Constitutionality of National Day of Prayer?

[D3V]

After reading countless posts about the 'National day of Prayer' being removed by Obama, I felt inclined to do a little research.

You can read the entire entry on Snopes:

President Obama has decided that there will no longer be a "National Day of Prayer" held in May. He doesn't want to offend anyone. Where was his concern about offending Christians last January when he allowed the Muslims to hold a day of prayer on capitol grounds. As an American Christian "I am offended." if you agree, copy and paste no matter what religion you are. This country was built on freedom!!

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/prayerday.asp

Which brings us to the next location of this argument, the constitutionality of this actual law.

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What do you think?

[Hayduke]

Have you ever thought for a second all this dribble they are always debating, all this current affair bullshit is just a bunch of hollow distractions to keep us busy and our minds off the more important matters?

[Skurai]

Have you ever thought for a second all this dribble they are always debating, all this current affair bullshit is just a bunch of hollow distractions to keep us busy and our minds off the more important matters?
Not really.


I didn't even know we had a Day of Prayer. :eek:
Either way, I think it's pretty annoying how people are basically washing religion off the hands of everything. Makes me lose the tiny bit of patrionism I have, just because it makes me go ":("

[Mdselctr]

Have you ever thought for a second all this dribble they are always debating, all this current affair bullshit is just a bunch of hollow distractions to keep us busy and our minds off the more important matters?

Hmm, saying something like that on
here will get you stoned to death.
That would just make too much sense.

[D3V]

Have you ever thought for a second all this dribble they are always debating, all this current affair bullshit is just a bunch of hollow distractions to keep us busy and our minds off the more important matters?

Examples?

[!King_Amazon!]

"Political language . . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." -- George Orwell

[Skurai]

Examples?

Well, you have the, uh, topic we're originally supposed to be posting about, v.s. something nobody knows about.
It's entirely possible that, at the moment, they're arranging the deaths of everyone in america, and this is a beautiful distraction. Of course, that's one stupidly huge exaggeration, but in all reality, it could very well be happening.

[!King_Amazon!]

I would say it's more along the lines of they are lining their pockets with our money and giving us an image of them actually doing anything.

Look at most government jobs. If you're unionized, it's practically impossible to get fired. You make more money than most people. They give us an image of being there for us, but they're self-serving, basically.

[Hayduke]

Personally, I'd like for a complete dissolve of all civilization. I could live w/ a disbandment of the federal government though. http://www.americanpatriotparty.cc/ Check it out.

[Skurai]

The complete dissolvement of all civillization, unfortunately, would be horrible. Sure, it sounds nice, at the moment. Perfect freedom, the ability to do what you want, when you want, and have perfect equality, in terms of obtaining something (Trade). But the problem is, how do we keep it that way? Over generations, it's bound that new Kings will rise, and lead people. More or less, making the entire world Chaos alignment just makes room for the Law alignment to shine.

[!King_Amazon!]

Neutrality is the answer.

[Skurai]

I have no idea how that skipped my mind.
Bingo. Nail on the head.

[Hayduke]

As long as there is civilization, there will always be a hierarchy.. So once again KA, there must be a dissolvement of civilization.

[Hayduke]

The complete dissolvement of all civillization, unfortunately, would be horrible. Sure, it sounds nice, at the moment. Perfect freedom, the ability to do what you want, when you want, and have perfect equality, in terms of obtaining something (Trade). But the problem is, how do we keep it that way? Over generations, it's bound that new Kings will rise, and lead people. More or less, making the entire world Chaos alignment just makes room for the Law alignment to shine.

"Horrible" is a relative term in this scenario Skurai. For me it would be glorious and a great relief. If I may quote. 143. Since the beginning of civilization, organized societies have had to put pressures on human beings for the sake of the functioning of the social organism. The kinds of pressures vary greatly from one society to another. Some of the pressures are physical (poor diet, excessive labor, environmental pollution), some are psychological (noise, crowding, forcing humans behavior into the mold that society requires). In the past, human nature has been approximately constant, or at any rate has varied only within certain bounds. Consequently, societies have been able to push people only up to certain limits. When the limit of human endurance has been passed, things start going wrong: rebellion, or crime, or corruption, or evasion of work, or depression and other mental problems, or an elevated death rate, or a declining birth rate or something else, so that either the society breaks down, or its functioning becomes too inefficient and it is (quickly or gradually, through conquest, attrition or evolution) replaced by some more efficient form of society.[25]
If you bothered to read that you would understand why it would be so much easier and peaceful to have a completely "Un-civilized" society.

