Islamophobia in Europe: Banning Minarets

[Blue]

RML,

My post regarding Madison had nothing to do with your comments. It had to do with the fact that Madison defended Baptist preachers before the American Revolution who were arrested for not having a license to preach from the Anglican Church. He helped de-establish the Church of England. He also co-wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1779 which incidentally was 1 of only 3 accomplishments T. Jefferson wanted on his epitaph.

VIRGINIA STATUTE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
[Sec. 1] Where as Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as it was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious presumption of legislators 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 endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established 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, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry those temporary rewards, which proceeding from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labours for the instruction of mankind; that our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow-citizens he has a natural right; that it tends only to corrupt the principles of that religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it; that though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on supposition of their ill tendency, is a dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty, because he being of course judge of that tendency will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own; that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them:
[Sec. 2] Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
[Sec. 3] And though we well know that this assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act to be irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such act shall be an infringement of natural right.

J. Madison worked to guarantee freedom of religion in the Virginia state constitution after the Revolutionary War and also ensured that religious freedom was protected in the U.S. Constitution.

[Blue]

Originally Posted by flippedgazelle

Sorry, my bad, I was thinking Jefferson (Dec. of Ind)...

However, you do reinforce my core point, which is that the Constitution was intended to be non-religious.

I don't see how that reinforces your core point at all. As a matter of fact, the 1st Amendment intended to guarantee the freedom of religion. Also, see the Virgina Statute for Religious Freedom that was written by T. Jefferson with J. Madison's help.

Edit: In other words, the construction of Minarets is protected under the U.S. and many state Constitutions. However, other religions or lack there of are also protected from being blown up etc. by Jihad or what ever else. That assumes that they meet the local building code requirements etc.

[kcmadr]

Originally Posted by Damn Brit

What Kevin Carter has to do with this conversation I have no clue to.
If you know about Kevin Carter, that makes previous comments of yours in this thread seem even more ridiculous to me.
I'm going to go for a walk now and when I come back, maybe I'll have a cheese sandwich.

Why I say this is that he killed himself because all the misery and man's inhumanity to man that he witnessed haunted him constantly. I have also witnessed a lot of that misery and inhumanity. It's the "blood" in my own eyes.

I mentioned sanctions because even a country with sanctions can survive and sustain itself for years without hundreds of thousands dying needlessly. I know, because I was there.

There's no need to blame sanctions for a country simply not measuring up.

What it all boils down to is different religions, different cultures, different races (you name it) can not live together in peace and harmony. No matter what anyone says there will always be trouble. Enforcing laws and so on to maintain the peace breeds resentment until someone snaps. It just doesn't work - it's not human nature.

I also love cheese sandwiches. If I had the right ingredients I would make myself a grilled cheese sandwich right now. Thanks for the craving.

[flippedgazelle]

Originally Posted by Blue

I don't see how that reinforces your core point at all. As a matter of fact, the 1st Amendment intended to guarantee the freedom of religion. Also, see the Virgina Statute for Religious Freedom that was written by T. Jefferson with J. Madison's help.

Edit: In other words, the construction of Minarets is protected under the U.S. and many state Constitutions. However, other religions or lack there of are also protected from being blown up etc. by Jihad or what ever else. That assumes that they meet the local building code requirements etc.

I think we aren't quite understanding each other here. My core point is that the Constitution is not based on ideals that are specifically "Christian" or any other religion. The Constitution does not promote - nor does it deny - any religiosity. All religions are welcome. If the tenets put forth in the Constitution happen to coincide with a particular religious belief(s), that's only because the Founding Fathers considered the concept "fair" and necessary to the governance to the country, not because it was "moral" in a spiritual sense.

[Blue]

Originally Posted by flippedgazelle

I think we aren't quite understanding each other here. My core point is that the Constitution is not based on ideals that are specifically "Christian" or any other religion. The Constitution does not promote - nor does it deny - any religiosity. All religions are welcome. If the tenets put forth in the Constitution happen to coincide with a particular religious belief(s), that's only because the Founding Fathers considered the concept "fair" and necessary to the governance to the country, not because it was "moral" in a spiritual sense.

Where did I say it was or was not? I didn't. I did say Minarets are fine, Mosques are fine. However, enforcing Sharia law is not possible under the Constitution either.

Edit: In other words, I'm not disagreeing with you in principle. If Minarets were disallowed in the U.S.A, it would likely be due to zoning and building codes.

[flippedgazelle]

Originally Posted by Blue

Where did I say it was or was not? I didn't. I did say Minarets are fine, Mosques are fine. However, enforcing Sharia law is not possible under the Constitution either.

Edit: In other words, I'm not disagreeing with you in principle. If Minarets were disallowed in the U.S.A, it would likely be due to zoning and building codes.

I never said you did.

