I apologize for removing the body of text from the quote, but given the amount of text in it, it seemed cumbersome.

I applaud the significant digging you must have done to come up with a collection of significant quotes. It's well travelled ground to be sure, but it's nice to have more meat for the discussion.

Having read your post, I feel it is worth adding some additional details. I feel it not a surprise at all that the founding fathers and friends make a great many references to God and religion in their many discussions. During this age, the vast majority of Americans did subscribe to one of several Christian denominations. Thererfore, the most significant part of the body of your message, to me, is the incorporation of Christinanity into state-level law.

This would seem completely contrary to our current interpretation of the establishment clause, right? I assume that is where you were going. If not, I apologise for misunderstanding.

Yes, you are correct. This was the point I was trying to make that, in light of what the founders said and did, that the way the establishment clause has been interpreted in recent decades could not be accurate. The founders had no issue with government endorsement of Christianity; in fact they frequently endorsed it. On that point the evidence is overwhelming.

I think you are right. I think those laws are in direct conflict with the our view of establishment clause. I would not be surprised if they were in some significant part responsible for the drafting and ratification of that same clause. You see they came first. Furthermore, they are at the state level, not the federal level. Directly applying those same laws to the states themselves didn't come around for quite a time after that, and very possible was neither expected or intended by those same signers.

I don't think the founders intended any of this. The constitution was written 11 years later, after many of those state constitutions were written. Written by the same people who had written the state constitutions. Considering that there was no action to enforce the interpretation we have today, but that we see quite the opposite, I don't see any justification for thinking they did intend it. The establishment clause was never actually applied this way until the 1960, which in itself was based on a supreme court decision in 1947 involving a school district using public funds to transport kids to a private religious school.

Maybe there's a completely different way to interpret "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". I honestly haven't heard another one put forward. Certainly they wrote these words down for a reason though. If they had meant it to apply only to non-christian religions they would have said so.

My personal suspicion is that the clause was added so as to be able to overlook the religious differences between states when running the federal government. They didn't want the federal government to discriminate based on religious denomination. Take it with a grain of salt though, as I'm certainly no constitutional scholar. The wall of separation thing really is a red herring which occupies no space in law, and far too much space in discussion.

I think it's important to understand that it wasn't written out of fear of Christian theism, as some people are trying to say today. It was understood that Christian theism was the default doctrinal state religion. Neither did the founders write it to be inclusive of other doctrinal religions, like Islam and Hinduism, or something like atheism. They wrote it, as you are saying, to prevent any federal takeover of a particular denomination of Christian theism. It was written for denominational religion, not doctrinal religion. A fight between denominations could have torn this country apart. It scarcely needed to said though that Christian theism was the default doctrinal religion of this country.

>> ^Barbar:

>> ^shinyblurry:


>> ^LukinStone:



You certainly are a master of quoting. Too bad you don't go the extra mile and use your brain to analyze what is actually being said, put it in context and honestly apply it to the discussion we're having. The weird thing I've noticed is you quote me, James Madison and the Constitution of North Carolina all in the same manner. Not really engaging much with the ideas and myopically drawing conclusions filtered through your allegiance to Christian dogma.

I guess I asked for it. Serves me right. When dealing with a Christian I should have expected every tiny detail to be taken literally. Let me be blunt: I was joking about getting into a quote war.

Let me try a different tactic to get us back on track. I think, at least within the discussion between you and I, three different points have been made:

1. Santorum's point, that Kennedy now supported by liberals or atheists or evil citizens was using the establishment clause to say people who believe in God can't participate in government.

2. My point, that Santorum is mistaken and the establishment clause is meant to keep organized religious groups from affecting changes based on solely religious beliefs.

3. Your point, which seems to be that Christianity has always existed and been an important part of American history. Let me be clear: On this, I agree with you. But not when you continue a step further, saying religion was meant to perform a controlling role in government and that government works better because of it.

