One problem that I’ve been looking into lately is the “separation of church and state” idea.

On the conservative side, nothing violates the first amendment about having “one nation under God” in our national anthem, or “so help me God” being said when people swear into office, or swearing on the Bible in court. These actions do not (to put it how the Constitution does) respect any law that establishes a religion or prohibits the free exercise thereof.

The letter that contained the phrase “wall of separation between Church and State” was used in defense¬†against the discarding of the Danbury Baptist Church by the United States¬†government. I would love to see the reaction of Thomas Jefferson if he saw how misinterpreted and twisted the phrase is today.

I believe there is a law that says judges are allowed to judge whether a person’s oath in court is valuable or not. He can even say to someone who swears on the Bible that he doesn’t think he will tell the truth regardless of the oath he is swearing. This power, to me, isn’t unconstitutional… because it is not prohibiting one’s religious beliefs or establishing them. The oath is also only taken in God’s name to signify that if there were a creator of this universe, which the listener and the sayer are free to believe or disbelieve, that they are swearing they will tell the truth to them, and to all of that creator’s creation. It is an infinte swear.

Also, no matter what you say, the morals of this country were founded on morals that are found in Christianity and Deism. There is no establishment of it… but every single man that signed/wrote the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States was some kind of Christian or another and most of them had degrees in theology. You cannot deny that mentally, America was indeed founded on the¬†fundamental¬†ideas of their religion. If you compare the basic freedoms of our country, you will see how similar they are to the ten commandments. If our freedoms are not Biblically based… then what are they? And what’s to stop them from shifting into something else? Why is it wrong to kill another man? Does anyone have a good explainable reason? Why is it just understood that we just don’t kill other people?

On the¬†liberal side, the main point, to me, is more questionable, and it is that the presence of religious symbols, or words… is mentally oppressive and focused towards one religion, therefore breaking our freedom. My dad’s arguement against it is that we have the freedom of religion… not freedom from religion. And everyone has religious beliefs… not believing that there is a creator is a religious belief.

I have read some great and convincing articles¬†on the liberal side of this arguement, but I can’t help but to float back to the¬†conservative and I’ve read more into the former. To me, it has much more grounding.

If you want proof to see that I’m not one-sided, I’ll discuss the gay marriage issue.

In this one I agree with the key points of both sides. I do not support gay marriage personally, but I hate the thought of a law restricting it. Marriage was indeed an idea created by religion between a man and a woman.* If it is indeed religious, then atheists and agnostics should not get married.

This issue is a product of our own sin: taking for granted the gift of marriage from God.** We, the body of Christ, have not taken marriage seriously enough, and our culture has been¬†lead to believe¬†that marriage is not religious, but just a custom of normal secular culture. If there is a law against gay marriage, then there should be a law against atheists and agnostics getting married… and any sinner for that matter!

In opposition, as a Christian, I should be accepting of everyone! So, why would I prohibit by law that homosexuals cannot marry each other? Is it right to take away that freedom from them, but leave it for everyone else? All I know is, I’m not gay… so, I don’t have to personally worry about this issue. As for any homosexual readers, don’t be scared off by people not accepting you¬†in the¬†body of Christ¬†or any religion for that matter. On behalf of Christ,¬†I personally¬†invite you into the church to hear about him. I want you to know who Christ is and why¬†I follow his philosophy! In the end, no matter what you do,¬†you are a sinner, just like me… and I’ll respect you and accept you anytime!

*I need some Bible verses to back both of those statements up, so throw them at me if you can!

**I need verses to back up that it’s a gift… I’m not sure of it… but that’s how I feel about marriage.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 8th, 2006 at 5:49 pm and is filed under Politics, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.