Sorry that your shallow mind automatically assumed that when He referred to the "States" the only application that occurred to you was the abbreviation for "The United States."

The vaulted emperor referred to someone's quote which included the US. He then mentioned "Americans" and our degeneration such that we no longer deserve the name. Sorry if I might have assumed incorrectly that after those references, lo and behold his "State" (not states as you claim he said") is not the US. Regardless, the vaulted one seems to assume that all "States" share the same wish, that first and foremost their citizens must obey laws. I simply disagreed and additionally took offense with his comments that basically everyone who has bothered to speak their mind in this thread are blithering idiots. The vaulted one has ten years of effectivey worthless education, if the best that he can do is to make the incorrect claim that the "State's" only interest is that people obey it's laws. It's a simply ludicrous statement.

Regardless, to further prove my point and to show that I can think outside my border; I recenty visited Sweden which is a sociaist society. Flat tax, nice government run health care, free education to all citizens. What's their primary concern? Obey the law? Well, while that would be nice, they actually prefer you get to work and start contributing your 35% to the economy. Strangely reminiscent of the US, huh?

Call me a smart ass all ya want, my point remains valid even when we leave the borders of the US and look at other governments. The simple fact is that for all of recorded history, most governments spend more effort on collecting taxes than on any other function.

That's the difference between facts and philosophy, the latter of which seems to be a waste if time if you ask me. Let me guess, I assume the vaulted one is an educator?

Wait, wait, I just put on my philosopher's cap and figured out the obvious response from either the whipped, I mean whip or the vaulted one. Taxes are required by law to be paid, so ergo, the State's main interest is indeed (in so far as they pay their taxes) that people obey the law.

I guess I stand corrected, sort of.

Oy. I agree with Zoomba. For the most part.

My issue with this whole situation is that I fear that it's not far off where people that have any association with any sort of God will not be allowed to work for any type of publicly-funded agency. Meaning *I* will lose my job as a public school teacher because I subscribe to the Christian belief system.

I know there are those of you who scoff, but when we have crazies out there like dabe and others who think that people who are Christians or Muslims or Jews or Buddhists are second-rate citizens because they practice some sort of religion or even hold some religious belief...I definitely see something like that as a possibility.

I'm not paranoid, mind you...I could open up my own little Christian day care and be making more money than I am now as a teacher...hell...I could be a convenience store clerk and make more money...lol.

But seriously...don't you think?

If the imbecilic, intolerant left had it's way, atheism would be a requirement to hold public office.

LOL, ya, I would like to see the reaction to even one atheist try and hold a high public office (or at least one that will admit it).

Etc, etc, etc. I could go on for hours...every freaking facet of our lives are regulated by law, and the number of government agencies created for the sole purpose of enforcing those laws is probably too numerous to count. Oh, and I answered that all by myself, and I don't have any degrees, aren't you proud of me?

Actually Whip, you've fallen flat on your face yet again in defense of the vaulted one rather than defending something you really believe in. You have nearly made my point for me. Let's look at your third list of agenices (you really should have stopped when you were ahead with the first two).

Zoning Commissions Construction Permits Health Inspectors Operating Permits Business Licenses Dog Licenses Barber Licenses Day Care Licenses

All of the above exist primarily as revenue generators for the government and when the employees of the above departemnts are not collecting monies they are merely harassing business owners as a means of justifying their existence.

You have also gone way off track as I only included the FBI in my response as I felt we were discussing FEDERAL government. When the vaulted one mentioned the "State" I sincerely doubt he meant every state and local municipality as well. But hey, let's look at your list of agencies:

CIA: First and foremost this is a fact gathering organization typically involved in protecting American's interests not enforcing our laws.

DEA: While you have a small point, one could argue that the DEA is much more concerned with keeping foreigners from enetering the US with their drugs. You may have done better to mention the ATF instead of the DEA.

Customs: Customs actually now comes under DHS and is US Customs and Border Security. So this agency, much like the DEA and CIA exist to protect Americans from foreigners.

INS: Surely you are joking? Name the last American to be arrested for a citizenship issue. Again, another agency designed to protect Americans, not enforce American laws on Americans.