Your point is related to the initial discussion, but the length you are willing to go with your conclusions is not. In addition, you take political ideas with many interpretations and cherry pick your support. This, I'll admit, is great for making a partisan argument. But, that's not my goal here.
Can you see how a more focused discussion is useful? I know I am a long-winded writer, and so, if you can't stay on track, I feel we'll be forced to trade dozens of pages back and forth as we're continually side-tracked.

I don't have time for that. So, this will be my last comment on this video (may all Videosifters rejoice!). I will give you the honor of last word between us, if you want it. I only offer one challenge: Make your argument without quoting any additional sources. At first, I was impressed that you went to the trouble to research, but now, it seems you are addicted to them. And I'm not convinced they are helping move the discussion along.

I can't let everything you've said fly, not coupled with the conclusion you so righteously came to. So, I hope that you'll forgive me when I pick and choose what I think has the most relevance to the discussion at hand.

Let's get back to the establishment clause and the free exercise clause.

Why is language like this in the constitution if, as you've so thoroughly proven, the founders were all Catholics…wait no, Quakers…wait Presbyterians…wait Baptists…oh, right deists…

I think the purpose of the establishment clause was to protect the country from any one religious sect from dominating the others. Because all of the founders were Christians (again, a point I never denied), even the ones who were influenced by Deism, the purpose of explicitly stating that there would be no nationally sanctioned religion was, initially, to keep one sect of Christianity from gaining control over the others.

Do you really have to ask, given how great you think Christianity is, how it is these (to varying degrees) religious men all compromised on this point? They understood that religious differences between Christians had taken their toll on European governments. This was a way to temper such strife. That handy link you provided, breaking down the religion affiliations of the founders, shows that a majority of them were Episcopalian/Anglicans. Do you think it was a valid concern that a Christian sect believing the King of England was the head of the church might be seen as a potential threat to our fledgling country?

I think the interpretation that sees the establishment clause as a protection against and for Christians addresses some other minor points you made. In a state like North Carolina, where Protestants dominated, their individual state's government could more easily make such religious restrictions without having to compromise with different sects. That, in the future, they were forced to change "Protestant" to "Christian" I think shows the national example, which was less tolerant of specific religious language, was more just. The North Carolinians, as well as other state governments, stubbornly held onto the word "Christian" because that's what they knew. Maybe the national founders didn't know how effective the language they used would turn out to be, but by employing the more secular god of deism instead of the specific one of Christianity, they protected the future of all Americans instead of just the most popular sect of the time.

And yes, I knew what I was doing when I included the letter from Jefferson as my sole quote. I'd hoped it'd cause you to pause and reflect, but you were too busy getting up on that high horse with Jesus to care.

I think the letter is a valid example of an instance where we have one of the architects of the Constitution explaining, in his own words, why it is written as it is. I think Jefferson's aim was to keep religion and state separate, and his opponents called him an atheist for it. As you pointed out and I agree, he was indeed a Christian.

Supreme Court Justices are entitled to their opinions and certainly deserve respect, but Rehnquist's support of your position is not the final word in this discussion. Justices are human like anyone else, and they often make mistakes. They are often politically biased. Upon further research, I found a much more harshly worded version of this letter and learned the political implications of its creation. It was indeed written by Jefferson to make a political point and to caution against aligning politics with religion, as the opposition party did at the time. He cautioned against things like proclamations of thanksgiving, such as the one by Washington you quoted in your initial post directed at me, as they were reminiscent of the proclamations made by the English monarchy.

Justice Rehnquist read the same words, no doubt had a better understanding of history than I and came to a different conclusion. I don't feel like I'm blaspheming when I say, on this, I think he was wrong.

There have always been opposing political parties, vying for power in America. Religion has always been used as a political weapon. That the ire against Great Britain was unpalatable enough for even the most religious of Americans to compromise and allow the establishment clause to be written as it was is no accident. I think it stands to as an example of how important the constitution is that, in the face of tyranny, the founders identified something they all held dear that had been corrupted by governments throughout history, and found a way to work around that problem.