Really, we're agreeing. I'm not saying the Constitution is anti-religious, just non-discriminatory regarding religion, is all.

[Damn Brit]

Originally Posted by kcmadr

Why I say this is that he killed himself because all the misery and man's inhumanity to man that he witnessed haunted him constantly. I have also witnessed a lot of that misery and inhumanity. It's the "blood" in my own eyes.

I mentioned sanctions because even a country with sanctions can survive and sustain itself for years without hundreds of thousands dying needlessly. I know, because I was there.

There's no need to blame sanctions for a country simply not measuring up.

What it all boils down to is different religions, different cultures, different races (you name it) can not live together in peace and harmony. No matter what anyone says there will always be trouble. Enforcing laws and so on to maintain the peace breeds resentment until someone snaps. It just doesn't work - it's not human nature.

I also love cheese sandwiches. If I had the right ingredients I would make myself a grilled cheese sandwich right now. Thanks for the craving.

I haven't mentioned sanctions in this thread, you must have mistaken me for someone else.
If you think that no one is dying in Nigeria, Iraq, South America because of Americas craving for oil, then I suggest you do some research on the subject.

Note: Kevin Carter may have killed himself for the reasons you gave but on the other hand, that is a somewhat romantic notion, good for hit records, book and movies. He could have simply killed himself because he was depressed and that could easily have been for any number of reasons.

[graphicgr8s]

Originally Posted by flippedgazelle

How so?

The primary author of the Constitution was an agnostic, and neither "Jesus" nor "God" is mentioned.

"Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian." - United States Supreme Court, 1892.

Virtually every one of the 55 writers and signers of the United States Constitution were members of various Christian denominations: 29 were Anglicans, 16 to 18 were Calvinists, 2 were Methodists, 2 were Lutherans, 2 were Roman Catholic, 1 lapsed Quaker and sometimes Anglican, and 1 open deist--Dr. Franklin who attended every kind of Christian worship, called for public prayer, and contributed to all denominations.

George Mason is called the father of the Bill of Rights, for he insisted that the first ten amendments be added to the Constitution. The purpose for such an addition? "The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth," Mason said.

James McHenry was a member of the Continental Congress, a state legislator, a soldier, and a signer of the Constitution...as well as the president of the first Bible Society in Baltimore. McHenry stated:

Neither...let it be overlooked, that public utility pleads most forcibly for the general distribution of the Holy Scriptures.

The doctrine they preach, the obligations they impose, the punishment they threaten, the rewards they promise, the stamp and image of divinity they bear, which produces a conviction of their truths, can alone secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability, and usefulness.

Actually they were all Christians.

[graphicgr8s]

Originally Posted by Blue

Where did I say it was or was not? I didn't. I did say Minarets are fine, Mosques are fine. However, enforcing Sharia law is not possible under the Constitution either.

Edit: In other words, I'm not disagreeing with you in principle. If Minarets were disallowed in the U.S.A, it would likely be due to zoning and building codes.

One member of the big O's administration does want to enact Sharia law.

U of Tampa has beautiful Minarets overlooking the Hillsborough River.

[flippedgazelle]

Originally Posted by graphicgr8s

Actually they were all Christians.

Yeah, as I noted to Blue, it was Thomas Jefferson I was thinking of when I mentioned "agnostic".

That said, there is nothing mentioned in the Constitution about Christianity or Jesus.

Belief in God != Christian.

There is nothing written in the Dec. of Ind. or the Constitution in terms of laws or methods of gov't that is the exclusive province of Christianity.

I'll also point out that the document most responsible for rallying the public around the idea of Independence - Common Sense - was written by Thomas Paine... a deist and nonbeliever in Christianity.

[Ratmagiclady]

Originally Posted by Blue

RML,

My post regarding Madison had nothing to do with your comments. It had to do with the fact that Madison defended Baptist preachers before the American Revolution who were arrested for not having a license to preach from the Anglican Church. He helped de-establish the Church of England. He also co-wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1779 which incidentally was 1 of only 3 accomplishments T. Jefferson wanted on his epitaph.

[/U] J. Madison worked to guarantee freedom of religion in the Virginia state constitution after the Revolutionary War and also ensured that religious freedom was protected in the U.S. Constitution.[/INDENT]

Well, my *comments* have to do with the fact that claiming our religious freedom is granted, and thus 'alienable' or conditional by the Christian religions... do not match up with the history or purpose of the American constitution, most specifically in matters of religious freedom or religious conscience or purely-religious rules. As Flippedgazelle is trying to get across.

The distinction is important: the people who are trying to claim the Founders intended 'America is a Christian nation, cause they use Deist language about a Creator and God, thus must have been Dominionists'

...are the same ones who are trying to say 'religious freedom' means *only* 'freedom to obey Southern Baptists or those who agree.'

