Public Schools are a governmental creation . . . there should be nothing remotely religious about them.

I agree and disagree.

 

There should be no specific prayer or religion mandated by government in our public schools. On the other hand, our government has no place telling its citizens where, when, how or why they might choose to pray.

 

If students and teachers want to pray in school, they should be free to do so openly.

You definitely know how to use the internet, but I question your interpretation of the evidence you find. This is also a problem I have with the revisionist history being taught in our public schools. From the Declaration of Independence, up through the 1950s American school children were taught the entire truth about our founding fathers including the overwhelming prevalence of the Christian faith practiced or at least understood and endorsed by all of them. You are clearly a bright student, but you have been fed faulty information. I would imagine that an inquisitive investigator such as yourself would be indignant enough to excavate the whole truth on these matters.

 

This is probably the most insulting thing I've ever read. And you make a lot of unfounded assumptions to get there, particularly concerning my education and capacity to think both independently and objectively.

 

If someone wants to present Fastbreak's argument civilly, I would be more than happy to debate it.

Public Schools are a governmental creation . . . there should be nothing remotely religious about them.

 

Again, what is the educational purpose of a moment of silence??

 

Actually, I think you are wrong on the bolded.

Weren't the first schools in many parts of this country held in the churches?

I know it was on Little House on the Prairie.

 

Seriously many of the elementary schools, middle schools, high schools and most of the first colleges, I think it is something like 105 of the first 109 colleges were started through the Christian religion NOT by the government.

 

In fact, in the state of KY a Christian college Berea College was the first to allow blacks to attend. Then the government prevented them from doing it.

 

Guess the government CAN BE WRONG in regards to the actions of Christians.

They are now to in this argument and on the argument of abortion.

As Berea College did, we just got to continue the good fight until the government comes around to the right thinking.

This is probably the most insulting thing I've ever read. And you make a lot of unfounded assumptions to get there, particularly concerning my education and capacity to think both independently and objectively.

 

If someone wants to present Fastbreak's argument civilly, I would be more than happy to debate it.

Wow...

 

I did not call you a name. I did in fact say that you are bright and adept at uncovering information and encouraged you to dig deeper.

 

I simply questioned the timing of the information you presented and disagreed with your interpretation of it as regards Madison's intents for the separation of church and state during the actual years of the founding of the nation.

 

I feel very strongly that it is this type of revisionist history and thinking that has led our nation away from the core virtues that made us great. I will not sit mute and ignore information I know to be erroneous.

 

If you find it insulting that I disagree with you, backed by facts to support the reasons I disagree with you then one of us has a very wrong understanding about what P&R is all about.

 

All you have to do is prove me wrong. :thumb:

Wow...

 

I did not call you a name. I did in fact say that you are bright and adept at uncovering information and encouraged you to dig deeper.

 

I simply questioned the timing of the information you presented and disagreed with your interpretation of it as regards Madison's intents for the separation of church and state during the actual years of the founding of the nation.

 

I feel very strongly that it is this type of revisionist history and thinking that has led our nation away from the core virtues that made us great. I will not sit mute and ignore information I know to be erroneous.

 

If you find it insulting that I disagree with you, backed by facts to support the reasons I disagree with you then one of us has a very wrong understanding about what P&R is all about.

 

All you have to do is prove me wrong. :thumb:

 

If you had simply disagreed I would have eagerly continued the debate. However, your post was littered with unfounded insults and I certainly will not reward that with continued discussion.

If you had simply disagreed I would have eagerly continued the debate. However, your post was littered with unfounded insults and I certainly will not reward that with continued discussion.

 

And no one likes littering.:sssh::thumb::lol:

 

Just trying to lighten the mood.

If you had simply disagreed I would have eagerly continued the debate. However, your post was littered with unfounded insults and I certainly will not reward that with continued discussion.

I've re-read the post in question a dozen times and cannot find one comment I intended to be an insult.

 

I disagree with the idea that Madison-at the time of the founding and for at least three and a half decades thereafter-was equally against the inclusion of Christian morals, virtues, ethics, etc. in government as he was against the intrusion of government in the practice of Judeo/Christian religion in America.