[Skurai]

All I'm saying is even if we get rid of the problem, it'll just come back a century later.

[Hayduke]

Solution: Passing down values and morals with each generation.

If the survivors are in agreement (which presumably they would be since they most likely would have been active participants in the revolution) that the world that they had come from and are now moving away from was virtually evil in every aspect I think they/we would be determined to make sure it will not happen again.
At some point it all comes down to; do we want to destroy ourselves by destroying the land we live on? Or do we want to live with nature as intended the only harmonious way possible?

[!King_Amazon!]

If the survivors are in agreement (which presumably they would be since they most likely would have been active participants in the revolution) that the world that they had come from and are now moving away from was virtually evil in every aspect I think they/we would be determined to make sure it will not happen again.

I'm gonna go right ahead and call you out on this one, because I think you're wrong. And to perhaps lend credence to my argument, it kinda validates Skurai's assumption that things will always end up back where they were, which annoys me to no end because I generally can't stand the fucker.

Why did people originally come to America? To escape religious persecution. The "founding fathers" as they're often labeled wanted to make sure this didn't happen again, because they and their ancestors had endured it. However, look at America today. It would be beyond foolish to claim that religious persecution is absent today. It would be an UNDERSTATEMENT to say that religious persecution runs rampant. Our own elected officials swear on the Bible to uphold the constitution. Try growing up in the south as a person who questions religion and tell me that religious freedom exists in America. Hell, tell me that much freedom at all exists and I'd call you crazy. And freedom is exactly what our country was supposedly founded on.

You can try to change things all you want, but reality is that "good" and "evil" (or as I'd rather like to call them, "side 1" and "side 2") are both going to be around forever, because they fundamentally define each other. In my opinion, the best way to deal with them is to learn to let them coexist. The more one side fights against the other, the more the other side fights back. I like to think of it like a tug-of-war match with a giant rubberband. The harder each side fights, the more stress each side experiences. The natural tendency of things is towards neutrality. Because really, why the fuck should we pull on the rubber band when we could just stop, get together in the middle, and smoke a fatty?

[Hayduke]

Isn't there always a chance for change? A chance that we may learn after so many mistakes? It sounds like you have given up hope. I don't blame you, sometimes I wish I could just live an ignorant blissful life as well. We can't though, our eyes are not blind the horrors around us. You have to pose the question to yourself KA, when your in your deathbed and you look back on your life... will you be happy with it? Will you have made a difference? Even tried? Or just sat idly by and watched.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
- Edmund Burke

A quote like that doesn't stand the test of time without having some basis.

I think your mashing two different historical events together. The colonists who originally left Britain elected to do so for religious reasons (among many other personal reasons I'm sure), but they were still considered British subjects and remained under British power for a while after coming to America, it was only after a course of events that they wanted to severe all ties. Mostly taxes, but other Acts as well.

[!King_Amazon!]

Isn't there always a chance for change? A chance that we may learn after so many mistakes? It sounds like you have given up hope. I don't blame you, sometimes I wish I could just live an ignorant blissful life as well. We can't though, our eyes are not blind the horrors around us. You have to pose the question to yourself KA, when your in your deathbed and you look back on your life... will you be happy with it? Will you have made a difference? Even tried? Or just sat idly by and watched.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
- Edmund Burke

A quote like that doesn't stand the test of time without having some basis.

I think your mashing two different historical events together. The colonists who originally left Britain elected to do so for religious reasons (among many other personal reasons I'm sure), but they were still considered British subjects and remained under British power for a while after coming to America, it was only after a course of events that they wanted to severe all ties. Mostly taxes, but other Acts as well.

