First you typed...

"What has struck me most about this Presidential Campaign is the hypocrisy and hatred spread by the McCain/Palin campaign and an extraordinary number of their supporters...

Then you typed...

I don't believe Sarah Palin is a stupid woman. She is staggeringly ignorant to the office she seeks to hold and to the Constitution, and she is an unethical religious hypocrite.

...How arrogant is this candidate that she actually believes she is qualified to run this country? Each time she is interviewed, she displays her pathetic lack of knowledge. She is an insult...

It would seem that you are engaged in exactly the kind of hypocrisy and hatred you are attempting to rail against.

If you were to truly rise above those tactics that you say you deplore, then you would refrain from name calling and instead name specific actions and statements that you disagree with and explain why they are wrong, as you did in this brief passage:("Moreover, the selection of her without vetting is a statement of John McCain's critical decision making.").

But when you call her names and attack her character, you become one of those you profess to despise.

Jen-

While I can see how your sentiment might seem valid on the surface (given that people have killed in the name of religion, and continue to do so in some places), I would dispute that it is religion itself that is to blame. John Lennon might have made a good song when he sang about "Imagining there was no religion", but when he did so he (and you, rather more recently) have forgotten a rather important fact. That is...

People will always find an excuse to kill.

The pursuit of power is a dark and dangerous thing, and religion, being a collection of faithful, is one thing that has been frequently misappropriated in order for people to attain power and create death. But in the absence of religion, those seeking power still kill in barbaric ways. One merely has to look at the rise of communism in the last century to see this. Communism, a political system officially atheist, has murdered hundreds of millions of people across the globe, from Russian gulags to the dark prison chambers of Vietnam.

I can imagine no religion. But it doesn't create a world any better than we have now, merely one where people find a different excuse to kill.

Communists some how muster the faith to believe in the correctness of their ideology, even when real world evidence contradicts the premises their faith is built upon.

Hmmm... it resembles more than just a few religions, doesn't it? Even though communism denies the existence of a God it is still a system that requires the usual religious zeal of it's followers.

So perhaps it is the religious zeal, and not the religion itself, that compels so much evil from mankind.

Pascal said, "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."

...for such an articulate description. The hypocrisy (which has been brought more into light by the election) is frightening.

...a force for good in the world, and, especially in the last three hundred years, has not been "barbaric." I think libs don't like it because it often does't approve of their peculiar perversions. Just kidding! Seriously though, nobody is suggesting a state religion...

"I would argue that Christianity has been much more a force for good in the world, and, especially in the last three hundred years, has not been "barbaric."

...religion, the Founders had no problems MIXING government and religion, and that includes the two most instrumental in creating the Constitution. Jefferson, while he was President, attended church services (paid for by the US government) in the Capitol Building itself. Enough with the "wall of separation!" It was mentioned in the letter to the Danbury Baptists to assure them that the government would not interfere with THEM, not vice versa.

...National School Janitor's Week or whatever, it can certainly recognize a culturally important celebration such as Christmas without establishing a state religion. And Christmas IS a national holiday, is it not? The majority still have SOME rights in this country...

the expense of the minority? My god man, think about what you are saying before you put it out for everyone to see.

...right?

Under the Constitution, are not all men created equal? Our nation was founded upon several principles, one if which is that no one citizen is more entitled than another. Your apparent belief that the majority has the right to infringe upon the rights of the minority is, at best, a slap in the faces of the founding fathers.

...has the right to change the face of the nation for everyone in it? There is nothing in the Constitution that provides that right, nor is there a right not to be offended (especially since one may choose to be or not be offended). No one wants an established religion, but we do want the country to be America, with its own unique culture.

By changing the face of the nation, do you mean making sure that they have as much right to worship as the Christian majority does? Do you mean that they aren't fans of the concept of their tax dollars paying for bronze plaques of the Ten Commandments on the lawns of their government buildings? Do you mean not being turned away from a job because they wear a yarmulke or a pentacle?

Which unique culture are you referring to? The original culture established here was one of escaping religious persecution. Fast forward a few hundred years, and Christianity is the majority and its followers like to cry foul whenever someone doesn't want to pray in school or doesn't believe it's appropriate for there to be a Nativity scene set up in front of City Hall.

...but I don't believe that traditions that have existed since before this nation was a nation need to be thrown out in order to make someone feel "comfortable." I don't believe government should discriminate with respect to employment or law, but I also believe that private individuals and businesses have a right to. It is stupid to do so, but there is nothing in the Constitution outlawing stupidity. However, there is regarding the limits of governmental interference with individuals. As long as religious displays are not a way of establishing a state religion, there is nothing unconstitutional about them.
.
Incidentally, the colonies were founded for two reasons: to make money and to establish religious enclaves. None were secular. I have some personal knowledge of this, because my direct ancestor was the first governor of the first successful English colony, and, since it is part of our family history, we have discussed this at some length.