 

There are too many Madison writings and statements at the time of the founding that reveal his concern for keeping government out of religion, while also encouraging the involvement of Christians in government.

I've re-read the post in question a dozen times and cannot find one comment I intended to be an insult.

 

Perhaps it would not have been insulting if your personal assumptions about me were true, but being that you don’t know me you couldn’t have been more wrong (or more insulting). Admittedly, I engage in condescension with posters who are similarly condescending - which is regrettable – but I don’t plan to engage in a personal insult tit-for-tat, so I will call you on it and leave it at that.

 

You first said this:

 

That is what the whole concept of the "separation of church and state" was all about with our nation's founders. There was never an intention to keep religion out of government, but most definitely an intent to keep government out of religion.

 

Now you’ve amended it to this:

 

I disagree with the idea that Madison-at the time of the founding and for at least three and a half decades thereafter-was equally against the inclusion of Christian morals, virtues, ethics, etc. in government as he was against the intrusion of government in the practice of Judeo/Christian religion in America.

 

It is quite unlikely I will be able to produce Madison’s “religion out of government” interpretation of the Establishment Clause prior to the beginning of the 19th century, but that fact has no bearing on your original contention before it was modified to exclude particular dates. What is more, I don’t believe the inverse can be found either; he was a fervent advocate of religious liberty for all, not merely Judeo-Christianity, but not a fervent advocate of a religious government, particularly when he takes great lengths to note the equality of all religions and the ability of the various sects of religions to prohibit a monopoly by one.

 

As to your post, the quote you reference comes late in Madison's life, long after he was on record as opposing only the establishment of a federal religious denomination, (as had occurred in England) not public religious activities. Known as the Father of the Constitution, his proposed wording for the First Amendment declared:

 

The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of (their personal) religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established.

 

The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States 451, 1st Cong., 1st Sess. (Washington, D. C.: Gales & Seaton 1834) (June 8, 1789).

 

Madison emphasized this viewpoint repeatedly throughout the debates.

 

As President, James Madison Proclaimed the third Thursday in August, 1812 a national day of “Humiliation and Prayer Fast.”

 

The following text was printed in the Independent Chronicle on July 20, 1812.

 

Proclamation.

 

WHEREAS the Congress of the United States, by a joint resolution of the two Houses, have signified a request, that a day may be recommended, to be observed by the People of the United States, with religious solemnity, as a day of pubic Humiliation, and Prayer; and whereas such a recommendation will enable the several religious denominations and societies so disposed, to offer, at one and the same time, their common vows and adorations to Almighty God, on the solemn occasion produced by the war, in which he has been pleased to permit the injustice of a foreign power to involve these United States;

 

I do therefore recommend the third Thursday in August next, as a convenient day to be set apart for the devout purposes of rendering to the Sovereign of the Universe and the Benefactor of mankind, the public homage due to his holy attributes; of acknowledging the transgressions which might justly provoke the manifestations of His divine displeasures; of seeking His merciful forgiveness, His assistance in the great duties of repentance and amendment; and especially of offering fervent supplications, that in the present season of calamity and war, He would take the American People under his peculiar care and protection; that he would guide their public councils, animate their patriotism, and bestow His blessing on their arms; that He would inspire all nations with a love of justice and of concord, and with a reverence for the unerring precept of our holy religion, to do to others as they would require others to do to them; and finally, that , turning the hearts of our enemies from the violence and injustice which sway their councils against us, He would hasten a restoration of the blessings of Peace.

 

Given at Washington the 9th day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twelve.

 

James Madison.