I don't think I'm doing "nothing" by being neutral, Kaneda. I think I'm doing more good by being neutral, because I think any deviation from that causes the conflicts in question. Like I said, "Good" and "Evil" fundamentally define each other. Without one, you can't have the other. If you truly want to get rid of "Evil," the only way to do so is by getting rid of "Good." In reality, I don't think you can completely get rid of either, but I think minimizing differences is the key to peace and serenity. Which, in my eyes, is true freedom.

And I'm not mixing up historical events.

"Many of the British North American colonies that eventually formed the United States of America were settled in the seventeenth century by men and women, who, in the face of European persecution, refused to compromise passionately held religious convictions and fled Europe. The New England colonies, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were conceived and established "as plantations of religion." Some settlers who arrived in these areas came for secular motives--"to catch fish" as one New Englander put it--but the great majority left Europe to worship God in the way they believed to be correct. They enthusiastically supported the efforts of their leaders to create "a city on a hill" or a "holy experiment," whose success would prove that God's plan for his churches could be successfully realized in the American wilderness. Even colonies like Virginia, which were planned as commercial ventures, were led by entrepreneurs who considered themselves "militant Protestants" and who worked diligently to promote the prosperity of the church. "

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=pilgrims+religious+persecution&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=19772fca588841f8

[Hayduke]

I don't think I'm doing "nothing" by being neutral, Kaneda. I think I'm doing more good by being neutral, because I think any deviation from that causes the conflicts in question. Like I said, "Good" and "Evil" fundamentally define each other. Without one, you can't have the other. If you truly want to get rid of "Evil," the only way to do so is by getting rid of "Good." In reality, I don't think you can completely get rid of either, but I think minimizing differences is the key to peace and serenity. Which, in my eyes, is true freedom.

It seems to me good and evil only exists in a human world. You take away the people and what do you have left? A utopian world that would ultimately settle into a nice equilibrium years after we have passed.

And yes, I will agree that persecution exists today, and that they did elect to leave because of it. Just because they are persecuted though doesn't mean they can't practice whatever they want still. I was wrongly thinking a long the lines of Governmental persecution.

[!King_Amazon!]

That's exactly my point though. People came here to flee religious persecution. Where did we end back up? I can guarantee you eventually (and probably soon, from the look of things) there will be some sort of anti-religion revolution. And I can pretty much guarantee you religion will come back, as long as anti-religion is there. Dualities are essentially "illusions" that drive change. Happiness and sadness, good and evil, right and wrong, hot and cold, whatever. I like to think of it like a Sine wave.

https://homepages.westminster.org.uk/electronics/images/sig_03.gif

And basically, the harder that people or forces or whatever pull things in one direction (say, up or down), the "noisier" the wave and the stronger the other side will come back. You could say that the "amplitude" of the wave is defined by the strength of the force acting on the wave.

And I'm not suggesting that everyone should just sit around and do nothing. The whole point of the system is to promote change and I think change is a good thing. I just think we are capable of evolving the system to where we can have change in a harmonious way.

[Hayduke]

That seems flawless in theory, but in reality the world has been in a constant decline in almost every way since the dawn of industrial civilization.

[Skurai]

Holy crap that was awesome... :eek:
So, let me see if I get what you said, exactly, K_A.
When one of them is intense (Anti-religion revolution) the other will become be less intense, but in the end, it will wiggle back the opposite way, later (religion comes back afterward)? Or did I get that all wrong?

[!King_Amazon!]

It sounds like you've got the right idea. And basically, I'm saying "harmony" and "peace" are when the wiggles are smaller and smaller (as in, more people pulling toward the center than the extremes.)

[Hayduke]

I feel like the only way your theory could be correct is if the periods in between each peak we're drastically longer. Like over the course of multiple centuries.

[!King_Amazon!]

Actually, my theory has gotten even more bizarre lately. I think it's actually like a sine wave with waves in it. The "waves in the wave" would be the period between each wave (which gets longer and longer over time, and then shorter and shorter over time) and the amplitude from one wave to the next (which gets bigger and bigger over time and then smaller and smaller over time.) I haven't thought it out much past that though, because I think it will most likely end up being an infinitely complex wave which kinda becomes pointless to talk about.

[Skurai]

You could try with another picture. I think I have an idea what you mean though... I'm guessing from what I remember in class (a good two montsh ago) that it would probably look like the one above, but with a bunch more little wiggles attached to the big wiggles, and they start close together, come apart, then back together, right?

