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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (52846)	7/12/2002 12:51:30 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

Tim, the phrase: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" is not about any particular religion; it is about religion writ large. It is meaning that Congress may neither afirm or deny religion. The Government is to derive its authority from the governed-from the secular. There is to be no partiality of any kind concerning the supernatural to be asserted by Congress. When the official pledge of allegiance asserts that God is the Supreme Authority rather than the people (the Nation being UNDER God), that definitely establishes metaphysics or religion as--not only an allegiance of the citizen--but the HIGHEST and ultimate allegiance of the citizen...an allegiance which is ABOVE the Nation, and is to a Supernatural Being. It has nothing to do with what words you are currently being forced to mutter or not; it has to do with what laws must of necessity flow from the Constitutional premises. Now if you truly owe your allegiance to the God who sits above the nation as ultimate authority, then which God? When Congress is half chinese and half Muslim, then WHICH GOD do you pledge your allegiance to? Allegiance to God should be a personal commitment from individuals who wish to nurture and honor personal and private beliefs. It is not for the State to tell you to bow allegiance to God. Why do you think the reaction of the State to the rational decision of the Court was so overwhelming?? Why do you think this "trivial" matter urged such a momentous response from the State? I will tell you why: Because the State does not want to derive its authority from the people. Such authority is always subject to rational examination, and is limited by secular concerns. But when the State derives its authority from the God under whom it sits and to whom it owes allegiance...then there are no limits, are there? So even though you find it trivial: History has not found it so; and the State does not find it so...