I think to argue that the constitution needs to remain static, without an intelligent and modern understanding of the principles it puts in place, is childish. The founders essentially kicked the ball down the road concerning the issue of slavery. Some believed it morally wrong but saw it as too big of a challenge to tackle at the time. And, I imagine not many men believed in suffrage for female citizens, but that too was something future generations were able shape our laws to include. My point in bringing up examples like these is simply to show each generation's duty to interpret laws, and when necessary, to make changes. If the founders thought the benefits of allowing organized religion to guide the country, in an official capacity, outweighed the dangers, I think they would have explicitly stated so.

The fact that people, humans, immediately went back to using the tool of organized religion to divide each other and seize power is not surprising to me. Testing limits and making amendments is our prerogative as Americans. And, if anything, the wall of separation has proven to be a good idea, as we've only created more religions which have duped more people to believe more untrue things as time marches on.

FINALLY: Two points I have purposely overlooked. They, in my opinion, are outside the realm of this discussion. So, think of this as a Post-script.

1. All of your citations of a Christian god being mentioned by founders and their church-going activities.

As I've now said over and over, I accept that the founders were all Christians, to some degree. The language of government had, up until that point, been tied to that of religion. It makes sense to me that it took a while for the full intent of the separation between church and state to trickled down into the collective consciousness. I hope you can understand how this idea incorporates the foundations of early religious settlements in North America as well as church services being held in tandem with government work after the constitution was written. Obviously, a book could be written about it; I don't think it influences the primary discussion nearly as much as you do. I think the key with this one is that you take a breath and understand where I'm disagreeing with you.

2. Your last paragraph.

The idea that religion has influenced our culture and morals is not the issue here. The evolution of government has shown that organized religion has, in the past, been yet another institution no more intrinsically moral than any other institution established by man. Organized religion has been responsible for education and liberal reform. It has also been responsible for wars, corruption within communities of all sizes and has been used to justify inequality.

The idea of no government endorsement of Christianity is ridiculous? I'll do you one better. I think American history reflects an implicit endorsement of Christianity. And, going back further, before Christianity took hold in Europe, other non-Christian religions were tangled up with government and culture to the point these ideas couldn’t be considered without each other.

Where you see a "shocking moral decline" I see human rights being extended to all genders and races. All too often nowadays, organized religion supports authoritarian ideas. It often supports unhealthy psychology and grassroots movements that would be laughably anti-scientific if the situation weren't so serious.

Humanity might have needed ages of development aided by organized religion to figure out how to behave morally. But, we're smarter now. We can objectively consider our history and defer to our own individual morally whenever an ancient book that sometimes advocates slavery, infanticide and magic would tell us we are sinning for even thinking about how we can make things better. Don’t worry, though the "whole thing will crumble," we've got a solid secular foundation, preserving the ideas most important in building a better future.

My cards on the table: I think Obama is a horrible leader, one of the worst I've ever seen in elected office. I thought he had great vision before, and I liked his early actions in the Middle East, but he seems to lack the balls to do anything decisive. Even if he made strong decisions that I disagreed with I'd respect him more than I do. On that count, Bush was better.

>>> You think Obama failed because he wasn't liberal enough, is that correct? I saw no vision, just a clever media-protected imago who freely admitted he acted as a mirror or canvas for everyone to project their ideas onto him. Middle East failures are no surprise. He's an appeaser, his offered olive branch to the turbaned vermin was predictably shoved up his you-know-where.

What good would the Keystone Pipeline do the US? All it does is remove oil from the States to sell abroad. How could this possibly be a good thing?

>>> It would do more good than fake solar companies. Special thanks to the current idiot Energy Secretary for admitting out loud what the rest of us already knew.

Assuming "scamulous" means "stimulus", then yes, of course it failed. Nothing would have succeeded.

>>> Where were you with this warning before the scamulus began (and yes, Bush conceived it but Obama supercharged it).

And if he hadn't given a stimulus package, the Republicans would have jumped down his throat for doing nothing.

>>> Back to leadership: a real leader can take it. FDR's scamulus was also a failure and revisionist history hides its lack of effectiveness, but at least FDR said of his enemies, "I welcome their hatred."