[!King_Amazon!]

I'm guessing from what I remember in class (a good two montsh ago) that it would probably look like the one above, but with a bunch more little wiggles attached to the big wiggles, and they start close together, come apart, then back together, right?

Yep. I don't have a picture handy at the moment but it sounds like you know what I'm talking about.

[Grav]

but it sounds like you know what I'm talking about.

ITT: Miracles

[Skurai]

Well, when you have three science classes, and can't afford to fail any more, you do seem to learn a few things.

[!King_Amazon!]

ITT: Miracles
ITT: rofls and pancakes

[Skurai]

Ooo, now I'm hungry. :o

[D3V]

I can guarantee you eventually (and probably soon, from the look of things) there will be some sort of anti-religion revolution.

I tend to believe the extremely religious would want this to occur near 2012 considering all of the prophecies and biblicial significance, but it won't happen. There won't be an anti-religion revolution, no, the 'greatest-generation' folks are starting to die out, and once they're all gone, the base of the ignorance movement is going to be demolished.

[Skurai]

Unless, of course, you look around. Alot of young people - believe it or not - are becoming highly religious. My guess is, they have kids. Those kids are raised religious. It builds back to the normal thing. Or, in other worlds, the wiggles meet up in the middle.
And quite honestly, I don't think anyone, religious or not, who has any brains believes in 2012. Yeah, nine different psychics, callenders, fortune telling toys, etc. all point at it, but it's definately a bunch of crap.

[!King_Amazon!]

I tend to believe the extremely religious would want this to occur near 2012 considering all of the prophecies and biblicial significance, but it won't happen. There won't be an anti-religion revolution, no, the 'greatest-generation' folks are starting to die out, and once they're all gone, the base of the ignorance movement is going to be demolished.
I agree with what you're saying, I think we're just disagreeing on a minor point. I would agree that religion is going to die over time (and I believe it already is.) I just think the signs are pointing toward a big crash coming, rather than the expected steady fall. It seems to me like people are finally starting to question their "authorities" more frequently, and the more people who join the side of rationality, the more people you have realizing the evil behind religion. The more people who realize that religion is evil, the more likely there will be a revolution of sorts.

I don't think it is necessarily just toward religion, either. I think individuals are starting to realize that they can think as individuals rather than listen to Gods and Saints. But I think it has worldly roots as well with government. We're hearing more and more about corrupt politicians, corrupt cops, fucked up tax laws and stupid laws in general (like drug laws).

Change is coming, in one way or another, that fact is unavoidable.

[D3V]

Change is coming, in one way or another, that fact is unavoidable.

I can't wait.

[Skurai]

I can't care less. :rolleyes:

[D3V]

I don't think it is necessarily just toward religion, either. I think individuals are starting to realize that they can think as individuals rather than listen to Gods and Saints. But I think it has worldly roots as well with government. We're hearing more and more about corrupt politicians, corrupt cops, fucked up tax laws and stupid laws in general (like drug laws).

Sort of like an age of enlightenment? I think the fact that our world is more networked and inetertwined more than ever plays a huge significance in your point. People are statrting to realize how the world is ran, and how corrupt religions are around the world. Not only the religions around here but other countries and their religious influence and how it is used to control the masses.

I don't know if we were raised differently to ask questions, not take things as they seem. Skepticism is a hard thing to come by, and we need more of it in our world.

[Skurai]

So... after religion is erased, what becomes corrupt in it's place? Afterall, when something works and fails, you don't give up, you just tweak it a little. If religion can't brainwash people anymore, what does?

[D3V]

Greed.

[!King_Amazon!]

Capitalism is a religion no different than Christianity. "The Fed" is essentially like the priesthood. "Free Market" is championed as the be-all-end-all in a similar way to "God". And the system is entirely faith based. We put faith in our paper bills when we use them as currency because we're assuming that they have real value based on what "The Fed" tells us. We put faith in "Free Market" to fix all of our problems.

Evolution works universally, in my opinion. Religion is just evolving.

[Skurai]

Strangely, just about anything that has ranks works like that, amirite?