According to the ever-present Flimsy, Bill O’Reilly has been complaining about an atheist sign that has been placed sort of near a nativity scene in Washington state’s capitol.
This is it:
… Seriously… OMG a sign.
O’Reilly’s reasoning? That Christmas is a nationally recognized holiday, whereas the winter solstice is not, thus it is completely inappropriate to display decorations that are not Christmas-oriented. This is about as decorative as a “no flash photography” sign.
Strictly speaking, the United States has no national holidays. Each state designates holidays through the legislative process or by executive order. The US Congress can legally designate holidays for federal employees and for the District of Columbia. Christmas is a holiday designated by the US Congress as a holiday for federal employees and for D.C which is also observed by the rest of the states. Of course, this sign is not in the national capitol building, but in a state capitol building.
I’ll throw in a wiki quote too: “Constitutionally, there are no “national holidays” in the United States because Congress only has authority to create holidays for federal institutions (including federally owned properties) and employees, and for the District of Columbia. Instead, there are federal holidays, state holidays, city holidays, and so on”
Even if there was such a thing as a national holiday, why is it inappropriate to display decorations of a non-national holiday within the walls of the capitol building in Washington state? Is it inappropriate to display a menorah or a Kwanzaa kinara?
I get it. You don’t like it when someone else puts up a secular thingy in the same room as your religious thingy. I get it, because I don’t like it when you put your religious thingy in the same space as my secular thingy:
.< / sarcasm >
Contact Ziztur at ZizturIsWrong at gmail dot com.
Follow Ziztur on Twitter
I don’t get what anonymous was trying to say with that Scripture at all. Anyways….I realize people want to be included in Christmas, but its a Christian holiday. It doesn’t matter that Jesus wasn’t really born in December. It doesn’t matter what pagans did on the same date umpteen whatever years ago. Its a Christian holiday and doesn’t have to include everybody. Everyone is free to celebrate it as they wish but its not required that the Christian holiday of Christmas cater itself to everyone. Separation of church and state, which is not policy, was written by a Framer who then, while not even believing in the deity of Jesus, used government funds to convert Indians to Christianity. As most of the Framers who helped form the establishment clause were not even Christians themselves, they publicly promoted Christianity and did it in a political fashion. That is undeniable. This means one of two things: 1. The Framers know more than you do as to what the intent of the establishment clause really was 2. The Framers violated their own establishment clause and we are more informed about their intent than they did themselves.
@anonomous – Well I’m convinced.
They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.2 Peter 2:19Who is your master?
HAHAHA YOUR SOOO FUNNY, ALL YOU PEOPLE WHO THINKS THERES NO GOD,,JUST WAIT AND SEE, HELL IS WAITING FOR YOU ALL..AND AGAIN I FEEEL SOOOO SORRY FOR YOU ALL, WHO DONT KNOW WHAT YOUR TALKNING ABOUT.BTW, YOU LOOK LIKE THE DEVEL, UGLY AND DUMB.
Maggie, if you were a real Christian, and really thought these people were going to Hell, you wouldn’t be laughing at them as if it were a joke. I’m a real Christian, full of sin, 100% forgiven, and I don’t laugh at the thought of someone going to Hell. Stop trolling my friends, stop judging others, and stop misrepresenting Christ in such a horrible fashion. In case these words are lost upon you as you may only be some adolescent teenager playing on her mother’s computer, break it down like this: STFU.
I am not implying that Christians must be inclusive. I am implying that Christians should allow people to be inclusive if they choose.The problem is not that we want Christians to be inclusive, the problem is that when someone attempts to be inclusive, Christians insist on boycotting said inclusiveness. The problem is that Christians ARE stopping people – business especially – from doing the secular thing. It is absolutely ridiculous for the Catholic League to keep a website of businesses that should be officially boycotted because they used “happy holidays” instead of “Christmas”. I don’t really care about nativity scenes on public property – but I DO care when atheist signs are boycotted and stolen. You see the difference? A Christian’s rights are not being violated if one group decides to be inclusive during the holidays. I don’t expect inclusiveness, but I do expect inclusiveness to be allowed if someone chooses to be inclusive.
