..none of the post below discounts my first post on this thread:  in the next election, religion’s impact will be infinitesimal.

...it’s all about Jobs and the Economy.

(Bill Clinton knows this .. look at the title of his new book)

WALL vs. GATE

Part of the issue w/ Constitutional interpretations of the First Amendment as it applies to religion is the concept of a WALL vs. a one-way GATE.

The Constitution, as it is written, places limits only upon Congress—not upon Churches nor The People. 
A one-way gate.
Read the First Amendment yourself, below,
(courtesy of Shenonymous, from downthread):

Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791.
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.

See?  Only the Congress is restricted here.

Subsequent court rulings, however, place limitations on the actions of churches and people based upon the idea of a WALL that separates Church and State.
This based upon a letter the Jefferson wrote in 1802 to Danbury Babtists.
http://www.usconstitution.net/jeffwall.html

They might be intelligent and capable people, but you would never vote for “Dominionists”, would you, Night Gaunt?? Ozark Michael

Well being intelligent and capable doesn’t mean they would do good things for all of us. Those characteristics are neutral and could fit anyone from from John Wayne Gasey to Mohandas Gandhi.

Well considering a Dominionist or a Christian Reconstructionist &/or White supremacist Nationalist and any who believe that their religion should have plenary powers here regardless of the Constitution then I wouldn’t. Would you? You’ve never said.

Yesterday I announced my intention to run for President of the United States (YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njf0SxC1qOs). As I have pointed out many times, religion has no place in the election debates for 2012.  We have far more important issues facing us, and if we allow ourselves to be diverted from these issues, we will fail to make the correct choices. 

I have posted on my campaign website a page where I address family values issues, and noted that I will not discuss them further during my campaign.  It is time we dealt with far more serious issues, and we need to know exactly what candidates intend to do to help this nation and her people.  You can find out more on my websites at http://www.devonnollforpresident2012.org and http://www.weeeevoteamerica2012.org.  It is time that we had candidates who do not try to hide who they really are, and who are willing to focus on what is needed to fix this nation.  I hope to lead others to do this by running for Congress and state legislatures.  I also hope that Americans will want candidates who are open and focused on important issues instead of the smoke-and-mirrors of family values issues to determine if a candidate is worthy.

We are a nation where our Founding Fathers clearly understood the dangers of a state religion and setting religious standards for holding office.  It is time we returned to that approach which existed in this country until the Religious Right took over our election criteria under Reagan.  We have a separation of church and state in this country and we have it for a reason.  It is time we realize that the reason for this is what we are seeing today - by concentrating on these extraneous issues, we are being led away from the important ones that we must address first before we can even consider such things as abortion (which was decided decades ago)or gay rights (or rather the denial of them) which are based on bigotry or intolerance.  These are issues that can be addressed later when we have put Americans (all Americans) back to work and stabilized this nation’s economy.  Through many of the programs that I am suggesting, these issues will be addressed without religious zealotry.  Please check out the websites and then either run for office or support my efforts and those of other Independent, Non-Affiliated candidates in 2012.

Sorry, Mr. Dionne.  Religion SHOULD BE COMPLETELY EXCLUDED from politics.  What are you, a Catholic?  Religion is bunk.  Religious dogma is robbing women and the sexual minorities of their rights.  Religion is draining billions of dollars from the economy, part of it going overseas to Rome.  Religion is preventing peace in the Mideast.  Religion has been the cause of more wholesale slaughter of innocent people than all the political ideologies combined.  Religion is mass delusion born of a fear of death.  No death, no religion.  Death is merely the cessation of one’s consciousness.  Anyone who tells you death is something else, make them explain how they know that.  Or don’t bother.  One cannot argue with dogma.  The barrier between church and state should be higher than all the walls ever built stacked one on top of another.  Government without religion is peace.  Government under religion means war and cruelty and trampling your rights.

Night Gaunt said:

Since those people concentrate more on what they think a certain religion holds than the proven record of a person, they will continue to blindly vote in those Christians…

Or against them. Some people vote against what they assume about a Christian. Like if the Christian is a Pentecostal type like John Ashcroft. Orif you presume that Christian Fundamentalists must be “Dominionists”, you cant vote for that person.

They might be intelligent and capable people, but you would never vote for “Dominionists”, would you, Night Gaunt?

Shenonymous has yet again used her research prowess in showing us salient rulings in relation to religion and state and how they mix and how they shouldn’t mix. Kudos.

But as we know that the voting public will do what the Constitution says mustn’t be done—-a religious test. It is done all the time. If you are Muslim or Atheist or Buddhist there is a good chance you will lose elections. Not because your ideas are bad or you background is full of wrong things no. Just That is a sad thing that people are prejudiced enough to think that others who don’t see the world quite the we do should not have an equal chance to work for The People. Since those people concentrate more on what they think a certain religion holds than the proven record of a person, they will continue to blindly vote in those Christians they think will be automatically better than anyone else. One of the backward aspects of our culture.

“Religious people cannot have it both ways: to assert that their faith really matters to their public engagement, and then to insist, when it’s convenient, that religion is a matter about which no one has a right to ask questions. Voters especially have a right to know how a candidate’s philosophical leanings shape his or her attitudes toward the religious freedom of unbelievers as well as believers.

And here’s the hardest part: We all have to ask ourselves whether what we claim to be hearing as the voice of faith (or of God) may in fact be nothing more than the voice of our ideology or political party. We should also ask whether candidates are merely exploiting religion to rally some part of electorate to their side. The difficulty of answering both questions—given the human genius for rationalization—might encourage a certain humility that comes hard to most of us, and perhaps most of all to people who write opinion columns.”
AMEN! Thank you for your clarity.

