MY STAND - CHURCH and STATE
The biggest misconception today is the proliferation of the thinking that the Church and State are one and this nation was directly formed as a Christian entity by the founding fathers. I don't quite believe this to be true as they had this in the old world and it was what they were escaping from. The religious intolerance of the church ruled nation.
If you look at the church in those days you would see why many left seeking a new world where they could worship as they wished. The State and Church are not one. Because the end result was a religion owned state. The state is composed of written laws equal for all and you get to choose your own morality under the varied assortment of offerings by the multi-tude of sects formed by the aspirations of individuals, some of whom must have found a stash of peyote somewhere.
WIKI PEDIA and USCONSTITUTION.NET
Thomas Jefferson was a man of deep religious conviction — his conviction was that religion was a very personal matter, one which the government had no business getting involved in. He was vilified by his political opponents for his role in the passage of the 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and for his criticism of such biblical events as the Great Flood and the theological age of the Earth.
As president, he discontinued the practice started by his predecessors George Washington and John Adams of proclaiming days of fasting and thanksgiving. He was a staunch believer in the separation of church and state.
The concept of separation of church and state refers to the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state. The term is an offshoot of the phrase, "wall of separation between church and state," as written in Thomas Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists Association in 1802.
The original text reads: "...I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."
Jefferson reflected his frequent speaking theme that the government is not to interfere with religion. The phrase was quoted by the United States Supreme Court first in 1878, and then in a series of cases starting in 1947. The phrase "separation of church and state" itself does not appear in the United States Constitution.
The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Prior to 1947, however separation of church and state was not considered part of the constitution; indeed in 1870s and 1890s unsuccessful attempts were made to amend the constitution to guarantee separation of church and state, a task to be accomplished not by constitutional amendment but by judicial fiat in 1947.
SEPARATION FROM RULES AND CUSTOMS
Their rules favor, including but not limited to; types of music, formal or doctrinal clothing, food exclusions on certain days, snake handling, round hats and pointed hats, a selection of classical robes and scarfs, pots of burning incense, cute slippers, magnificent glass windows, hard seats on the butt, spoken mysterious tongues and languages, seating arrangements, group singing, hands raised to the sky in surrender, water sprinkling, and/or sacred immersion bathing techniques.
God has to be there cracking up turning to Moses and Jesus and saying, "Look what you guys started".
Contemporary Christian culture identifies the snake as a symbol of evil, tempting Adam and Eve into the fall of man. Snake handlingis a religious ritual in a small number of Christian churches in the U.S., usually characterized as rural and Pentecostal, particularly the Church of God with Signs Following. Practitioners believe it dates to antiquity and quote the Bible to support the practice, especially:
"They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." (Mark 16:18)
"Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you." (Luke 10:19)
According to a new report, snake handling is on the rise within Baptist churches across the country. The report, released by NAMB says that the practice of snake handling as part of Sunday morning worship services has risen in Baptist churches from 2% in 2006 to 17% this spring.
Al Wittner, senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Baton Rouge, LA reported the exciting results of snake handling. According to Wittner, "A few weeks ago, we began with just a few black snakes. The folks in the pews felt a little uneasy at first, but they warmed up to it very quickly. By this past Sunday, we added Rattlers and Copperheads. I think the added dimension of poison really increased interest. We had at least 40% of our members in attendance, which was the highest percentage in years."
THEN CAME THE PROFITS
Plus a ritual promoted by some as tithe-ing or giving to do the Lords work. Hmmm, the Lord does some really good stuff without money. So whats the money bit about. We'll really delve into that later in another piece and we are talking about a half billion a year getting into the wrong hands.
All these rules are designed to have some kind of meaning and to control and bond the masses. Oh and don't forget, "thou shalt not buy any of this stuff and abstain" and that is found under the heading atheism..."None of the above". And of course we in the West make comment of the harshness of the other religions, Muslin extremism for example, and ignore some of the idiotic things some did here in the past and still to this day follow some really weird processes.
BOOK REVIEWS: FALSE SCHOLARS
Many claim to be great reviewers of this collection of stories called the Bible. Especially around election time, and also on death row. Funny when it gets down to someone not showing up the next day, whether the politician lost in the primary, or the felon earned both the positive and the negative leads, it seems "the Bible is always invoked when someone is leaving".
Last year, from Texas a last appeal failed for a commutation of sentence for a woman who made Sushi out of her abusive husband with 128 strokes of the field axe. I remember the screams of those Bible followers outside the prison covering the Texas Axe Murderer pleading "Save her, she's been born again and found Jesus". Wonderful, a soul saved, and I applauded the thought.
Thats great, she is at peace with her self, and thinking some more I realized "wow, now she can get a personal interview with Jesus. No sympathy here for that woman, thats what the authorities, the law and consequence are for. There is a big difference in being saved and being exonerated. Once again it is all about the separation of Church and State. God may forgive, the morality side, but Texas law brought to culmination a heinous crime as it should have been. Forgiveness is the rubber stamp of no consequence.
THE FLOCKERS
The problem is "the believers, the flockers", I call them, wish the Church and the State to be the same and we only need one set of guidelines to conduct our time here on the earth. And that the United States was born under a specific religious conviction. The only discourse is they think it was born under theirs. I don't think the "United States of Jesus" would fly. This is Taliban thinking at best.
It is simple, the LAW of the land is the LAW. The morality of the land is governed by choice. Granted with no morality, people will test the law. They usually lose in some manner. They have nothing to do with each other. You can make a bad choice against the members of your church. People do it all the time, they begat, fornicate, conjugate, and gossip all the time. And then they are forgiven. (Yea right) But shoot someone, and see if the members of the forgiving congregation wants you as someone renting the back bedroom.
PROVEN TRACK RECORD
The most popular version, the King James BIBLE is composed of and has lots of good and bad guy stories, about thieves, prostitutes, polygamy, snakes, good and bad leaders, followers, wars, killing, intrigues, cheating, bribes and fornication. Lots of fornication and lots of slayings.
But it can't handle the competition. And many oxymoronically righteous people spend days, months, years and lifetimes to be able to quote the great thoughts, parables and gossip. Yet these are the same folks who condemn all the other books which contain all of the stuff mentioned above, except they are written and occurring in real life, written by real people and those who support science in other books.
WHAT WERE THEY THINKING
I could see in a strong Peyote Vision, the first Bible Hospitals. No doctors, no nurses, no medicines or treatment machines, no books other than a bible in each room. Radical thinking, thats why we have to have law, to take these children or adults away from the influence of nuts and idiots and get them real medical aid.
It happened, that a husband and wife decided for their son that he should not receive medical aid and die, as it was Gods will, and he ( the child) had little input as to whether he should die or not? They are lucky, I was not present with a baseball bat because I would of beaten some sense in their heads. A judge intervened and the parents charged with neglect. He received court ordered treatment for the cancer and he is alive today. Thank goodness for the separation of church and state.