I am not discussing your State and local law enforcement examples as I am trying to keep this a FEDERAL issue. However, I will say this; how many state and local police act as mere revenue generators for their state/city? Do you honestly think that an officer pulling people over for speeding on a lonely stretch of highway is doing so for public safety? No, he is doing so in order to do what most government workers do: generate revenue and justify their existence. If traffic violations were so severe and warranted police action, they should come with jail time, not simple fines which we all no are not deterrents, but simple means of collecting money for the local government.

EPA: They are NOT law enforcement, they create policies and regualtions to protect the health of people.

FDA: Yeah, you read about those FDA guys arresting people everyday, again, policies and regulations for the health of people not law enforcement.

The Justice Department: Well genius, seeing that the FBI is a division of the Justice department I guess I have to give you that one.

OSHA: Okay, as an OSHA compliance manager for my company, I can tell you from first hand experience that if these people really cared about enforcement, they would be in EVERY business at least once a quarter. As it were, they show up where they know they can charge the highest fines as yet another means of generating revenue.

EEOC: Man are you stretching it here.

Okay, enough of this, let's just suffice it to say that most of what you have brought up are organizations that may create regulations and policies (not laws, that's why we have a legislature). Hell I could of used 3/4 of your list as yet more examples of how the governments main concern is generating revenue. I mean what's the saying? "two things in life are certain, death and taxes" , not death and getting arrested. You go to most local courthouses and what's the first thing you see? A sign for the cashier. Hell, I was at court for a moving violation last Tuesday and lo and behold, they have a frigging ATM in the lobby of the courthouse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY!!!???!!!?? Because they exist to take your money!!!!!

You go all the way down to local police level to make your point, while I stuck with the irs alone. If you want to get technical with taxes, I could have included everyone involved in state taxes, local taxes, county taxes, property taxes, business taxes, labor taxes, etc, etc, etc. Let's face the facts, most American's main concern is taxes, not whether or not they are breaking the law.

Look whip, I know your style and I know that you and I generally agree on most things. You have merely gone into this thread blindly defending the vaulted one instead of defending your own opinion, which you frankly do a much better job of.

Emperor was just plain wrong when he declared that the "States" only interest lies in the public obeying the law. He was also wrong to more or less classify every other person in this thread a moron because they have not had 10 years of post-graduate study.

Also whip, I have never claimed to be ultra intelligent, only a realist. You making an issure of my mistake on the "so and ergo" usage causes me great sadness to see you stoop to the level of liberal, elitist, intellectual crap in a vain attempt to score points.

How could a religious person NOT allow their beliefs to influence their governing style?

I think the only time that we have to fear someone allowing their religious beliefs to influence their style is in the case of judges. For example, I would much prefer that a judge look at medical facts as regards his opinion on abortion rather than deciding the issue based upon what his religion tells him.

If judges start judging by what their pastor or priest says rather than what our laws say, we will not be too far off from what we are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, a bunch a religious zealots who want to force their religion on others rather than just enjoying their freedom to practice it. While no one could argue that religion is a bad thing, in many cases it has no place in a court of law.

One of the greatest things about this country is the freedom from religion that we enjoy should we so choose. As a Baptist, I shudder at the thought of one day having a Muslim judge passing judgement on me based on his religion rather than the law.

I want to clarify my original response to this article, since it seems it might have been confused a bit by those who read it...

I'm NOT saying you can not hold your own beliefs and attempt to govern by what you think is right according to those beliefs. Those beliefs, such as "thou shall not kill" form the cornerstone of our system of laws and governing. But there is a difference between governing according to what you feel is right, and governing AS A REPRESENTATIVE OF GOD, or even attempting to blur the line between church and state. In the past several years we've seen two (failed/abandoned) initiatives that threatened to cross that magical line. The Constitutional Ammendment against Gay Marraige, and the idea of setting up a govt office for the funding of faith groups. The first is an attempt at having the government make a direct ruling on what is a purely religious matter. The second is an attempt to federally fund churches and other religious organizations.

It scares me when someone wants to pass a law "Because it's the will of God!" I grew up in a pretty conservative area, and the amount of rules and regulations everyone wanted to pass to be in line with the will of The Lord was frightening. I'm cool with you living your life according to God's Will (however it is you wish to interpret it), but I'm not cool when you want to make me march to that same drum beat.

