April 22nd, 2011

• i'd say it's wrong to break a contract because a contract, being an agreement between two or more parties, has no meaning if it is fine to break it.

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  by Anonymous on April 22nd, 2011

• A broken contract doesn't need a 'meaning'. It is merely a means for taking advantage of another. The FED is an excellent example of a broken social contract. By refusing to allow itself to be audited, it is saying it controls America and Americans. We are all slaves to the Federal Reserve Bank whether we know it or not.

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  by LarryH54 on April 22nd, 2011

• Anonymous,
  
  Your comment is completely logical, and I completely agree with you, but logic cannot exist without God either.

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  by Christine on April 22nd, 2011

• well, there you go then.

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  by Anonymous on April 22nd, 2011

• Morality is subjective. We all have our own set of ethics and values. But since you blindly assume they can not exist with some deity I guess there is nothing more to discuss.

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  by Gingerminx on April 22nd, 2011

• If morality is subjective, then killing 6 million Jews plus gays and assorted others was perfectly fine. It was done in accordance with law, after all.

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  by LarryH54 on April 22nd, 2011

• Since morality is subjective I am sure those who did it thought it was perfectly fine. That doesn't mean I see it as fine, but thats how subjectivity works.

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  by Gingerminx on April 22nd, 2011

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• "Sadly, our current government seems to be ignoring that fact."
  
  how so?

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  by Anonymous on April 21st, 2011

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• What 'creator gods' have been extant over the last 250 years? If you're honest, there is only one, and that is the one referred to by the Founding Fathers.

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  by LarryH54 on April 21st, 2011

• Larry Just because there has not been many gods except for the christian one worshiped in this country when it was first around, does not give anyone right to force that set of religious beliefs on anyone, also most of the founding fathers were not christians they were deists and deists do believe in one god but they dont believe he interferes at all in the physical realm and they dont really believe in scriptures either, so really they thought the bible was a load of crap. So your founding fathers argument is not really a good argument.

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  by CrimsonTyger on April 21st, 2011

• The Founding Fathers weren't worried about God, they were worried that we would be taken over by a Church of America, like the Lutheran and Anglican churches took over Germany and England. All this fear-mongering is just an attempt to cut God out of our new humanist government. Your revisionist interpretation of the Founding Fathers is a necessary deception to fulfill that agenda.

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  by LarryH54 on April 21st, 2011

• Its proven historical fact your just twisting it to suit your agenda

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  by CrimsonTyger on April 21st, 2011

• Good points LarryH. And for those who don't know, God, is not a religion, neither does He practice religion, neither does He force any religion.......on and on etc, etc.

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  by PrimeFactor on April 21st, 2011

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• DA, the way I see it, God is not a religion... although I do thank you for your answer.

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  by PrimeFactor on April 21st, 2011

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• Ginger, any of them you can think of, your choice.

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  by PrimeFactor on April 21st, 2011

• Well,I would agree on the basis that a deity and a church are two different things. But I do not think either should be part of state.

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  by Gingerminx on April 21st, 2011

• Ok fair enough. But why not include God, has He done anything to you personally, that you can recall?

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  by PrimeFactor on April 21st, 2011

• I do not believe in any deity, but, I would exclude a deity on the bases that anything that is purported to be the word of said deity is transcribed by man and therefore subject to mans influence. So not really what the deity would have actually said.

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  by Gingerminx on April 21st, 2011

• "...any of them you can think of, your choice."
  
  Your comment to Gingerminx's answer is the key here, PrimeFactor.
  
  The point of "separation of church and State" is to prevent government encroachment on personal religious beliefs and practices by not allowing the State to form, or promote, any official church, or give the appearance of doing so.
  
  If they were not restricted in this fashion, then it would no longer be "your choice".
  
  :):)

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  by The Chief on April 21st, 2011

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• Sorry, kae, I'm not clear on your answer. Who has no relationship? So are not connected.....

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  by PrimeFactor on April 21st, 2011

• "church and state" and "god and state".
  Religion is a belief, the state is an administrative boundary.
  The fact that religion has tried to link them is irrelevant.

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  by kaetalist on April 22nd, 2011

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• So god is a subset of church? That is a belief that only a cynic can hold.

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  by LarryH54 on April 21st, 2011

• you misread what i wrote. i'd try to explain what i meant, but i have the feeling that you have no intention of understanding what i meant.

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  by Anonymous on April 21st, 2011

• I disagree Anonymous, I've, found Larry to be very reasonable, fair.
  As a matter of fact help me understand you, because I disagree with your statement.

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  by PrimeFactor on April 21st, 2011

• if there were a separation of god and state, then the united states government could endorse a state church so long as it were atheistic, such as some kind of religiously structured secular humanism or buddhism, but it would disallow the establishment of a state church of any poly or monotheistic faith tradition.
  
  so separation of church and state is a more general rule than separation of god and state, and forbids the establishment by the government of an official state church of any faith tradition. the two rules wouldn't be equivalent.
  
  is what i'm saying.

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  by Anonymous on April 21st, 2011

• I don't see how. An atheistic church would still be a church, and still fall under the concept of SoCaS. Buddhism, too, is a religion, which falls under SoCaS. But God is a Person. Or at minimum a posited being. A church or religion is a legal structure. It is the combination of religious and political structures that is a danger to individual freedom. No person can combine with a political or religious structure.

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  by LarryH54 on April 21st, 2011

• "I don't see how. An atheistic church would still be a church, and still fall under the concept of SoCaS. Buddhism, too, is a religion, which falls under SoCaS."
  
  right, how does that contradict what i just said?
  
  "But God is a Person. Or at minimum a posited being. A church or religion is a legal structure."
  
  i suppose we could just be reading the question differently, but i don't see the relevance. what relevance does a person or postulated entity have in relation to the establishment clause? if none, then isn't that off topic for the question? i don't know the asker's intent, i just try to answer reasonably.

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  by Anonymous on April 21st, 2011

• Interesting. A total communications fail. I'm not sure how to fix that, so ... have a nice day!

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  by LarryH54 on April 21st, 2011