I see Robespierre hasn’t yet posted his latest “sock puppet” epistle to Dionne, so if I may…

This column is a wasted effort unless you understand that Dionne really IS a shill for Obama and now writes solely for the purpose of enhancing his chances for re-election.

In this case, the object is to deflect attention away from the sinking economy which will be the determining factor in November 2012.

It’ll be about jobs and the economy.
Not religion or abortion rights.
(Sorry Shenonymous, but enjoy your time away.)
Whoever presents the best case for righting our economic ship and providing jobs will be the winner.

That could well BE Obama, but current trends would have to change for the better.

Although the election is still a year from yesterday, my estimation is 90% that well either see Cain (current front runner w/Tea Party support); Romney (both business and political experience) or Perry (significant war-chest and a positive jobs record) as the Repub nominee.  Add Gingrich and Paul to the mix and the chances climb to 95%.
(Sorry Bauchmann, Santorum, Huntsman)

Each has been belittled by the mainstream press and pundits like Dionne.
But ANY could press a compelling case against Obama’s record on the economy.

Stay-y-y-y-y tuned.

Having to be away for a few days, I won’t be able to watch how the
discussion goes as the myriad of TD believers, and non-believers
among whom I happily count myself, tintinnabulate or clang in. 
This article is of the most acute importance for the status of women
as people. Were this initiative to become law, the state of Mississippi
utterly regards women as non-persons and in effect makes the law
emphatically a contradiction.  Women, all women, cannot allow this. 
Nor can men with any intelligence.  It is the words of law that rule.

Because on Tuesday the state of Mississippi will vote on the moment of
life to be at the moment of fertilization thereby creating indictmentable
crimes against women who have sex during ovulation (which ovulation is
not a known fact unless a test is taken) who it could imaginably have a
potential fertilization of an ovum would be prosecutable under the law,
thereby criminalizing women who have sex during ovulation.  The
proposed law is insane.  But the law is proposed based on religious belief
though proponents of the law would deny it,  But when put to the test
themselves they would not be able to forsake their belief else they would
commit a heresy.  However the separation of church and state is
explicitly inviolable. Therefore, the lengthy two part post here. 

The North Carolina Constitution of 1776 disestablished the Anglican
church, but until 1835 the NC Constitution allowed only Protestants to
hold public office. From 1835-1876 it allowed only Christians (including
Catholics) to hold public office. Article VI, Section 8 of the current NC
Constitution forbids only atheists from holding public office.[10] Such
clauses were held by the United States Supreme Court to be
unenforceable in the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins, when the court
ruled unanimously that such clauses constituted a religious test
incompatible with First and Fourteenth Amendment protections.

The Flushing Remonstrance stated this is “the first thing that we have in
writing in the United States where a group of citizens attests on paper
and over their signature the right of the people to follow their own
conscience with regard to God - and the inability of government, or the
illegality of government, to interfere with that.”

The first and only mention of religion until adoption of the Bill of Rights
Amendments occurs in Article 6 of the United States Constitution, which
provides that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification
to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

The rationale for the separation of church and state, that there is (an
impervious) wall between the two, was given by Jefferson and Madison
and is worthy of careful reading as it was in their hands that the
Constitution was amended and the First Amendment was to make this
conception the law of the land. 

Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified
12/15/1791.
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.

2.
In its ruling in Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 1947,
the Supreme Court concluded that “The First Amendment has
erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept
high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.” 
The last expression “We could not approve the slightest breach is
universally applicable in all matters concerning the church and
state (US government as well as reaching down into sovereign
states). Nor did the word “impregnable” escape notice!  That in
itself is most interesting since with the law, language holds equal
importance as does content.

Furthermore, regarding the infusion of the language of religion in public
schools, in 1962, the Supreme Court addressed the issue of and struck
down the officially-sponsored prayer or religious recitations in public
schools. In Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962), the Court, by a vote of
6-1, determined it unconstitutional for state officials to compose an
official school prayer and require its recitation in public schools, even
when the prayer is non-denominational and students may excuse
themselves from participation (See Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 1962).

With the ruling against Arkansas, the Supreme Court also held that
the Establishment Clause prohibits the state from advancing any religion,
and that “[T]he state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all
religions from views distasteful to them.” It is this ruling that secularists
(non-religious believers) may use as protection against a discrimination
on account of their non-belief.

The “Lemon Test” specified with three provisions to test whether a
state has comported (conformed) with the Establishment Clause: First,
the law or policy must have been adopted with a neutral or non-religious
purpose. Second, the principle or primary effect must be one that neither
advances nor inhibits religion. Third, the statute or policy must not result
in an “excessive entanglement” of government with religion.

In the late 18th c., the US Senate ratified in accordance with Article 11
a treaty with Tripoli that stated, “As the Government of the United States
of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as
it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or
tranquillity,...”  In support of this was the earlier Article 6, clause 2
of the United States Constitution that rendered ratified treaties “the
supreme Law of the Land”, and which confirms that the government
of the United States was specifically intended to be religiously neutral.

there is nothing wrong in believing if one just sees
that believing is not seeing, touching, smelling,
hearing, tasting and thus knowing.

not believing that jesus had been quoted correctly
or that he said anything attributed to him by some
scribes, is also a belief and thus religion.

believing that there is no god, but the goddevil is
also believing.

however, saying that bible, quran, torah cannot be
ever known is not a belief, but knowledge.
put another way, the meanings are in people and
not in the words they read or words they use.
and u cannot know what the other person means,
what’s s/hes gonna do, etc. tnx