There is a glimmer of hope in the Middle East. In a recent large-scale protest, citizens rose up in a rare public demonstration to get religion out of politics. Sunday’s Secular Pride March shows that there are many people in countries like Lebanon who are want a separation of church and state — and are willing to risk their lives to fight for secular government. In the meantime, people in the United States like Sarah Palin are trying to take this country in the opposite direction by taking down the wall of separation, here.
At a recent rally, Palin told her supporters “Lest anyone try to convince you that God should be separated from the state, our founding fathers, they were believers.” In Lebanon, citizens are fighting for precisely that separation, chanting “What’s your sect? None of your business!”
It is a promising development in a region, where even Israel mixes religion with government in a rejection of secular government. Lebanon was long the most progressive nation in the region before being ripped apart by the Israeli invasion and militant Islamic groups. Obviously, this is not good for groups like Hezbullah, which may want to pay Palin for one of those $100,000 speeches to speak against separation of mosque and state.
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Maybe we should try it. Oh they do, no excessive entanglement by endorsing “Christian” prayer to the exclusion of others at none other than the opening of every session in the US and most State Capitals.
What follows is a rant … pure and simple. If you don’t want to read the ranting … stop now.
Sarah Palin is an obnoxiously ignorant moron. Those who attend her speeches are of the same ilk. In this day and age, there is no excuse for such ignorance. Want to understand the Constitution and the men who wrote it … get a couple of books and read them. We have lots of libraries all over the country chocked full of information in book form. Watch Book TV on C-Span or go online and order a couple from Amazon. Join a blog where learned people address the issues of the present and past … read and learn.
If all you want to do is carry a sign and socialize with like-minded stupidos … fine, but for the sake of our future and the sake of the country … stay out of the voting booth. YOU ARE TOO STUPID TO DECIDE THE FATE OF THIS NATION!
In addition, if you are someone who is impressed by an idiot’s ability to make money … stop. Making money has nothing to do with intelligence … the goons on Wall Street made a lot of money and almost destroyed the world’s economy. Larry Summers has a job in the White House; he made a lot of money; he was, also, one of the architects who helped construct the financial system that almost destroyed the world’s economy. George W Bush and Sarah Palin made a lot of money and …. surely, you get the point.
End of rant.
The Writer, I may ask a candidate any question which I deem to have a bearing on the qualifications for the office as I define them. But it is troubling to see so many conservative Christian groups imposing religious litmus tests on candidates. That is not something I recall happening prior to the creation of the Moral Majority. Speakers like Sarah Palin strike a responsive chord because there are many people who fear that their particular brand of religion will cease to be dominant. That fear translates into lobbying efforts by religious groups to legislate doctrine as a shield against the unknown. But in order to make that palatable, it is also necessary to engage in some serious historical revisionism by arguing that the Founders were all Pentecostals seeking to create a theocratic republic.
But isn’t the separation of church and state a restraint on government, not on individuals? So an individual has every right to demand to know what a candidate’s beliefs are. The candidate may refuse, but there is no restraint on the public requesting such information.
“At a recent rally, Palin told her supporters “Lest anyone try to convince you that God should be separated from the state, our founding fathers, they were believers.”
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They were indeed. Most believed that any fool religionist would lead the country astray if put into power:
“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.” – James Madison (Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, 1785.)
“As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.” – (Treaty of Tripoli, 1797 – signed by President John Adams.)
“When a Religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its Professors are obliged to call for help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.” – Benjamin Franklin (from a letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780
“Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than on our opinions in physics and geometry….The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” — Thos. Jefferson (The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom”)
Yay!
While Pakistan has its problems with the Taliban the US is also have problems with its ‘Taliban’.
Back in the 50’s I got beaten up for being the ‘wrong’ religion & it was not unheard of, Protestants and Catholics, Christians and Jews, Mormans and everyone else, WELS and Missouri and on and on and on. While it was ugly it did serve a very important role. It reminded everyone why the founders wanted religion separate from government. Now all those brain dead Christianists have a common enemy so they have forgotten how much they hate each other & made common cause against Islam.
If we could get Buddhist or Hindu crackpots to bomb a couple of churches maybe the US and Pakistani Taliban would join forces around their common deity!
“At a recent rally, Palin told her supporters “Lest anyone try to convince you that God should be separated from the state, our founding fathers, they were believers.”
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Ignorance that knows no bounds. Deist, you moron, deist! The most influential were DEISTS
“Deism is a religious and philosophical belief that a supreme being created the universe, and that this (and religious truth in general) can be determined using reason and observation of the natural world alone, without the need for either faith or organized religion. Many Deists reject the notion that God intervenes in human affairs, for example through miracles and revelations. These views contrast with the dependence on revelations, miracles, and faith found in many Jewish, Christian, Islamic and other theistic teachings.
Deists typically reject most supernatural events (prophecy, miracles) and tend to assert that God (or “The Supreme Architect”) has a plan for the universe that is not altered either by God intervening in the affairs of human life or by suspending the natural laws of the universe. What organized religions see as divine revelation and holy books, most deists see as interpretations made by other humans, rather than as authoritative sources.
Deism became prominent in the 17th and 18th centuries during the Age of Enlightenment, especially in what is now the United Kingdom, France, United States and Ireland, mostly among those raised as Christians who found they could not believe in either a triune God, the divinity of Jesus, miracles, or the inerrancy of scriptures, but who did believe in one god.
There’s plenty of secular nationalism around the world. However, the US doesn’t tolerate it (and their Israeli client doesn’t either, as you’ve correctly identified). Fanatical religious leaders are better for “stability” and “enforcement” and all those other euphemisms that stand for “US domination of the world.”
Do you think there was any of that attitude underlying the recent ‘green movement’ in Iran?