Stu's- statements in 1. "The Constitution is the most important legal document in American History." Jem - True.. 2. "It says - no religion as a condition for Government". Jem says totally False when it was written and still false today. The Bill of rights says that Federal Government could not estalish a particular Relgion... For 100 years states were allowed to and had established religions and ties with Christian churches. Form the 50s to 80s, the U.S. Supreme court started to remove religion from state instutions bit by bit. But the job is far from complete. As you may know They still open sessions of Congress with a Prayer. 3. Stu says "That is de facto, a constraint on religion. It was a very progressive constraint for the times. " Jem -- that is part of your atheist delusion. The Establishment clause was set up to protect the states ties to religion. The Supreme Court prevented the Establishment clause from being applied to the states for 100 years. The states of the United States had ties to religion and Virgina even even had a state church at the time of the signing of the Constitution. The U.S. Supreme Court made sure that the establishment clause did not interfere with the states ties to religion for 100 years and more. 4. Finally you do not understand jurisprudence. Proof ? that you implied the decision of Supreme Court in the Trinity Case was the opinion of one judge. When a justice signs the majority opinion he is writing for the U.S. Supreme Court. You have no understanding of what is Supreme Court dicta or a Supreme court holding or what legal effect it has. Thats OK. its a tough subject and its takes an education to understand. But your lack of competence is irrelevant. It does not matter because the facts are in the U.S. Supreme Court decision. Because when the court cited the myraid state constitutions and State Supreme Courts - (which all found in favor of state ties to religion...) you can know for a fact the U.S. Supreme court was not citing unconstitutional case law and Constitutions. Hence our States had legal established religion for the first 100 years of our nations history. You need to stop reading websites written by atheist kooks and read some websites written by real lawyers and real historians. (atheist or not) By the way I have been kicking your ass with history and jurisprudence not typcial meaning of apologetics. For the apolgetics debate... 1. I kicked your ass proving Atheism is irrational. Because you can never prove there is No God and it is dumb to assert you know there is no God. 2. I proved to you that many top physicists now state that our universe (if there is only one universe ) looks designed. 3. I also disabused of the notion that Jesus was not a historical figure. 4. And finally I explained to you that for efficient communication one must understand the definition of atheism is defined by dictionaries - not atheist support groups.
Praise be. Article V1 of "the most important legal document in American History." declares.... " no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." According to the Constitution, there is certainly nothing "totally false" whatsoever about no religion as a condition for Government. There you see? Sooner or later some facts will peculate through that religiously sodden brain of yours. You're able to acknowledge the most important legal document in American History is telling you in Article I of the Bill of Rights that.... "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". Now all you have to do is go a little further, nothing too stretching, just a move to Article VI of the Same "most important legal document in American History" where in the same Bill of Rights it also declares.... " Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both ofthe United States and of the several States,"..... see that?..where it says "and the Members of the several State Legislatures".... "both of the United States and of the several States,"....is that clear yet? This is not just about Federal but Federal AND State.... "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States". When the penny drops for you on this one, it'll be just like that time when you suddenly realized, after around 5 times of it being pointed out to you, that the word cite is not spelt site. Yet another clause in Founding law excluding religion as any sort of qualification for office Fed or State. "the most important legal document in American History" holds that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"... and ..."both of the United States and of the several States," ... in trust ... "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution" ...and... thereby confirm ...."..no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States". So you imagine those who took office acting against the Constitution by installing their own brand of bible thumping contrary to the most important legal document in American history , is somehow a good or worthy thing to be doing for any length of time? So? Sort of confirms what the States were doing with religion against the Constitution was and is wrong, doesn't it.!? So? It doesn't mean because a tradition of practicing religious superstition went on and still goes on in areas the Constitution says it should not , that it is right or in line with " the most important legal document in American History." 