What I find really funny though is the hipocracy of the whole thing. People will jump up and down and scream at the idea of having the Ten Commandments not allowed to be posted in a school, but will go equally nuts at the idea of something else from the Qu'ran (sp?) or any text of any other faith being displayed along side of it.

I'd pose a question back then.... Why do so many Christians, who believe their God should be involved in Govt, fear Allah, or Jehova, or Shiva etc... being involved in Govt?

And if you're going to respond with "Well, because mine is the TRUE God" then you've just lost the argument. The US Govt is supposed to represent all people, and as soon as you want to start tossing out others beliefs in favor of your own and use those beliefs as a guide for ruling, you're not talking about a govt that in any way represents the nation, but one that represents your own narrow view of the world. Now, if you got mad at the idea of your God being tossed in favor of Allah, you'd be perfectly in the right, because another group is being catered to exclusively then.

THIS is the reason we need to limit God in Government (not God in people's lives and hearts though... there is still a difference), because God does not cover all people, nor does Allah, or Jehova, or any other diety. It becomes such a sticky issue that we simply need to keep away from as there's NO right answer. If we pick your diety, it alienates everyone else, if we pick someone elses diety, it alienates you and others like you. There is no winning.

Well said Zoomba, while I would like to see the ten commandments in court houses as I believe they are a pretty nice set of laws to live by; I would rather see them not displayed if, in the spirit of fairness, we had to display a copy of every other religious text.

I was also extremely upset about the ruling on the pledge, but all things considered I'd rather they removed the "under God" rather than having to face the prospect of not saying the pledge at all or worse, changing it to say "under God, Allah, Buddah, Jehovah, etc, etc". If we don't want to recognize other religions then we should refrain from expressing ours in certain instances.

Sorry....I was away for a few days and couldn't answer all of these as they came in. I haven't got time to respond to each of them individually right now, either. Thanks to all who posted, though.

Isn't the impetus behind separating church and state is the persecution that the forefathers endured because of their god conflicting with the state? Lots of bloody conflicts to choose from where religion and state are fused. Witness the struggle of the protestants and catholics in England before QE I got to the throne. And she did a bit of cleansing herself.

Also, divine right of kings? No wonder the French wanted to separate church and state.

Sure a little religion can be a nice thing, but it can also unfortunately be used as an extremely powerful weapon.

If worship is a personal thing, then it's personal. Leadership should be based on rational decisions. Positions should be earned from merit, not religious affliations.

Am I dreaming? Probably. But that's how I see it. And I would rather separate church and state then have to worry about how I fit into a theocracy. Problem is, thoecracy can be a fine line. Too much for some, not enough for others.

Washington, in an address to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island: "It is now no more that tolerance is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgenced of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens. . ."

I see a call for tolerance in here, but I see no direct reference to a complete and utter divergence of church and state....and just as a question...how is it hurting you to have references to religion in public places? You don't believe...okay. So? I do. I don't see how having, say, a sculpture or print of the Ten Commandments in the front hall of a courthouse is "forcing religion down you throat". Ignore it if you don't like it. Likewise, I fail to see how adding "under God", which the majority of people in this country do, indeed consider themselves, is forcing it on you, either. Like it or not, believe in it or not, we ARE a religious nation, no matter what god you choose to worship. Worship (or don't) who or what you like...just don't tell me I can't, when it's as much my right to worship as it is yours not to.

There is if you don't believe in God at all.

----shades

As I said, "unless you're in the atheist minority".

His ideals are suspect because he wasn't a christian (as you define it)? Yet, we've based on government on a series of documents that he wrote.

---shades

I said I find his religious affiliation suspect. His overall ideas for our democracy where on target; but don't forget, he was one man in many striving toward that goal. He was a great writer and speaker. As a "Christian", he had no right to claim that affiliation. Sorry to find one thing faulty in an otherwise
great man.

Worse, you seem to be saying that anyone that holds these beliefs is of suspect religious character. I hope that is not what you are saying, because there are a lot of people of faith out there that don't see any problem with removing "under God" from the pledge. I'm one.

