RochesterConservative.com

8 responses so far ↓

• 1 phantomlord // Dec 1, 2007 at 9:11 am

  Two generations ago, all we had to fear was fear itself.

  Today, what the ACLU fears is that someone, somewhere has a faith.

  They pay lip service to our rights and they love to tout the First Amendment but they seem to forget half of it, much like they get hung up on this idea that the Second Amendment is the only collective right, versus individual right, in the Bill of Rights.

  I think someone needs to give them ACLUe.

• 2 CapnAmerica // Dec 1, 2007 at 1:10 pm

  While I don’t always agree with the ACLU, in this instance, I am inclined to agree with them. I believe that religion is a private thing. I don’t think that the ACLU is telling anyone they can’t pray or worship.

  Like it or not, America is a diverse nation. There are people here now of many different beliefs. Imo, we should avoid having public expressions of religion. Or where do we stop? Do we want to have jewish prayers and muslum prayers and hindu prayers and wikkan prayers etc all recited before every meeting and game?

  To not do that is saying that one religion is more legitimate than another. And due to the faith based nature of religion, I don’t think there is anyone who can say with any certianty that is the case.

• 3 phantomlord // Dec 1, 2007 at 3:16 pm

  “Imo, we should avoid having public expressions of religion”

  The First Amendment says that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free speech thereof.

  Saying we shouldn’t have public expression of religion is like saying we shouldn’t have public expression of speech.

  As someone who is somewhere between an atheist and an agnostic depending on how strict you want the definition to be (I believe there is a greater being as evidenced by interpretation of quantum physics but don’t think it’s omniscient or omnipotent), I generally don’t care what god or faith people worship or how they express it. I think it’s silly to get offended because someone believes the color teal is better than yellow. I think it’s just as silly to get offended because someone prefers God or Allah or Yahweh. I don’t care if people want to call themselves Jedi like they did in the most recent Australian census.

  About the only religion I have a problem with is Scientology. It’s the only religion that will sue you for sharing it’s texts with someone else (even if they are Scientologists themselves)… and if you’ve ever read the texts, wow. The movie Battlefield Earth is actually an embodiment of their religion doctrine.

• 4 CapnAmerica // Dec 1, 2007 at 7:26 pm

  “I think it’s just as silly to get offended because someone prefers God or Allah or Yahweh. I don’t care if people want to call themselves Jedi like they did in the most recent Australian census.”

  I agree. But even though you and I and who knows who else, thinks it is silly, the fact remains that religious people tend to take that stuff seriously. Again, my thinking is that unless we want to accomodate everyone’s religion, we should avoid it all altogether. It seems to me that the people who complain about not being able to pray before a meeting would not be complaining if that prayer had to be a muslum prayer or a wiccan prayer.

  Besides, does a prayer before a game or a meeting REALLY make a difference in the outcome? Does it change anything?

  Like I said, no one says that people can’t pray or worship. If you want to pray before a game or meeting or whatever, pray. But it need not be a public exercise.

  And I agree, scientology is some seriously weird stuff. It is the only religion with a more ridiculous story than the book of mormon.

• 5 phantomlord // Dec 1, 2007 at 8:01 pm

  “Again, my thinking is that unless we want to accomodate everyone’s religion, we should avoid it all altogether”

  I played football in high school and back then, I was much more of an atheist than I am now. Every practice and game, we would all gather in for a team meeting and end it with the Lord’s Prayer. Most of the team said it, some didn’t, and nobody was ever disrespectful of complained about it. For many, it was simply a way of thanking their creator for getting them through the practice or game without a serious injury. When someone was injured, like many people, they would do it to ask for a speedy recovery.

  That prayer was for us even if it was in the middle of a football field where there was another 40 kids on the other end, a bunch of refs and other officials on the field or the thousand+ people in the stands.

  If a town board or football team wants to pray before a meeting or after a game, it is for the team… others are free to participate, but they shouldn’t have the right to demand the team or board not offend them. For 218 years, both the House and Senate have had their own chaplains which open the session. Even prior to that, during the meetings of the Continental Congress, Samuel Provoost served as both a delegate and a chaplain to the Congress. Such chaplains were present during the writing of the First Amendment and I think it is a little silly for the ACLU to now demand that religion exit the public sphere when the very people who crafted the First Amendment, and thus knew its intent the best, invited the prayer of the religious to see over their work.

  To kick religion out of the public sphere is to exactly declare a prohibition on the free exercise of religion.

• 6 rochester_veteran // Dec 1, 2007 at 11:15 pm

  CapnAmerica,

  The ACLU and American Atheists Inc. have led the way in efforts to ban public prayer and public displays of religion. Whether you like it or not, we are a Christian nation and the First Amendment guarantee’s that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”. If a Baptist Minister invokes the name of Jesus Christ in a prayer, that invocation is a right that’s granted by God and guaranteed in the Consitution. There’s been no law establishing Christianity as the official religion. Leftist activist organizations, such as the ACLU, are exploiting the “establishment clause” through their litigation and an activist judiciary, making efforts “prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. I or any other American are free to express our faith and we’ll do so regardless of what the ACLU threatens or what some lefty activist judges decreed. It’s our right to do so.

• 7 loboinok // Dec 2, 2007 at 5:50 am

  Or where do we stop?

  We should have stopped long before we got to “we should avoid having public expressions of religion.”

  You are effectively saying that you have absolutely no understanding and respect for inalienable rights and the Constitution. It’s more about politics and ideology with people such as yourself.

  As a Christian nation, we fostered and encouraged religious freedom for all religions and we enjoyed that freedom in all aspects of our private and public life; government, work, court, school, etc.

  Since we’ve allowed the ACLU, AU and other groups to succeed in getting the courts to turn the Founders’ vision of “Separation of Church and State” on its head, Christianity is slowly but systematically being removed from our culture and country.

  “To not do that is saying that one religion is more legitimate than another.”

  No, it’s not. It is saying that we are still a Christian nation…not India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc.
  Like it or not, we have our own culture, customs, laws and Constitution. We have our own national flag, national anthem and national motto.

  “It seems to me that the people who complain about not being able to pray before a meeting would not be complaining if that prayer had to be a muslum prayer or a wiccan prayer.”

  It seems to me that people who complain about Christians praying before a meeting are not complaining at all about government schools installing Muslim footbathes or the ACLU and AU opposing tax exemptions for Christian Churchs yet succeeding in getting tax exemptions for wiccans and humanists. That just shows that they couldn’t care less about religion in public…as long as it’s any religion but Christian.

  “Besides, does a prayer before a game or a meeting REALLY make a difference in the outcome? Does it change anything?”

  If it doesn’t make a difference or change anything… why the radical, vehement, passionate opposition to it?

  Good comments phantomlord!

• 8 loboinok // Mar 19, 2008 at 10:03 am

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