223 years of Founding Law excludes religion. ..but "the most important legal document in American History" did not allow for government establishment of or states' conditions for religion. It was going to take some time for Virginia or anywhere else to forego it's dangerous religious superstitions, which the Founders knew must not to be a basis for any Government in America All mention in the Constitution to do with governance restricts religion from Federal or State application. All Founding Law does that. Itâs true, you don't understand jurisprudence . That much is clear. You didn't even understand how to spell cite, the most basic of all legal words, until shown time after time here on ET. So likewise for the umpteenth time again, Trinity was not case law about religion, christian nation, or anything like it. It was to do with a rule of law on immigration and a contract of employment. The dicta in the case is opinion and comment as it does not pertain directly to the subject of the rule of law of the Trinity case , which was of course being tried on immigration and a contract of employment. As such it is opinion and has no precedence, so cannot be applied to support further case law. It doesn't make any difference to the law how many judges agreed with it or not. In the dicta, which is opinion in this case, the judge moved outside the actual facts of the case to make it so. The opinion therefore is just that. It isn't a rule of law and as such can neither be used in precedence. The Supreme Court has never made any law stating America is a christian nation. You call yourself a lawyer. How ridiculous. Couldn't spell cite and can't discern between Supreme Court opinion and Supreme Court law. Can't even tell what particular case law was actually about. Certainly not about whether America was a christian nation. There is no law anywhere that says America is any such thing. You've proved nothing Jem other than you are in denial of fact, you make things up, you fantasize, lie, are dishonest, often crude, and all in the name of an infantile superstitious belief.. If the only way you can make religion sound acceptable , is by being so deceitful as you appear on this board and in all the above , and from mis-quoting scientists by such obvious and ludicrously pathetic means as in the universe "looks designed" by leaving out the rest ... "but it isn't", ..then it's no wonder so many new generations are rightly and sensibly rejecting all your superstitious religious bullshit.
The constitution is the most important document in U.S. legal history and you are perhaps the most willfully ignorant poster in U.S. history. If you wish to make an assertion about the Constitution and what it means... you need to look to U.S. Supreme court precedent. Not only is your presentation on Article 6 naive - it is inconsequential. The court already established that you are incorrect. 1. Before you make any more arguments... you need to understand the import of U.S. Supreme court cases and stare decisis. 2. I have already told you a dozens times the U.S. Supreme Court stated the Establishment clause did not apply. I showed you in the Trinity Case the U.S. Supreme Court cited State Constitutions and State case law approving states ties to religion. The U.S. Supreme Court is the final arbiter of the law of America. Your article 6 argument has no merit on this issue. Until you support you ridiculous claims with U.S. supreme court case law your arguments have no merit.
Almost everyone coming here in those days was Christian, whether you believe that particular religion or not. If they didn't explicitly support Christianity at founding I suspect it would be mostly because it was understood-taken for granted. Like if you're staging a car rally, for an example off the top, you would assume everyone participating has a driver's license.
By the way you keep missing the point over and over. I realize you do not understand jurisprudence but... this your arguments are so disjointed they are strange. I will lay it out clearly. 1. There is no argument that at the founding the States had ties to religion. History and the U.S. Supreme court tells us so. Let us know if your manifesto disputes these simple facts. 2. We have U.S. supreme Court precedent which says that the Establishment clause could not be applied to the states for the first 100 years. This is undisputed by anyone who can read case law. If you wish to dispute this - you must do so with case law... because I provided the case law to support this argument. Therefore the states had legal ties to Religion. 3. You then made some crazy atheist manifesto about article 6. I pointed out that you have given no case law to support your argument because you are wrong. Your intrepretation of article 6 could not be right... because if it were the U.S. Supreme court could not have cited those state supreme court cases and constitutions. But the Court did so that means those cases and constitutions are legit. It does not matter if those citations are called dicta or holding. those of facts... and they were cited by the Supreme court as good law. Your point about dicta is irrelevant. Your argument about Article 6 is wrong. The U.S. Supreme court tells you so.