 

I’m not certain how Madison’s decree setting aside a special day for religious exercise lends evidence to the argument that he, or other Founder’s, would have favored a religous government or give reason for the strange wording of "make no law respecting an establishment of religion" if they had only intended to prohibit an official church. This is the entirety of James Madison’s 1822 letter to Edward Livingston (where my initial quote was derived from), where Madison discusses the threat of religious encroachment into government as well as his role in decreeing religious days:

 

I observe with particular pleasure the view you have taken of the immunity of Religion from civil jurisdiction, in every case where it does not trespass on private rights or the public peace. This has always been a favorite principle with me; and it was not with my approbation, that the deviation from it took place in Congs., when they appointed Chaplains, to be paid from the Natl. Treasury. It would have been a much better proof to their Constituents of their pious feeling if the members had contributed for the purpose, a pittance from their own pockets. As the precedent is not likely to be rescinded, the best that can now be done, may be to apply to the Constn. the maxim of the law, de minimis non curat.

 

There has been another deviation from the strict principle in the Executive Proclamations of fasts & festivals, so far, at least, as they have spoken the language of injunction, or have lost sight of the equality of all religious sects in the eye of the Constitution. Whilst I was honored with the Executive Trust I found it necessary on more than one occasion to follow the example of predecessors. But I was always careful to make the Proclamations absolutely indiscriminate, and merely recommendatory; or rather mere designations of a day, on which all who thought proper might unite in consecrating it to religious purposes, according to their own faith & forms. In this sense, I presume you reserve to the Govt. a right to appoint particular days for religious worship throughout the State, without any penal sanction enforcing the worship. I know not what may be the way of thinking on this subject in Louisiana. I should suppose the Catholic portion of the people, at least, as a small & even unpopular sect in the U. S., would rally, as they did in Virga. when religious liberty was a Legislative topic, to its broadest principle. Notwithstanding the general progress made within the two last centuries in favour of this branch of liberty, & the full establishment of it, in some parts of our Country, there remains in others a strong bias towards the old error, that without some sort of alliance or coalition between Govt. & Religion neither can be duly supported. Such indeed is the tendency to such a coalition, and such its corrupting influence on both the parties, that the danger cannot be too carefully guarded agst. And in a Govt. of opinion, like ours, the only effectual guard must be found in the soundness and stability of the general opinion on the subject. Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together. It was the belief of all sects at one time that the establishment of Religion by law, was right & necessary; that the true religion ought to be established in exclusion of every other; And that the only question to be decided was which was the true religion. The example of Holland proved that a toleration of sects, dissenting from the established sect, was safe & even useful. The example of the Colonies, now States, which rejected religious establishments altogether, proved that all Sects might be safely & advantageously put on a footing of equal & entire freedom; and a continuance of their example since the declaration of Independence, has shewn that its success in Colonies was not to be ascribed to their connection with the parent Country. If a further confirmation of the truth could be wanted, it is to be found in the examples furnished by the States, which have abolished their religious establishments. I cannot speak particularly of any of the cases excepting that of Virga. where it is impossible to deny that Religion prevails with more zeal, and a more exemplary priesthood than it ever did when established and patronised by Public authority. We are teaching the world the great truth that Govts. do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Govt.

 

And here is an excerpt of an 1817 memoranda:

 

The danger of silent accumulations & encroachments by Ecclesiastical Bodies have not sufficiently engaged attention in the U. S. They have the noble merit of first unshackling the conscience from persecuting laws, and of establishing among religious Sects a legal equality. If some of the States have not embraced this just and this truly Xn principle in its proper latitude, all of them present examples by which the most enlightened States of the old world may be instructed; and there is one State at least, Virginia, where religious liberty is placed on its true foundation and is defined in its full latitude. The general principle is contained in her declaration of rights, prefixed to her Constitution: but it is unfolded and defined, in its precise extent, in the act of the Legislature, usually named the Religious Bill, which passed into a law in the year 1786. Here the separation between the authority of human laws, and the natural rights of Man excepted from the grant on which all political authority is founded, is traced as distinctly as words can admit, and the limits to this authority established with as much solemnity as the forms of legislation can express. The law has the further advantage of having been the result of a formal appeal to the sense of the Community and a deliberate sanction of a vast majority, comprizing every sect of Christians in the State. This act is a true standard of Religious liberty: its principle the great barrier agst usurpations on the rights of conscience. As long as it is respected & no longer, these will be safe. Every provision for them short of this principle, will be found to leave crevices at least thro' which bigotry may introduce persecution; a monster, that feeding & thriving on its own venom, gradually swells to a size and strength overwhelming all laws divine & human.

