Under God

Hundreds and thousands of words, in trying to argue 10 words mean something else than what they say. Reams of text attempting to establish the Founders could not have the intellect nor integrity to choose their words wisely, for proper understanding and use by the generations to follow.

Your argument Optional 777, supporting law which violates the First Amendment appears thus ...

"The words of the Founders do not mean what they mean. Any meaning they do have is what I, Optional 777 say they mean and what other religious cronies say they mean, just as long as they too mean what I mean
Anyone arguing against this is not an American and I declare them not to be an American citizen, whether I know them to be so or not.
American history is there for the religious to do with what they want, so long as they do with it what I mean they want"




The Founders were against government passing law which would endorse religion, as they wrote into the Constitution , the words which describe an act of doing so, as something they say Congress shall not make happen.

A most basic understanding of the reasons that it was so important to them not to allow law itself to recognize or appear to support formation of religion, or of any established religion, is to realize for one thing, laws which frame themselves into an endorsement of religion, are against the interests of religion itself.

There's the problem the Baptists saw early on. Endorsement in law of religious phrase or statements, compromises religion (and the law) by privileging it - in the case of the Pledge - as something which even the law itself cannot offer to protect freedom of and from.

It must be, in a free and democratic country, that nothing and no one, according to the law, is above the law and everyone and everything is under it. The law being subject to the democratic will of the people, ensures freedom.

When government starts to involve the law in religion, either for or against it, then a believer's liberty will be threatened, just as a non believer's liberty is threatened by inclusion of it.

When Americans now say the Pledge "under God", they provide for the Muslim, a proclamation that they live under the Muslim religion, as there can only be one true God and that is Allah according to their belief. Americans are endorsing Allah for the Muslim by default, whether they think so or not, say so or not. Endorsement in law of religious phrase or statements, is against the interests of religion itself. It soon sets one American against another.

Optional 777 tries to argue God has a kind of generic meaning of religion. If one says God then God is whatever one wants it to be. The Muslim may think that Americans are endorsing Allah, but others don't. The significant others being his majority of Americans who follow a Christian God on which it is said this nation was built.

So for what purpose the words then if not to recognize in law, by making legal the endorsement of a Christian God over Allah?.

Optional 777 says "Allah is to the word God what sturgeon is to fish". A sturgeon can be nothing else but a fish. God can be nothing else but religious. (Optional.. for your information 'the gods' or 'a God' does not mean the same as the word God, said or written without the definite or indefinite article put before it)

Not according to Oprional 777. God is the nation's people's personal feelings for whatever God is..unless it is not... and it is more a recognition that America was built on religion, or more specifically (the christian) God.

The law is now locked in circular argument by which its best values cannot be brought to resolve. God is religion and it isn't.

According to Optional 777 the inclusion into law of the words "one nation under man" is acceptable, when the majority think it's ok, as people can say to themselves well... man is a generic word for humankind, so that includes women and children.

So if man is generic then USE the generic description for the word man. If God is generic then USE the generic word for God. Is it Anything or Allah or Religion?

The law is left compromised. Religion is left compromised. The multi-various personal understanding of God and religions are left compromised. The law should never have been used that way in the first place.

The words were made law because politicians purposely tried to differentiate a religious nation of God, from what they described as a Godless nation, (USSSR) in 1954. It turns out the politicians in communist Russia may well have been Godless, but the people were not. However, they were successful only in their frenzied panic as politicians, assuming themselves to be representing 'one nation under McArthy', of violating the Constitution.


No laws which respect the establishment of religion can allow for , free exercise of religion, freedom from religion, or a free country.

 

Brilliant, stu, just brilliant.

And that's the bottom line, isn't it? To render useless our ability to think clearly. And thus act definitively and with confidence.

It was revealing to me the sturgeon/fish analogy that the poster apparently used that you had cited; months ago, his posts had reminded me of Stanley Fish and his deconstructionist nonsense (which is why I waste no more time with him).

Those of you who want to entertain the possibility of being a shill for Baron one day (who knows, maybe getting a percentage of ad revenue kicked back based on the amount of site volume you can generate by dint of your own inane posts in contradiction to most anything else posted) can consider the synopsis of the Fish Method (link at the bottom).

It will show you in one easy lesson how to generate "arguments" to "counter" anything. You too can be a clever poster! Skip all the mind-numbing wordy (characteristic) drivel in the beginning. (We're traders, after all, not post-modernist college professors sipping lattes, secure in our tenure.) Save yourself the time and go immediately down to the paragraph that begins "The General Way It Works."

But remember it's for demonstration purposes only! It's just a pseudo-intellectual (clever) parlor trick for people with low self-esteem. It's right up there with the dummy who thinks highly of himself after a four-move fool's mate against someone who is serious about chess. (Not that there's anything wrong, of course, with learning to protect one's king. It's that a teacher does it to teach, an opponent does it to win, while cretins only do it to gloat and impress.)

Read again stu's superb reduction to essentials quoted above. "God is religion and it isn't," all at the same time. In other words, spread the news (!) Aristotle's axiomatic Law of Identity (A is A) is now invalid. A is not A. Or, rather, A is whatever a fool wants it to be. And who but a fool argues such positions?

Nah, forget that. A fool IS a fool, after all. More importantly, why would you even waste a moment of your time continuing to read such a pathetic liar after you'd found him out? He's not stupid, he's just clever; he knows full well what he's doing. Years ago, I discovered that the best thing to do to conserve one's own time (and thus life) when finding one of these bozos is to IGNORE it. See it for what it is, point it out so that others can step around the dung, then don't ever bother with it again.