This is not what our Constitution means.

Madison himself said, speaking of many faiths, in the Treaty of Tripoli, America is in no way founded upon the Christian religion.'


I've made the point that those who want to claim otherwise are actually in general in the *business* of propagandizing for a notion that a 'Christian nation' should be able to force all people to obey their idea of 'Christianity.'

If Christianity is, as they claim without justification, 'responsible for our religious freedom,' why is it the people who claim this who are using the notion to justify *enforcing* their religious tabooes on everyone in the country, and call it a 'mandate' if after trying to subvert the *rest* of our system of checks and balances, manage to, say, scare enough people into voting their way by thin margins in a referendum?


I say your assertion is contrary to observation. It's our *secular* government that prevents religious coercion, not a particular brand of religion that seems to be always trying to use that very system to enforce its way.

And if you want to look at history, well, consider that Islam didn't *exist* until after, oh, about six hundred years after Jesus, and a few centuries of a Christianized empire falling to, for the times, some pretty effective theocratic warlordism in the name of exclusivist state monotheism. Which is to say, 'They learned it from watching you.' A lot of the stuff you don't like from the other end, anyway.

It ain't perfect or neat, but a certain amount of Enlightenment thinking, yes, Deism, and ...kind of a romantic view of Neoclassical thought had a *whole* lot to do with our idea of the 'rights of man' ...when a lot of the churches were still reading bibles to justify treating women and black folks as property, and tribal peoples as less than human. Frankly, while there are certain outstanding messes still involved, we should be proud of getting through this, rather than trying to claim some religious authority to try and go *back* to it.

One thing the Founding Fathers knew from Europe was that that's no way to run things. The history, notably of the effects of the 'Reformation' was kinda last week's newspaper to them. That's why we're dedicated to doing things differently here.

What *I'm* trying to say is that our heritage as a nation runs much deeper and broader than taking a vote on some Diebold machine what religious authority for fifty percent plus one everyone should have to obey.

Our secular system means we're *allowed* to be religious, if we so choose and in whatever way. Because our secularism *protects* us from the worst, and I daresay hardly 'spiritual' things that otherwise *always* come about. Guarantees of Liberty *before* we pray. Not *cause* we do. Not *if* we do, not *if we do it according to the voters this week, or according to what some televangelist or Pope or blogger says* ...Not alienably. Inherently. As humans. As citizens.

Our national motto is *not* 'In God We Trust,' but rather, 'E Pluribus Unum:' From many, one.

But if indeed we do have faith in something, it should be that people can and should be *free* to seek that 'Something' (even if it's a Nothing, or many Someones) ... and our common faith, frith, and trust is that free people don't need a government dictating such matters, never mind claiming authority from a particular religion. And only that religion. That way lies corruption, tyrrany, and exploitation not faith.

I still have some faith in that idea, as an American. Bruised as it gets, sometimes, in practice. For some to try and rule based on some religious authority and call it America is *not* that faith. It's fear. Fear seeking control. And fear isn't something that often brings us wisdom.

[Blue]

Originally Posted by Damn Brit

I haven't mentioned sanctions in this thread, you must have mistaken me for someone else.
If you think that no one is dying in Nigeria, Iraq, South America because of Americas craving for oil, then I suggest you do some research on the subject.

Note: Kevin Carter may have killed himself for the reasons you gave but on the other hand, that is a somewhat romantic notion, good for hit records, book and movies. He could have simply killed himself because he was depressed and that could easily have been for any number of reasons.

DB, show me a graph of Iraqi oil use in the U.S. over the past 60 years. Also put up some evidence of people dying in Nigeria etc. because of oil for the U.S.

Edit: Here is a snap shot for July and August 2009

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/p...nt/import.html


http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hi...s=MTTIMIZ1&f=M

The imports from Iraq never changed much before and after the Iraq war except for interruption blips in the data.

[deadwolfbones]

Originally Posted by graphicgr8s

Actually they were all Christians.

1892 != 1776.

And there wasn't really much alternative to calling yourself a Christian in those days if you wanted to be taken seriously in American society. Franklin was something of an oddball, and in more ways than that one.

[deadwolfbones]

Originally Posted by graphicgr8s

One member of the big O's administration does want to enact Sharia law.

Who would that be? Source?

[Blue]

RML,

Go back and read the posts from me and flippedgazelle and you will see your rant wasn't necessary. I don't no why you think I'm Baptist, Southern, 1st, 7th Day, Free Will, etc etc. I'm probably Antagonistic.

However, in your rant, you over looked one major detail. The Constitution says that Government isn't supposed to establish religion, and but it isn't supposed to interfere with it either given no human sacrifices etc. Hence it is a check and balance in that regard. Madison's background provides insight on what he was thinking by drafting the 1st Amendment.