Am I wrong or is the separation of church and state that the founding fathers worried about what it has become or was it a required, state run church? I think they were afraid of the latter.
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Bob
Beware the fury of a patient man......John Dryden
Tigercat, you are completely correct. The goal of the Framers was to prevent the establishment of an official state religion, such as the Church of England in the UK or the Roman Catholic Church in France, Italy and Spain. Many of the Framers had studies history. In the late 1700s the atrocities of the Spanish Inquisition and the breaking-up of the Catholic Church's monasteries, abbeys and estate farms, plus the atrocities committed by Bloody Mary while she had the throne and attempted to reestablish the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church in England, were as fresh in the minds of educated Yankee Doodles as the Holocaust is in Israel today. They were determined that the particular sickness of an official state religon which could throttle the national character, or even start wars, as it had in Europe would not take root in the infant United States of America. That's why freedom of religion is the first freedom written into the First Amendment.
Yes, today the fact our First Amendment protects Muslims in the practice of their religion sets the teeth of the ill-educated on edge. Such folk believe that all Muslims are taking their orders from mullahs and imams in the Middle East and are out to destroy Western civilization. They are to be regarded with suspicion because they're not like us. We've seen this before.
130 years ago, the Christians of America felt threatened by the Jews coming in droves from Eastern Europe. They didn't dress like us and they talked funny and they wouldn't eat pork and they claimed God's holy day was Saturday, not Sunday. They were regarded with suspicion because they're not like us.
160 years ago, the Protestants of the myriad Prestant churches felt threatened by the great influx of Irish Catholics. Yes, they spoke English - well, sort of, if you could get past their blasted accents. But they didn't worship as we did; heck, they didn't even use English in church! They were regarded with suspicion because they're not like us.
200 and more years ago, the Puritans, Calvinists and Deists felt threatened by the rise of a variety of proslytyzing Protestant sects that appealed to the lower classes more than to the ruling elite. They did not approach God and how to know Him - or even if you can know him - the same way the established churches did some of them had strange ideas about what you should wear, whether definding yourself was moral, and to what extent the clergy should be involved with the daily living of their congregants. They were regarded with suspicion because they're not like us.
You see where I'm going with this? This suspicion of a "foreign" religion is nothing new. As the majority of American Muslims accept the fact religion does not have pride of place in America, and that you are a Muslim rather than Muslim (or a Jew instead of Jewish, or a Catholic instead of Catholic, etc.) - in other words, your an American first and a religionist second - this problem will go away, just as it has with other religions in the United States.
I for one hope the company is not forced to remove the inscriptions from these sights. The inscriptions were apparently company tradition prior to the sights becoming used, at least popularly, by our military. Leave the inscriptions alone in honor of the founder of the company I say.
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The term "wall of separation between church and state" isn't in the Constitution. It was taken from a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Assoc. on Jan. 1 1802.
Am I wrong or is the separation of church and state that the founding fathers worried about what it has become or was it a required, state run church? I think they were afraid of the latter.
"seperation of church and state" does not appear in ANY of our nations documents. Declaration, Constitution, etc. It was originally coined by Thomas Jefferson in a PRIVATE letter to a church.
The correlation between the content of the verses one may choose to associate with the numbers and letters on the night sights and the fact that the sights are for use in reduced light situations seems to be sufficient reason to keep them there.
How is this unlike any warrior praying to his God to protect him during battle? I don't think anyone is going to succeed in outlawing prayer in battle anymore than they can prevent kids from praying before exams. The references are not waved like a flag, not promoted, not charged for. They are just there because the manufacturers are offering their prayers of support for our soldiers and marines. The user of the product does not normally see or read them, and if he/she does, he/she needs to understand that they may refer to the Christian Bible, and then take the trouble to either look them or recall them from memory. Without that additional step, the inscriptions are meaningless and therefore should be considered inoffensive and allowed to remain.
Like I said in the thread that introduced this topic on the AR forum, let's all help spread The Word.
__________________ Teach
ALL who work for a living must vote to outvote those who vote for a living.
i willn't swear to it but if i remember right those an't the serial numbers .
the serial numbers are much smaller and harder to find if i remember right .
it's been awhile since i've had my hands on a acog .
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2 to the chest 1 to the head..
sappers lead the way
"seperation of church and state" does not appear in ANY of our nations documents. Declaration, Constitution, etc. It was originally coined by Thomas Jefferson in a PRIVATE letter to a church.
Smart man, that Jefferson. He realized how dangerous a state/church (ANY religion, but he had Christianity foremost in his mind) alliance could be.
"seperation of church and state" does not appear in ANY of our nations documents. Declaration, Constitution, etc. It was originally coined by Thomas Jefferson in a PRIVATE letter to a church.
and he meant it as a promise that the state would stay out of the church's business...not the way that America has twisted it to mean
Teach