Because ultimately it just enjoys intellectually jerking-off in public. You know what's even stranger? It actually believes that we like to watch.

http://www.sou.edu/English/Hedges/Sodashop/RCenter/Theory/Howto/decon.htm

 

What Stu has failed to do:

1. Show that the Pledge as currently used is Establishment of religion.
2. Show anyone that how he interprets the 10 words he refers to in the First Amendment are exactly how the Framers intended them to be understood as to uphold the Constitution.
3. Show how his own personal rights as an American Citizen have been denied, or show how the personal rights of anyone who is an American citizen have been denied, right granted in the First Amendment.
4. Show how the Pledge fails the legal tests which are applied as standards of evaluation for cases brought forth on claims of violation of the Establishment Clause to the high court.
5. Show how his argument is in line with the Framers wishes.


The Bill of Rights has its foundation in the concepts brought forth in the Declaration of Independence. There, in that masterful document, it is clear that the Framers believed that the rights they were declaring we given to them by God, not by reason of man alone. That their endowment of those self evident rights was a product of their creation, owning those birthrights in the same way a noble lord in 12th century England was born with certain rights and station due to his linkage with his noble parents.

To view 10 words in an Amendment, devoid of relationship of those 10 words to all previous writings of the Framers, intent of the Framers, and to make a simplistic philosophical argument on that basis, is akin to only reading 10 words out of the third book of Tolkein's trilogy, and claiming to understand what Tolkein's story and message was for the trilogy.

Quoting 10 words in a piece of Shakespeare, and claiming to understand Shakespeare, or the particular work those 10 words were lifted from is yet another example of the type of reason that is being applied.

Fortunately, the court has much greater wisdom, and depth of reason as did the Framers.

Here is a link to a real argument, a legal argument, which is indicative of both scholarly work, and common sense...a rare combination. http://pewforum.org/religion-schools/pledge/docs/ElkGrove.pdf

I am not a legal scholar, so I defer to the argument as written, the argument written by a member of the high court. The following is an excerpt of that argument and opinion:

2. The EGUSD Patriotic Observance policy does not
violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment when it
requires teachers to lead willing students in reciting the Pledge with the words “under God.” In West Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v.
Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943), this Court implicitly authorized
the voluntary recitation of the Pledge by students in public schools.

The logical conclusion is that an objecting student’s First
Amendment rights are not violated when he or she is exposed to
willing students reciting the Pledge. The fact that Respondent’s
daughter (a willing reciter of the Pledge) is exposed to other students reciting the Pledge with the words “under God” does not constitute a violation of the Establishment Clause. Further, if the Pledge does not violate the Establishment Clause, then the EGUSD policy, by extension, cannot violate the Establishment Clause.

The Pledge does not violate the coercion test set forth in Lee
v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992), because it does not result in
students being subjected to a religious act or statement of religious belief. The Pledge is simply a patriotic expression, that includes a reference to God, which reflects a long standing philosophy of government. Ceremonial references to God, such as the statement “under God” in the Pledge, have repeatedly been recognized by this Court to be consistent with the Establishment Clause. In Sherman v. Community Consol. Sch. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437 (7th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 508 U.S. 950 (1993), the Seventh Circuit properly concludes that an Illinois statute requiring recitation of the Pledge at school by willing students does not violate the Establishment Clause. In Sherman, the Seventh Circuit correctly relied on the founding fathers’ use of ceremonial references to God as well as pronouncements by this Court regarding the constitutionality of the Pledge in finding that ceremonial references to God do not result in the “establishment” of religion in violation of the Establishment Clause. Id. at 445.
Common sense and historical analysis also support a finding
that the Pledge is constitutional.

The Pledge has become woven into the “fabric of our society” due to the history and unbroken practice of children and adults of this country reciting it, including the words “under God,” for the past fifty years. The Pledge also satisfies both 00248850.DOC
9 the three part test set forth in Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971) and the two part “endorsement” test set forth in Justice O’Connor’s concurring opinion in Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1984).

Upon reaffirmance of this Court’s precedent that the Pledge does not violate the Establishment Clause, then the EGUSD’s Patriotic
Observance policy must be deemed constitutional.

As is often the case, Stu assumes fact not in evidence.

 

ART:
>As is often the case, Stu assumes fact not in evidence.

As if often the case, ART argues until he is blue in the face and still find himself inside the paper bag.

mpfpt..strthps..hrkly...lemtp...hubris!

What's that ART? -- you're sounding a bit muffled in there.

JB

 

As is often the case, Turok makes an argument from conclusion, not evidence.

It is amusing to me to watch the band of atheists lose to a higher power in the courts, and a higher power of reason and common sense elsewhere.

 

Sorry ART, didn't get that last part. Come again?

JB

 

I suppose I could play your game, and respond to your comments with some type of insult, perhaps a fitting gay slur, something like:

"Come again? You say come again? You didn't get the last part because of all the cum in your ears, and now you want someone to come again?"

However, that would require a descension to your level, which I prefer not to do.

Thanks anyway.

Run along and play with your friends now.

 

ART:
>Run along and play with your friends now.

Think I will. Gotta catch a flight to JFK. Yankees vs Mets this weekend at Yankee Stadium. Ahhh...standing on home plate and drinking in the feel of history.

JB

 

No doubt, some are impressed.

 

ROFLAO!!!!! No doubt someone claimed I was "delusional" and got served.

You are a hoot and a half ART.

JB