---Bakerstreet

If you would call yourself a "Christian", but reject the divinity of Jesus, even to the point of rewriting the bible to excise His miracles and even His resurrection, yes, I would question how you could call yourself a Christian.
That's kind of like calling yourself a chef but not owning a stove.

Yes, I do find it offensive. Yes, I am a member of the atheist minority

---Lee1776

The majority in this nation, it would seem, are not offended by "under God". Sorry, but as a member of a minority in this country, you should be willing to bend to the will of whatever is dictated by the majority. Or rather, that used to be the case. No longer.
Nowadays, a vocal minority has more pull than any number of as majority. Would Jefferson and Washington have approved of that, I wonder?

Do you have a problem with speaking to an Atheist?

---Lee 1776

No. I just won't look for you to continue this conversation in Heaven.

I have more morals then most of the religious people I know, and I did not get that from a Church or a Book. I got it from my family and from with in myself.

---Lee1776

But you did have a religious upbringing, and your family is still, I presume, Catholic? So where do you think you learned those morals as a kid? You'd be kidding yourself to think that absolutely none of that morality came from your background.

It happens through more than ten years of post-graduate study in the field of political philosophy. Ignorance is not a sin - but the arrogance of ignorance is. The depth of your lack of understanding of the most basic issues of civility and citizenship astounds me. You are, without a doubt, that fool who would have done better to keep silence and be thought a fool, rather than opening his mouth and proving himself a fool beyond all doubt.

---Emporer

The "Emporer of Ice Cream" rings a bell; it was Satan, or perhaps the Anti-Christ, I believe, in a Stephen King novel, ("The Stand"?) though I could be wrong.
Well-suited to your superior attitude and smugness, both well earned from your long association with the Ivory Towers of Academia. The problem with such advanced learning, in my experience, is that it ultimately squeezes out the common sense and humility that used to reside there, leaving self-assured arrogance and self-righteousness in its place.

Personally, I'd prefer to let you starve. It's a cheap way of cleansing the gene pool. I've chosen to respond to you for one reason only: it's time you were addressed with the contempt you deserve. Your posturing and prating nauseates me - and from this point on, whenever you sufficiently insense me with your egregious arrogance, your simplistic stupidity, I intend to take it upon myself to correct you.

---Emporer

And your smug know-it-all-ity nauseates me; "Get thee behind me, Satan!" In other words, get lost.

begrudgingly have to admit that the judge was correct in his ruling. I will say this though, I find it amusing that the "anit-pledge" people are using our own constitution to institute minority rule. If I moved to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran or any other middle eastern country and they had an "under Allah" pledge, I would more than likely just have to live with it, move away or get my head chopped off. I guess that's what makes our country so much better. Two sets of parents in California can change the laws for hundreds of thousands of other parents for the sake of not offending them. God Bless The USA!!! You gotta love it

---ericseba

Though I find the first few words here daunting, you redeemed yourself in the rest of the post. Well said...have an insightful.

More here later on.

Sure a little religion can be a nice thing, but it can also unfortunately be used as an extremely powerful weapon.

There's nothing wrong with "a little religion", and that's all I'm cheering for. There's no reason at all to completely exclude all religious reference from public places and affairs. It's when your entire government is based on religion, is when you have problems, as I said in post #6.
I'm not saying we should make The Church a powerful arm of the government again. Not at all. That's where you end up with things like Crusades and Inquisitions. But what's wrong with a judge referencing the Ten Commandments, or those who want to ask His guidance in city council state, federal proceedings, or.....admitting that we ARE, indeed, a nation "under God". After all....WE ARE! Most people in this country have at least some religious affiliation. We as a nation overwhelmingly believe in some type of deity. What is so wrong with having that fact mentioned in the Pledge?

I have two Muslim friends and had one professor that all say that the word "God" is the Christian God. They also find that using the word "god" would also be offensive to their beliefs. Because if you’re going to pray to Allah, then say his name properly and not use a generic what could be a pagan name. When I have been at their house or work during prayer time I have never heard them say God, only Allah. Both my friends only speak English too.

Well Lee, your friends have the right to their opinion, but they'll have to take that up with A. Yusuf Ali and the Holy Qur'an Publishing Co. of Saudi Arabia.