You are missing the point. Just because Jefferson was Christian doesn’t mean he felt that Government should be involved in religious matters. Show me one quote that says he did, show me one deed that says he did. In fact, your second quote is his him bashing “Christians” who attempt to take away civil liberties in the name of god. Yes he said he followed the doctrines of Jesus. However he was very critical of the church and felt that much of the bible was rewritten by the church later to meet their own ends.Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him [Jesus] by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.-Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, April 13, 1820Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting “Jesus Christ,” so that it would read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Elbridge Gerry, 1799Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person’s life, freedom of religion affects every individual. Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the “wall of separation between church and state,” therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society. We have solved, by fair experiment, the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries.- Thomas Jefferson, to the Virginia Baptists (1808) ME 16:320. This is his second kown use of the term “wall of separation,” here quoting his own use in the Danbury Baptist letter. This wording of the original was several times upheld by the Supreme Court as an accurate description of the Establishment Clause: Reynolds (98 US at 164, 1879); Everson (330 US at 59, 1947); McCollum (333 US at 232, 1948)And no this isn’t “quote mining” this is me finding letter written by the person in questions stating very specifically what his views were.
Okay, do you know the contents of the Jefferson Bible? It wasn’t even meant to be taken as scripture. It was an compilation of excerpts of four books from the bible containing nothing but stories relating directly with the life and teaching of Jesus the man without the miracles or claims of divinity, and focuses on teaching morality rather than religion. In fact, the Jefferson Bible is just a nickname it is actually titled “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth”. And you will have to show me where you came by this information because I can’t find any records of Jefferson using tax money to run a mission.And no, I think looking to what the people who wrote and approved of the establishment clause said and wrote about their interpretation of the clause is a perfectly legitimate way to find out what they meant when they wrote it.Take James Madison (if you don’t know your history that is the person who was the co-chairman of the six member joint Senate-House conference committee responsible for finalizing amendments) for example. He was quoted sayingIt was the Universal opinion of the Century preceding the last, that Civil Government could not stand without the prop of a religious establishment; and that the Christian religion itself, would perish if not supported by the legal provision for its clergy. The experience of Virginia conspiciously corroboates the disproof of both opinions. The Civil Government, tho’ bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability and performs its functions with complete success; whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the state [James Madison, as quoted in Robert L. Maddox: Separation of Church and State; Guarantor of Religious Freeedom]He also wrote a letter to Edward Livingston (a man appointed to work on a new code of criminal law by Louisiana) I’ll just put the whole thing here so you can see my point and not accuse me of “quote mining”.I observe with particular pleasure the view you have taken of the immunity of Religion from civil jurisdiction, in every case where it does not trespass on private rights or the public peace. This has always been a favorite principle with me; and it was not with my approbation, that the deviation from it took place in Congress, when they appointed Chaplains, to be paid from the National Treasury. It would have been a much better proof to their Constituents of their pious feeling if the members had contributed for the purpose, a pittance from their own pockets. As the precedent is not likely to be rescinded, the best that can now be done maybe to apply to the constitution the maxim of the law, de minimis non curant.There has been another deviation from the strict principle in the Executive Proclamations of fasts & festivals, so far, at least, as they have spoken the language of injunction, or have lost sight of the equality of all religious sects in the eye of the Constitution. Whilst I was honored with the Executive Trust I found it necessary on more than one occasion to follow the example of predecessors. But I was always careful to make the Proclamations absolutely indiscriminate, and merely recommendatory; or rather mere designations of a day, on which all who thought proper might unite in consecrating it to religious purposes, according to their own faith & forms.…Notwithstanding the general progress made within the two last centuries in favour of this branch of liberty, & the full establishment of it, in some parts of our Country, there remains in others a strong bias towards the old error, that without some sort of alliance or coalition between Government & Religion neither can be duly supported. Such indeed is the tendency to such a coalition, and such its corrupting influence on both the parties, that the danger cannot be too carefully guarded agst
“show me one deed that says he did.”Thomas Jefferson was the person who used tax payer funds to attempt to convert Indians Kaskaskia tribe to Christianity using a collection of all of Jesus’ teachings. The Jefferson Bible) History proves you wrong. The Framers, who were most were not even Christians who believed in the deity of Christ (which includes Jefferson) have a history replete with government endorsement of Christianity. Ben Franklin is another prime example. In Benjamin Franklin’s 1749 plan of education for public schools in Pennsylvania, he insisted that schools teach “the necessity of a public religion and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern.” Consider also the fact that Franklin proposed a Biblical inscription for the Seal of the United States; that he chose a New Testament verse for the motto of the Philadelphia Hospital; that he was one of the chief voices behind the establishment of a paid chaplain in Congress; and that when in 1787 when Franklin helped found the college which bore his name, it was dedicated as “a nursery of religion and learning” built “on Christ, the Corner-Stone.” So once again, the Framers know more than you do what the establishment clause implies. The only argument against this would be to verify in some way that the Framers themselves violated their own establishment clause they felt so passionately about, and I have yet to see anyone do that.