Yeah it's ok it's already established you don't understand jurisprudence, you don't need to keep repeating the word. New to you as it is. You don't have a point to miss. So states had ties to religion. So ? There is no Founding Law that says states or fed should have ties to religion. So nowhere is there any Founding of America on (christian) religion. This has been done already. You've gone full circle chasing your tail again. I already have disputed it. You just ignore all dispute to your nonsense by repeating the same crap over again. States had legal ties to slavery but it didn't mean they were right to. I've already said you'd have a stronger argument to say America was founded on slavery than any (christian) religion. Can't you stop yourself from repeating the same bullshit? It nevertheless remains, nowhere is there any Founding of America on (christian) religion anywhere in the Constitution which only constrains religion, nor in any Supreme Court Law. That really speaks for itself . American history as written down in the Constitution is not "some crazy atheist manifesto " and I have not âinterpretedâ Article VI anyway. I have stated verbatim what it declares. It doesn't make any difference how many times you pointed out. What you are pointing out is still the same bullshit. Now you can spell cite it doesn't mean it will make any sense when you use it. You sound extremely confused. You are referring to hoary old chestnut case law that some religious nutters once thought they had a point about years ago, but were sorely wrong as you are still, never had anything to do with this issue. Then all you can manage is to dodge the flaws in that nonsensical Trinity reasoning by hand waving an âI told youâ , as if there was any worth in that at all. You're telling me the Article VI of the American Constitution has no merit on what issue? Your establishment issue , Trinity issue , or your state churches issue? You can't even summon the intellect to remember what issue it is you are attaching it to . Not even capable of differentiating between the issues you raise from one post to the next. On the issue of religion in state office and direct governance Article VI has all merit. Try and remember the obvious. It may help that awful confusion you have going on there. Well now you surely must know that is flat out wrong. So wrong it is worse than wrong. It matters entirely whether the Court makes dicta opinion or holding. You quite clearly do not comprehend the difference between case law which has precedence and dicta made in law as opinion, which does not. The facts as they were written down in Trinity law were to do with immigration and contract law. Opinion was also made, but that is not good law, as in law, opinion not connected to the case, is not law. Therefore It is opinion not precedent. Now you are making yourself look even more foolish, if that were any more possible. Is it really only the blind defense of a religious superstition that drives you to make all these asinine remarks , false assertions and deceitful statements?
What a simplistic perception that is , "everyone was Christian". The fact remains there was no Founding on religion, Christian or otherwise. It was specifically steered clear of. Strange that should be if "everyone was Christian". Fact is of course, it is a myth that "everyone was Christian" . Not everyone was religious nor christian. Founding documents bear strong testament to that . Still, 200 years plus of christian indoctrination will distort history a great deal. Fortunately for everyone, the Founders had a little more foresight in anticipation of that.
Stu - I note you did not respond to one point I made with any case law or even logic. Until you do I will just re quote the facts as they stand.
Things you might want to understand Jem. 1. Because you repeat the same points over does not mean you are re quoting any facts. 2. As far as I'm aware I've given some reasoned response to all the points you've made. Noticeably and as expected, you haven't reciprocated. So what one point are you still unclear about in that America was not founded on (christian) religion? What was the one point, in over 200 years plus to where Founding history stands today, that you think you'll be able to turn that history on its head with? Facts are, this country was not Founded on religion anywhere in the Founding document which is the Constitution. Neither is this country being "interpreted" as founded on (christian) religion in or by any Supreme Court Law at anytime. Over exuberant faithers constantly trying to wedge their superstition into the foundations of American establishment law through contorting and confusing certain and unambiguous wording in the Constitution, or deceitfully misrepresenting Supreme Court law has never been successful. "Christian nation" may sound a good enough line for public consumption, "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" far better, but founded on religion has no basis in fact. Get over it dude.
jeez you are stupid. Christianity was flourishing in the US at the time of the Revolution. Some States had requirements that a man be born again and exhibiting the gifts of the Spirit to qualify for leadership roles!! Forming a secular government that did not promote a state religion was what they did. They had gotten away from state religions in Europe and they didn't want to repeat that experience in the US.. In more recent history our state religion has become atheism with the trappings of science to back it up and our schools enforce paganism. That is why we have to argue with morons like you all day...