But per your last comment, "the guy in charge at the time the fit hits the shan gets the blame", so you accept then that the entire worldwide financial crisis is Bush's fault anyway. Deal.

It's a tad more complicated than that. Bush Hatred was a daily staple of the libmedia diet and people were naturally disenchanted with negative-only libmedia reporting on the wars. I'm not sure if Bush got the lion's share of the blame for the Follies of '08...he does deserve blame for the initial scamuli, as well as acting like a liberal with a few conservative tendencies.

The seeds of the banking crisis were sowed by government ineptitude and corruption. Few people take huge risks with their own money, so when a socialist government funds a "Free Houses for Poor People Who Can't Afford Them Act" program and promises banks "risk-free" support of loans and investments to do so, people act accordingly.

Europe has European socialism to blame for its follies. Someone's gotta pay for all that free honey, and when there are more freeloaders than worker bees the hive collapses.

May the majority of bewildered voters not be so readily fooled this year, even if it means electing a stiff like Romney. Welcome back stability after His Earness and his planned chaos. And Barney Frank belongs in an orange jumpsuit for his role in the financial crises.












>> ^messenger:

My cards on the table: I think Obama is a horrible leader, one of the worst I've ever seen in elected office. I thought he had great vision before, and I liked his early actions in the Middle East, but he seems to lack the balls to do anything decisive. Even if he made strong decisions that I disagreed with I'd respect him more than I do. On that count, Bush was better.
What good would the Keystone Pipeline do the US? All it does is remove oil from the States to sell abroad. How could this possibly be a good thing?
Assuming "scamulous" means "stimulus", then yes, of course it failed. Nothing would have succeeded. And if he hadn't given a stimulus package, the Republicans would have jumped down his throat for doing nothing. But per your last comment, "the guy in charge at the time the fit hits the shan gets the blame", so you accept then that the entire worldwide financial crisis is Bush's fault anyway. Deal.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^entr0py:
Sounds like godless liberal elitism to me. Slow down there Lenin H. Rockefeller
http://factcheck.org/2012/02/college-kills-faith/
That's disappointing. College should kill faith. Well, maybe not kill it, but certainly wound it. If you go to higher education for a few years and you aren't exposed to ideas that make you at least question your faith, you and/or your college have failed in your education.


I agree with you, but what you are saying is EXACTLY what doesn't happen. I know many people that hold doctorate level degrees yet they still think creationism is great; even THOUGH the science they (literally) use in MANY instances is BASED on evolution and it working as purposed by many scientists--over a very long amount of time; and the evidence is ONLY getting thicker and higher not falling apart and slimming it's waistline--it's madness. BUT, the key thing here is that all of these people have one thing in common, all of them... They all wanted to learn about THEIR field, but when it came to anything else outside of it--even fields that are directly linked to their fields--it didn't matter, because they are of a single-minded process.

They happen to not be as curious as you or I and of course many other people that even when they learned a lot about what interested them, they realized that there was NO FENCE and that the rabbit hole (as it is said) keeps going. I think many other people have successfully quarantined sections of their life of from other sections. Their mind functions like the CDC and it is why we start ending up with people with seemingly underlying psychological issues like Rick Santorum, as they treat their life like it is literally a world alone unto themselves.

They can hear and see all the information you say, but unless you have gotten their curiosity they will treat it as a contamination and try to find a way to dispose of the information--meanwhile, if they have psychological problems, their brain is actively helping them in their routine.

I've been confounded as well, for a longtime. Like I said if you pay attention the one thing you SHOULD learn from EVERY class you have taken is that the rabbit hole has yet to stop. So it seems like education would in fact drive a wedge between you and any faith as you learn more, the more you should realize how much we still have to learn. It should make your faith seem even smaller than you feel compared next to the Universe if you ask me... Some people must just be too fat and get stuck in their relative rabbit hole.

