It’s really hard for some religious believers to understand why the separation of church and state is really important. In an effort to advance the cause in support of strong separation I have come up with a good analogy to explain it. I call it “The Sports Analogy”.
Recent court decisions involving church and state have not been ruled in the non-believer’s favor. The reasoning used by the judges follow the thinking shown in the recent decision concerning the National Day of Prayer law:
One of the most ridiculous stories that comes up when talking about separation of church and state is the constant complaints of Christian persecution from right wingers. Gary Bauer, president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families and a failed US Presidential candidate, tries hard to claim that Christians are hurt more than Muslims in this country.
I think if the new Congress holds hearings on the ‘Radicalization’ Of American Muslims then they also need to include the radicalization of so-called Patriots like Jim David Adkisson, Byron Williams, Scott Roeder, and Richard Poplawski among others.
This is a trailer for an actual movie called “Christmas with a Capital C” that stars Ted McGinley and Daniel Baldwin. Baldwin is the bad nasty atheist trying to “steal” Christmas from a town that violates the 1st amendment by putting up a creche on city property. Amazes me that people protecting their civil rights are seen as the bad guys
Last week the US Supreme Court ruled that a transfer of land, holding a cross erected in the Mojave National Preserve in California then sold to a private group after a lower court ruled that the cross violated the 1st amendment, needed to be reassessed in light of their holding that a Latin cross is a generic symbol of war dead. The ruling opens a can of worms that neither believers or non-believers might enjoy.
Skye Jethani is an ordained pastor and author who wrote a recent article on Huffington Post titled “What Evangelicals and Atheists Have in Common” that shows us how a Christian apologist can marginalize atheists or other religious minorities and frame a “concern” into a positive spin about one’s own religion.