 

Ye States of America, which retain in your Constitutions or Codes, any aberration from the sacred principle of religious liberty, by giving to Caesar what belongs to God, or joining together what God has put asunder, hasten to revise & purify your systems, and make the example of your Country as pure & compleat, in what relates to the freedom of the mind and its allegiance to its maker, as in what belongs to the legitimate objects of political & civil institutions.

 

Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history. (See the cases in which negatives were put by J. M. on two bills passd by Congs and his signature withheld from another. See also attempt in Kentucky for example, where it was proposed to exempt Houses of Worship from taxes.

 

[…]

 

Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom?

 

In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation.

 

The establishment of the chaplainship to Congs is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship agst the members whose creeds & consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority. To say nothing of other sects, this is the case with that of Roman Catholics & Quakers who have always had members in one or both of the Legislative branches. Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers. or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor.

 

And a paragraph from an 1832 letter:

 

Whilst I thus frankly express my view of the subject presented in your sermon, I must do you the justice to observe that you very ably maintained yours. I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions & doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinance of the Govt. from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, & protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.

 

I think these make it rather evident that Madison had no trouble keeping religion out of the government, in fact, going to so far to consider that an important aspect of religious liberty, which he so fervently defended. Perhaps when I am home (and in possession of greater resources) I can add to Madison’s opinion.

Sigh… Habib, I don’t know what it is between us, but you have developed a tendency to assume the absolute worst out of me. For the sake of my own sanity, I have gone back to

...the most insulting thing I've ever read.

and attempted to decipher the “unfounded assumptions” I supposedly made about you.

You definitely know how to use the internet.

If you’re insulted by this I have absolutely no response, other than to say that IMO, it is not “unfounded” for me to make this assumption.

 

I question your interpretation of the evidence you find.

If you’re insulted that I disagree with your conclusions, so be it… I do on this matter.

 

This is also a problem I have with the revisionist history being taught in our public schools.

If you’re personalizing this as an assumption on my part that you’re a product of public schools, or that I’m somehow insulting others who like myself are products of public schools you’re way off base. That’s why I included “also” in the statement. It is a separate but parallel issue for me. I make no unfounded assumption here regarding you.

 

From the Declaration of Independence, up through the 1950s American school children were taught the entire truth about our founding fathers including the overwhelming prevalence of the Christian faith practiced or at least understood and endorsed by all of them.

This is another separate but factual statement that could be backed up with enough evidence to fill several books. It has nothing directly to do with you (unless possibly you’re 70 years old and benefitted from a public school education prior to the 1960’s.) Either way, I did not link you personally in any way to this statement.

 

You are clearly a bright student,

How could you possibly be offended by this statement?

but you have been fed faulty information.

This is my opinion on the current state of revisionist history in light of a culture driven by secular humanist interests… a culture that despite 175 years of including discussions of God and teaching Biblical principals in our public school curriculum has done very thing possible to remove God and the Bible from our public schools. IMO, this is a misguided and very harmful strategy. I think there are many indications (increased teen suicide rates, school shootings, increased teen pregnancy rates, increased abortion rates, etc., etc., etc.) that this policy has been far more destructive than the feelings of guilt and fears of impending judgment that religion has supposedly caused. If anything, this statement is a loophole, granting you the benefit of doubt regarding your conclusions. If you are under 50 years of age, there is no question in my mind that you have been and are being fed flawed (revised to comport to a specific agenda) information. You can disagree with me. You can prove me wrong. But unless you can honestly state that you have read and understood a majority of original documents from the founding period, or even a healthy cross section of history texts published prior to WWII, it is a stretch for you to take offense with this statement. To elevate it to the level of “the most insulting thing you’ve ever read” is a genuine head scratcher for me.

 

I would imagine that an inquisitive investigator such as yourself would be indignant enough to excavate the whole truth on these matters.