My cards on the table: I think Obama is a horrible leader, one of the worst I've ever seen in elected office. I thought he had great vision before, and I liked his early actions in the Middle East, but he seems to lack the balls to do anything decisive. Even if he made strong decisions that I disagreed with I'd respect him more than I do. On that count, Bush was better.

What good would the Keystone Pipeline do the US? All it does is remove oil from the States to sell abroad. How could this possibly be a good thing?

Assuming "scamulous" means "stimulus", then yes, of course it failed. Nothing would have succeeded. And if he hadn't given a stimulus package, the Republicans would have jumped down his throat for doing nothing. But per your last comment, "the guy in charge at the time the fit hits the shan gets the blame", so you accept then that the entire worldwide financial crisis is Bush's fault anyway. Deal.>> ^quantumushroom:

Pretending or denying Obama's lack of experience and leadership hasn't negatively affected the US economy is as intellectually dishonest as it gets.
Oil prices are not controlled by your government.
Where were statements like this when Bush was being blamed for high gas prices? Nowhere.
Oil prices are affected by the federal leviathan's antics every day. Gasoline is taxed by the government, and although it shouldn't be deciding which industries thrive and which fail, here we have the Amateur and his merry crew losing billions of taxpayer dollars to bullsh1t green solar companies while vetoing the Keystone Pipeline.
Our enemies know His Earness is spineless. You think iran would be playing these games with a real leader in the White House? Or are you going to state that iran doesn't directly control oil prices so it "doesn't count".
And oh yes, what about the scamulus? FAIL.
Whether "fair" or not, the guy in charge at the time the fit hits the shan gets the blame. Deal.
>> ^messenger:
How the uneducated make arguments:
1. Pick a random problem in your life.
2. Say your chosen target did it.
3. Repeat until it gains traction.
Oil prices are not controlled by your government.>> ^quantumushroom:
Are you enjoying the higher gas prices?

The bullsh1t is so deep around here I thought you'd appreciate skipping the smell test and getting right to it.

So here's to hoping enough people are awake enough not to get fooled again by The One (and Done).

>> ^VoodooV:

Way to continue your long tradition of reasoned, arguments with no ad-hom attacks @quantumushroom.
nope, no trolling here. We're lucky you're here spreading your pearls of wisdom instead of spending your valuable time at more reputable websites like...Conservapedia.

Pretending or denying Obama's lack of experience and leadership hasn't negatively affected the US economy is as intellectually dishonest as it gets.

Oil prices are not controlled by your government.

Where were statements like this when Bush was being blamed for high gas prices? Nowhere.

Oil prices are affected by the federal leviathan's antics every day. Gasoline is taxed by the government, and although it shouldn't be deciding which industries thrive and which fail, here we have the Amateur and his merry crew losing billions of taxpayer dollars to bullsh1t green solar companies while vetoing the Keystone Pipeline.

Our enemies know His Earness is spineless. You think iran would be playing these games with a real leader in the White House? Or are you going to state that iran doesn't directly control oil prices so it "doesn't count".

And oh yes, what about the scamulus? FAIL.

Whether "fair" or not, the guy in charge at the time the fit hits the shan gets the blame. Deal.

>> ^messenger:

How the uneducated make arguments:
1. Pick a random problem in your life.
2. Say your chosen target did it.
3. Repeat until it gains traction.
Oil prices are not controlled by your government.>> ^quantumushroom:
Are you enjoying the higher gas prices?

Fairly? Media Research Center is pointing out liberal bias, aka plain old intellectual dishonesty.

In 2008, high gas prices were an easy way to blame Bush. The shills wouldn't DARE do it to the guy their one-sided reporting helped elect and covers for now.

Liberal "journalism" = agenda first, facts, distorted or not at all.