I actually agree with you aislander. Too many times the "majority" are pretty much told to shut up so as not to "suppress" or "offend" every single minority. We as a country cannot continue to exist if we become a society of people where everything is relative to them. When everything is relative to the individual then we become a people void of any moral conscience, lawless.

"If the government can recognize National School Janitor's Week or whatever, it can certainly recognize a culturally important celebration such as Christmas without establishing a state religion."

Of course you know the difference between The National School Janitor's Week and Christianity is that one is a religion and one is not. Once the janitor's apply for religious status, their situation changes.

"And Christmas IS a national holiday, is it not? "

True. I predict the pinnacle of the so called "War on Christmas" will happen when someone launches an assault on religious holiday's in the federal calendar. The schools have already traded in "Christmas Break" and "Easter Break" for "Winter Break" and "Spring Break", because they could see the writing on the wall.

I learned that the two most important people in ANY school were the Secretary and the Head Custodian.
.
Christmas is a federal holiday...but there can be a very strong case made that it is in no way a Christian holy day - at least the way it is practiced in America (consider that mega-churches oftentimes don't have services on Christmas because they know the pews will be empty).

...and I wasn't disparaging custodians or facilities engineers or whatever the current euphemism might be. But, I think we agree that government can recognize certain religious manifestations for their cultural significance...

leaving Midnight Mass to a beautiful snowfall (this was in Iowa) and being able to have a white Christmas.
.
As a Catholic child the holy days of obligation, plus Sundays meant four days going to church in little over a week from Sunday, Xmas, Sunday, and whatever they call the feast of the circumcision now. It was torture!

he is still a student in the learning stage. I hope so.

What is hilarious is how so many people cling to these little factoids here and there to try and make a case. So let's look back, shall we?

A) Immigrants left for various reasons to come to America, one such reason is the issue of government and religion. The monarchy endorsed one religion and that religion hence endorsed all the policies of that monarchy. So both were really one.

B) Our founding fathers wanted to avoid this problem. So they included the seperation of Church and State so as to have one endorse the other.

C) As our Country has aged groups of people have taken this very simple idea and expanded it so far as to eliminate all religion except in the home and church. Some people erroneously believe it means the seperation of any religion from public view.

"C) As our Country has aged groups of people have taken this very simple idea and expanded it so far as to eliminate all religion except in the home and church. Some people erroneously believe it means the seperation of any religion from public view."

I do not doubt that their are some people who have taken the view that religion belongs only in the church and the home, and I disagree with them. The issue here is whether religion belongs in the government, which I firmly believe it does not.

That is not to say that religious people do not belong in government, or that people in government should not be allowed to express religious views - that would clearly be a violation of their first amendment rights. However, because Americans share a multitude of faiths (and non-faiths), their government harms them when it promotes one faith over another.

If a governmental body chooses to erect a religious shrine favoring one faith, it must be wiling to do so for all faiths, including ones that might sicken you. For that reason it is better to leave government as secular (defined as un-concerned with religious doctrine, not "godless") rather than try to justify why it should support your favorite religion and not someone elses.

...and wrote in favor of Christianity as well as critiquing it. His words in the Declaration and his actions (see my post above), speak more loudly.

He wrote in favor of the lessons that could be drawn from the Bible, not the Christian religion. There is nothing in the Declaration about Christianity. That was a period... it wasn't written in Hebrew/Arabic/Latin where you can claim a different interpitation, not a mention of Christ or Christianity in the Declaration and certainly wasn't anything in his actions promoting mixing Christianity and Government.

It wouldn't even matter if he went to services at the Capital... Heck, Franklin had personal pews in every church in Philidelphia and helped pay to build the synagogue. What does that make him besides someone that knew how to move in that society? Franklin sure didn't like the power that churches held, read up on how he ended up in Philly.

There were certainly a significant portion of the people that helped found this country that would have been quite happy to make it a religious state. But we are lucky the ones that wrote and pushed through the documents we operate under were specifically attempting to avoid that.

Stop cherry picking a single sentence out of the Constitution and noting it doesn't show the "Wall of Separation" while ignoring all the other places it was described and documented such as the letter someone misrepresented above or the Treaty of Tripoli (read up on that and find out WHY article 11 was in there).

Our country isn't the bible where a religious group gets to choose what is acceptable to quote from the founders and what is heresy. Removal of the 10 commandments, christmas displays etc... from government owned spaces does NOTHING to interfere with anyone practicing their religion.

Unless of course part of practicing your religion involves shoving it down MY throat. My only warning is that if you feel you have a right to do that, then everyone else has the right to "force" their religious expression on you in public spaces. Better get ready to see Islamic displays, and you damn well better give the one true religion of the Flying Spaghetti Monster equal time.

May he touch you with his noodley appendage!

Jefferson's word's in the Declaration of Independence refer to God but once directly (in the first paragraph - "...the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them...") and once in the second paragraph less directly "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...".

Jefferson proclaimed himself to be a Deist, and there is nothing in these two passages that would remotely embrace Christianity - unless you narrowly view any use of the word "God" as referring to only the Christian ideal of the concept.