posted Oct-01-2006 10:58 PM            

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posted Oct-01-2006 11:50 PM               

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Originally posted by Ray Andrews:
You realize, don't you, that this is the way Ameica looks to a large part of the world--particularly to those trying to subsist under dictatorships.

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Originally posted by pigeye:
That may or may not be, but it has not so much to do with the question.

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Ah, but it has EVERYTHING to do with the question, as well as with this thread's topic.

What is "America," anyway? Is it just a physical thing--i.e., geographical region in the northern hemisphere?: Or is it a cultural thing--you know, like "baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet?" Or is it "America" an ethereal thing, like what Paul Simon wrote in his song by that name:

"let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together.
I've got some real estate here in my bag.
So we bought a pack of cigarettes and Mrs. Wagner pies,
And we walked off to look for America
'Kathy,' I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh,
'Michigan seems like a dream to me now;
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw.
I've gone to look for America...

'Kathy, Im lost,' I said, though I knew she was sleeping,
'I'm empty and aching and I dont know why:
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike--
They've all gone to look for America,
All gone to look for America...

An ambition? A dream?

No, wait! "America" is the embodiment of the ideals of its founding fathers; it is the Constitution!

(But what is the Constitution? Is it a piece of paper? Words on a page? And what do those words mean, anyway--only what the nine robed prefects of SCOTUS say they mean? Is that all "America" is???)

And what is "God?" Is God just a book? Words on a page? And what do those words mean--only what robed preachers in pulpits say they mean? Is that all "God" is?

If "America" is something that transcends the physical dimensions of its geography and people, we could say it like "God" in that respect; because God transcends everything He has made and all the responses of things made toward Him in His essence.

If you would know God in His essence you must search from Him, in a similar vain to Paul and Kathy's Greyhound trip in search of America...

...although God is not far from each of us, for in Him we live and move and have our being--even as some of your poets have said: 'we are His offspring.'"

Capricious? I don't agree that "America" as an entity is capricious--though it has share of capricciosi--for America is greater even than its people.

Or, as Katherine Lee Bates put it so aptly:

"O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.
America, America,
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!"

This thread is about taking God out of America.

Take God out of America, and you forfeit His shed grace. Lacking said grace you will soon be lacking that good, without which there can be no brotherhood. In fact, I'd say we're perilously close to that stage already.

[This message has been edited by Ray Andrews (edited Oct-02-2006).]

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posted Oct-01-2006 11:58 PM               

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Originally posted by Wet Willie:
In the course of complaining of splinters elsewhere on the planet, it would be reasonable to address the plank in the eye of faithful America.
[/B]

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I love it when those who say the Bible is a pack of lies nonetheless co-opt its phraseology.

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posted Oct-02-2006 07:49 AM            

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Originally posted by Ray Andrews:
This thread is about taking God out of America.

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No, it's about the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The question is whether allowing a group of parents to meet on school property during school hours to pray, distribute flyers, and enter classrooms to inform students that the group is praying for them amounts to state sponsorship of religion.

The only way it doesn't amount to state sponsorship is if all religious groups are permitted similar access. But it'd be kinda difficult to operate a school with Moonies, Wiccans, Baal worshippers, and a hundred other groups running around the school passing out fliers and conducting rituals in the lunchroom; probably best simply to prohibit that sort of thing.

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posted Oct-02-2006 07:51 AM            

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Originally posted by makeda:
And on the seventh page, the CH rested.

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posted Oct-02-2006 08:13 AM            

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Originally posted by fuzz:

The only way it doesn't amount to state sponsorship is if all religious groups are permitted similar access. But it'd be kinda difficult to operate a school with Moonies, Wiccans, Baal worshippers, and a hundred other groups running around the school passing out fliers and conducting rituals in the lunchroom; probably best simply to prohibit that sort of thing.

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With the right cast and the right director, this would make one heck of a funny movie.

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posted Oct-02-2006 09:02 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by fuzz:
No, it's about the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The question is whether allowing a group of parents to meet on school property during school hours to pray, distribute flyers, and enter classrooms to inform students that the group is praying for them amounts to state sponsorship of religion.

The only way it doesn't amount to state sponsorship is if all religious groups are permitted similar access. But it'd be kinda difficult to operate a school with Moonies, Wiccans, Baal worshippers, and a hundred other groups running around the school passing out fliers and conducting rituals in the lunchroom; probably best simply to prohibit that sort of thing.

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1! Back to the original question...

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posted Oct-02-2006 12:18 PM               

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Originally posted by Ray Andrews:
This thread is about taking God out of America.

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Spoken like a true fundie. I doubt you bothered with the facts of the story that inspired this thread, but what use are facts when you have God and whining on your side? I mean, if parents can't wander into a kindergarten class during school hours and proselytize to five-year-olds (who are fully indoctrinable but far too young to understand things like economics, political positions, and what being a "Christian" or any other -ite or -ist is all about) as part of a blatant recruitment effort, why, what is this fine nation under God coming to? We might as well turn it over to the Satanic liberal homosexers and hairy socialist feminists right now.

The very fact that the Founders know people like you would simply brush aside the law in favor of claiming that God's law trumps mere human statutes is exactly why they drafted the First Amendment, and we who are tired of listening to delusional half-wits claim that morality is predicated on an ineffable psychopath thank them for their foresight There are those who really don't feel that operating as if we're living roughly thirty centuries in the past is all that superb an idea.

quote:

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Originally posted by Ray Andrews:
I love it when those who say the Bible is a pack of lies nonetheless co-opt its phraseology.

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I'm sure you do, given your surreal and usually unintentional love affair with irony. I love it when liars co-opt a tool for conveying facts and other useful information (i.e., written and spoken language) in order to advance an unsupportable idea, so apparently we're looking at an infinite regress.

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