Why The First Amendment Matters

It's that time of the year again. Happy Holidays!

When you look at all the fighting going on in the Middle East between radicalized denominations of various religions, going on for literally thousands of years, you must appreciate what our constitution says at the very beginning:

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Do you wonder why people who are not religious, become offended when an organized church  plants their religious symbols on public property, which is paid for by taxes, paid also by non-religious people?

Would you get offended if a business put up a billboard or a company logo on the front of your court house, public library or state capitol building?

What's more insulting is that churches responsible for putting their religious symbols on public property, are tax-exempt. Their symbols on public property is by default political, so they should start paying taxes.

Planting your flag on territory not your own is an act of aggression. Planting religious symbols on public, tax-supported property is an insult to military service members whose duty is to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

What others say about this issue:

• Pew Research Center: Religious Displays and the Courts 
• Libertarian Jew: Religious Displays on Public Property 
• R. I. Future: Progress Report: Religious Symbols on Public Property in RI, Curt Schilling’s Fib, Local Journalism 
• FM 105.5 Wall Street Business Network: Chapel stirs up controversy in small Oklahoma college town 
• ACLU: OPEN LETTER REGARDING RELIGIOUS DISPLAY AT GRANT PARISH COURTHOUSE 
• The Texas Tribune: "Merry Christmas" Officially Okay in Texas Public Schools 

Public Prayer vs Empathy Training

Matthew 6: 5-8

LA Times (Nov 6. 2013)

Public prayer case appears to perplex Supreme Court - latimes

Christ was clear about how Christians should pray, but what about other religions?

Politicus USA

Televangelist Jim Bakker Claims Christians Will Be Machine ...

Jim Bakker apparently follows a religion other than Christianity.

AZ Central

Phoenix City Council is bringing back spoken prayer

Voted 6-2

WBAL Baltimore

Bill would allow prayer at school-sponsored events

What is the price for ignoring the teachings of Jesus Christ?

Who are these self-proclaimed Christians who keep demanding prayer in public anywhere?

Other religions might allow prayer in public, but such a display carries the impression of arrogant self-righteousness and opens one up to easy accusations of hypocrisy, something even atheists can agree that Jesus was trying to avoid, according to scripture.

Very young children have not quite gained the understanding of social consequences. They understand how to avoid punishment but not how their own behavior can make other people feel about them for the long-term. They need to be guided toward seeing from the perspective of others.

Did you ever notice that certain people cannot be convinced that they are wrong about something until it happens directly to them or someone very close to them? Did you notice that they also tend to be religious conservatives? This is just some of the damage caused by replacing empathy training with prayer.

A Gold Mine of Quotes from Thomas Jefferson for use in the argument on the "moment of silence" in public schools.

Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson

The impious presumption of legislators and and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath stablished and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time: That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical;...

-- Thomas Jefferson, expressing concern over the authoritarian interpretation of religious views, and advocating, rather, that states allow an individual to use her or his own reason to establish or settle these opinions, in the opening passage to Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786), quoted from Merrill D Peterson, ed., Thomas Jefferson: Writings (1984), p. 346


To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Green Mumford, June 18, 1799

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/jefferson.htm