Again, this was intended as a compliment, not an insult. I’m stating that you have an inquisitive mind, you know how to do research, and I have confidence that if someone comes along and tells you there’s more to a particular story, you have the intellectual honesty to dig deeper and uncover the whole story.

 

If there’s an unfounded assumption in my entire “most insulting thing you’ve ever read” comments, this would be it. Perhaps I wrongly assumed that you are not so set in your ways that you might be willing to revise an opinion you have formed if enough compelling evidence came to light.

 

Again, if that’s an insult to you, so be it. IMO it’s a stretch, and certainly not how I intended to communicate with you.

I agree and disagree.

 

There should be no specific prayer or religion mandated by government in our public schools. On the other hand, our government has no place telling its citizens where, when, how or why they might choose to pray.

 

If students and teachers want to pray in school, they should be free to do so openly.

 

They are free to do so, and to do so openly. The problem is when they want everyone to do it with them.

 

didn't Jesus say not to make your prayers public, but to do into a closet and do it.

It is not the federal government's job to control, dictate or othewise influence religion. That is what the whole concept of the "separation of church and state" was all about with our nation's founders. There was never an intention to keep religion out of government, but most definitely an intent to keep government out of religion.

 

By abridging religious freedoms, our government has slid into a place it was never intended to go.

 

 

I'm not sure I totally agree with that sentiment. I think the one thing our Founding Fathers seemed to be certain of was that they wanted to avoid the mistakes of the old World. One of those was the corrupting influence that Religion played when married to the state and the government. They saw the corruption in France, England, Spain and other places in Europe where Religious tribunals held as much weight and power as Civil Government and their courts.

 

That is why I believe that the Constitution provides for Religious Liberty and Freedom to worship or not and thereby not have that practice (or nonpractice) be an influence on government. Likewise I believe the Founding Fathers wanted to avoid establishing a Religion so that Faith and Government could not be so entertwined as that both institutions become corrupted by the power of the other.

 

JMHO.

They are free to do so, and to do so openly. The problem is when they want everyone to do it with them.

 

didn't Jesus say not to make your prayers public, but to do into a closet and do it.

 

You could have been the judge as you are making the HUGE jump that a moment of silence was a required school-led prayer.

 

That is NOT waht this was.

 

And BTW, Jesus had public prayers too.

 

John 17

Jesus Prays for Himself

1After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

Jesus Prays for His Disciples

6"I have revealed you[a] to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one. 12While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled. 13"I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

Jesus Prays for All Believers

20"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. 25"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."

Back to the topic at hand, my original statement in post 25 of this thread read:

It is not the federal government's job to control, dictate or othewise influence religion. That is what the whole concept of the "separation of church and state" was all about with our nation's founders. There was never an intention to keep religion out of government, but most definitely an intent to keep government out of religion.

I spoke openly of the Founding Fathers. Habib narrowed the scope to Madison. I provided words and actions from Madison that at the very least raise questions about his feelings and intentions regarding separation at the time of the founding. Even if it could be argued that Madison did an about face later in his life and changed his views on the function of separation there are hundreds of quotes and writings from dozens of other Founding Fathers that very clearly dispel the notion that Christian religion should somehow be restricted from the workings of our government.

 

Given time and incentive, I could easily post dozens of pages in this thread with comments from a broad cross section of our nation’s founders validating their esteem for Christianity in the smooth function of American government. The fact that these writings are obscured and no longer taught to our school children is a blunder of eternal proportions IMO.

From George Washinton's farewell address:

 

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness. . . . The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them."

 

I guess it could be argued that George Washington didn't understand the Constitution.

 

Good luck with that one. :lol:

From George Washinton's farewell address:

 

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness. . . . The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them."

 

I guess it could be argued that George Washington didn't understand the Constitution.

 

Good luck with that one. :lol:

 

I see no subversion of those pillars with this ruling. Simply not there.

 

As to Jesus praying in public, we all have them, but that is not the ideal way to do it, and he says so. Do I need to find the verse??