While we continue to pay for our slurpees and other purchases with bills that contain the phrase "In God We Trust," more places are being hit with the "separation of church and state" clause: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/07/14/life.grandcanyon.reut/index.html So in essence, we continue to see localized examples of religious expression eroding from public view while we still pledge to a nation "under god, with liberty and justice for all" *AND* continue to circulate fiat currency that makes reference to a supreme being while the ACLU takes shots at regional occurrences of religion. What I can't understand is why it really matters. Three decades for a plaque to be there is more a historical monument. Are those passages from the bible really going to cause trauma to anyone who reads them? As a nation, we really need to pick which side of the fence we want to be on -- but this precarious balance on top of the fence is just plain stupid. Either we, as a nation, believe in religion or we do not. But let's not blow sunshine up our own collective asses about the entire thing.
get the bullshit off everything. our government should not suggest any type of religious beliefs...period. while they're at, get rid of all these pathetic laws based on "sins." i forget where, but masturbation is illegal in some state(s)--what a fucking joke. where i live, I CAN'T BUY BEER ON SUNDAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT ALL ABOUT?!?!?!?!?! THAT MAKES ME WANT TO GO ON A DAMN RAMPAGE. PERFECT EXAMPLE OF SOME RELIGIOUS CRAP HAVING AN IMPACT ON MY LIFE. FUCK THAT. FRuiTY
I remember while visiting some friends in Connecticut, we could not get beer during Sundays. I thought this was rather stupid -- especially since they could just go to NY in a pinch and take money out of their own state and put it into another one.
That's absolutely right -- the states with reasonable laws should be squeezing money out of the ones who still want to live in the 13th century. The sunday laws were enacted to prevent people from going to church drunk (which is a perfectly understandable course of action if you've ever been to church). Frankly, what religious people don't realize is that all of the little religious freedoms afforded to them were granted by people who were tired of being strong-armed into a religion, and frankly, most religious zealots are too goddamn stupid to realize that. They take their freedoms for granted and don't realize how ass-backwards things get when religion and imposed morality take over society. Look at Iran. Or the United States. Pretty frightening places to live if you're not a member of an accepted cult. Personally, I am getting pretty goddamn sick and tired of hearing about "jesus this and jesus that" and "allah this and allah that" -- I am tired of riding down the highway and seeing big billboards that say JESUS because I don't give a rat's ass about jesus and I'm tired of hearing about it. (The current presidential regime is included in this, including that fundamentalist retard ashcrap). I really wish that religious people would be a little more considerate of the fact that atheists like myself don't go around pushing our beliefs on them. I've never had an atheist knock on my door and give me a pamphlet and a lecture (or a condescending attitude) and that's because atheists are generally alot smarter and more considerate of other people than are the fundamentalists. Let's be honest -- at this point in time the world would be a much better place without religion.
The Grand Canyon plaque removal is a perfect example of the relentless religious cleansing of America under the guise of "separation of church and state", a phrase nowhere found in the constitution. The Supreme Court's decisions in this area have been even more idiotic than in the area of racial quotas. At least in endorsing racial quotas, the Court was approving a widespread practice that has become ingrained in many people's attitudes already. By contrast, the public overwhelmingly is annoyed and upset by this mindless religious cleansing. It is only a small group of cranks and extremists that is agitating for the removal of all signs of religion from public life. I'd like to know why low level Park Service staffers apparently are making this type of decision. It is by no means clear to me that the plaques were illegal, even under the Court's confused reading of the First Amendment. They merely quoted a passage from the most popular book in the history of the world. Certainly there was no religious qualification to use the park. How this constitutes intanglement of government in religion escapes me.