>> ^messenger:

Have you read those articles? They're not written fairly. They say things like, "[In 2008,] On gasoline specifically, reporters have routinely showed photos of extreme pump prices despite lower national averages." For that to be meaningful and show a media bias, it would have to be true that in 2012 reporters are NOT routinely showing photos of extreme pump prices, which of course they are, because it still makes a better photo to accompany the story. This is biased journalism.
Also, choosing the peak month of gas price reporting in 2008 and comparing it only with the most recent month of reporting isn't a fair comparison.
Finally, in 2008, it was a bigger story because price spikes were a relatively new thing, and it was still easy to scare people with horror stories of the world collapsing. But now we're used to them, and we know they drop off after a month or few, so it's just not as attractive to journalists any more.
In other words, those numbers may be accurate, but they don't represent that that article says they represent. Same goes for the handful of other articles I read there. They were all written with their agenda first, facts second, just like how Santorum selectively chooses his facts about College reducing faith.>> ^quantumushroom:
...here's all the liberal "news" bias you can eat.

I apologize for removing the body of text from the quote, but given the amount of text in it, it seemed cumbersome.

I applaud the significant digging you must have done to come up with a collection of significant quotes. It's well travelled ground to be sure, but it's nice to have more meat for the discussion.

Having read your post, I feel it is worth adding some additional details. I feel it not a surprise at all that the founding fathers and friends make a great many references to God and religion in their many discussions. During this age, the vast majority of Americans did subscribe to one of several Christian denominations. Thererfore, the most significant part of the body of your message, to me, is the incorporation of Christinanity into state-level law.

This would seem completely contrary to our current interpretation of the establishment clause, right? I assume that is where you were going. If not, I apologise for misunderstanding.

I think you are right. I think those laws are in direct conflict with the our view of establishment clause. I would not be surprised if they were in some significant part responsible for the drafting and ratification of that same clause. You see they came first. Furthermore, they are at the state level, not the federal level. Directly applying those same laws to the states themselves didn't come around for quite a time after that, and very possible was neither expected or intended by those same signers.

Maybe there's a completely different way to interpret "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". I honestly haven't heard another one put forward. Certainly they wrote these words down for a reason though. If they had meant it to apply only to non-christian religions they would have said so.

My personal suspicion is that the clause was added so as to be able to overlook the religious differences between states when running the federal government. They didn't want the federal government to discriminate based on religious denomination. Take it with a grain of salt though, as I'm certainly no constitutional scholar. The wall of separation thing really is a red herring which occupies no space in law, and far too much space in discussion.

>> ^shinyblurry:

...

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

How the uneducated make arguments:
1. Pick a random problem in your life.
2. Say your chosen target did it.
3. Repeat until it gains traction.

Oil prices are not controlled by your government.>> ^quantumushroom:

Are you enjoying the higher gas prices?

Have you read those articles? They're not written fairly. They say things like, "[In 2008,] On gasoline specifically, reporters have routinely showed photos of extreme pump prices despite lower national averages." For that to be meaningful and show a media bias, it would have to be true that in 2012 reporters are NOT routinely showing photos of extreme pump prices, which of course they are, because it still makes a better photo to accompany the story. This is biased journalism.

Also, choosing the peak month of gas price reporting in 2008 and comparing it only with the most recent month of reporting isn't a fair comparison.

Finally, in 2008, it was a bigger story because price spikes were a relatively new thing, and it was still easy to scare people with horror stories of the world collapsing. But now we're used to them, and we know they drop off after a month or few, so it's just not as attractive to journalists any more.

In other words, those numbers may be accurate, but they don't represent that that article says they represent. Same goes for the handful of other articles I read there. They were all written with their agenda first, facts second, just like how Santorum selectively chooses his facts about College reducing faith.>> ^quantumushroom:

...here's all the liberal "news" bias you can eat.

According to the Factcheck article, College does challenge individual faiths, because it has a positive effect on people switching faiths. The problem is it doesn't shake faith in faith itself, which is what I think you were talking about.>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^entr0py:
Sounds like godless liberal elitism to me. Slow down there Lenin H. Rockefeller
http://factcheck.org/2012/02/college-kills-faith/
That's disappointing. College should kill faith. Well, maybe not kill it, but certainly wound it. If you go to higher education for a few years and you aren't exposed to ideas that make you at least question your faith, you and/or your college have failed in your education.

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.