I felt like putting up a list of really good quotes that I found last night. Most of them will have a theme of conscience, sin, or justice.

“The roots of violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principles.‚Äù
-Ghandi

“There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.‚Äù
-Ghandi

“Never do anything against the conscience, even if the state demands it.”
-Albert Einstein

“Every human has four endowments- self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… the power to choose, to respond, to change.‚Äù
-Stephen R. Covey

“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.‚Äù
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.‚Äù
-Thomas Jefferson

“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and congress and assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.‚Äù
-Thomas Jefferson

“The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.‚Äù
-Thomas Jefferson

“Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, until you know there is no hook beneath it.‚Äù
-Thomas Jefferson

“The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.‚Äù
-George Bernard Shaw

“Other men’s sins are before our eyes; our own are behind our backs.‚Äù
-Seneca

“Pleasure is the bait of sin.‚Äù
-Plato

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.”
-Buddha

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.‚Äù
-Buddha

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.‚Äù
-Buddha

“You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.‚Äù
-Buddha

“There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it.‚Äù
-Buddha

“Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security.‚Äù
-Benjamin Franklin

“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.‚Äù
-Benjamin Franklin

“Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one.‚Äù
-Benjamin Franklin

“Never confuse motion with action.‚Äù
-Benjamin Franklin

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.

A bird is not a bird until he realizes that he has wings and starts to learn how to fly so that he can leave his nest and live life the way birds should live. The remarkable thing is that he is born from a mother who teaches and inspires him to fly.

The same can be said regarding the human spirit.