Ms. Palin Upset about court ruling refusing National Day of Prayer

It does say exactly that but we cannot seem to get the far right and the press to read it, or, maybe they do not understand it..... Maybe they think it was a typo....

Actually it says nothing of the sort. The establishment clause was meant to protect religion and it's followers from government. All it says is that comgress shall make no law establishing a religion or prohibiting the free excersize thereof.

since you have your constitution memorised i am sure you are right. so what exactly does it say regarding religion and government? since it was i think established by people trying to avoid what had happened in europe at that time (religion was in charge) i would guess there's quite a bit.

The press loved the Obama comment. They failed to point out that it was the same thing Washington, Adams, Jefferson and most of the 41 presidents that came after them all stated at one time or another.

laglen - there is no reason you should not have a day of prayer but i think according to your constitution the state should not be involved. the day of prayer perhaps could be organised by a multi-religion association or something. or everybody could just agree to keep the current day and individuals/groups can observe it how they see fit.

Great idea but it would not score any political points there fore why bother. This way there is a lot of political hay to be made and someone will make lots of money off of the idea.

So just how would a national prayer be worded to encompass all Americans. A prayer that would be for Catholics, Christains, Jews, Muslims, Atheist, native Americans, Buddhist, Agnostics, Hindus, Pagan's and the other three hundred religions that are out there. The question really was, why no one does exactly what you just did, qoute the line verbatim and correct these statements when they are made. As you just made apparent it is ten words and they are not hard to understand. If the court allows/recognizes a national prayer it is the same as endorsing someone's god and their religion as a national standard. For the record this is a Christian group wanting the National Prayer.

Good site for information, thanks for posting.

i might not be an expert on american history but i think the word you'd use is 'pagan'.

Our nation's foundational document, the Declaration of Independence is an explicit rejection of seventeen centuries of Christian theology. Christian theology was the Divine Right of Kings, that Kings rule by the Grace of Yhvh, and to rebel against them was to rebel against Yhvh. American political theory is that governments rule justly by the consent of the governed. Some of the Founders were Christian, others were Deist. When Christian drafters of the Constitution wanted to add language acknowledging the nation as Christian, they were voted down.

I will try to make this short. The original Dutch settlers were certainly Christain. The Adamses spent their whole marriage in discussions with Jefferson about thier beleifs and doubts as Christians. Jefferson re-wrote the Bible and that version (the Jeffersn Bible) was distributed to every member of congress until the eary 1900's. In his version Christ is not a deity and none of the scripture is to be taken literally. Although Washington had few public statements about religion he was agnostic to the Christian idea if not a complete atheist. He was a registered Mason but most historians believe that his affiliation with them was more a business/political advantage than any real conviction. His relationship with his mother went bad very early in his life by his own words because she was a "Bible Beater". he frowned heavily on prayer and religous events through out the rest of his life. Eight of the top ten signers of the constitution and declaration were all students of Cirrus. They had all been students of the nightmares that had plagued England, France and Spain for 200 years concerning the church and were all convinced that religion had been one of the failures of Rome. No, after years of reading letters and biography's I don't think they wanted us to believe that we are a Christain Nation or founded on those driving principals or that we should even reference the idea when discussing politics. They rarely did. With the exception of Madison most had very little religious motivation. The references to chritianity and the movement in the US starts showing up publicly in the 1920's where govenment and politics is concerned. Prayer's at most political events such as inauguration's have only been in place since Ronald Reagan. In God We Trust was not on our money until the 1950's. To answer your last question, their common beleif was that, for the first time in human history, a nation could exist that was self governed and would put personal freedom's above all else.

The nation has gotten away from "Christmas" it is now called the winter break when it comes to school. We are told we should be saying happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas. Why do we need a day of prayer? simple fact is we can pray whenever we please and nobody can stop us. I thought the same way when they had it in school. We have 24 hours within a day if I choose to close my eyes and say a prayer then I will do it whenever and where ever I choose to. I do not need the permission of the government or another human telling me when I can or can not do it. Why make such a big deal out of it? Why does there have to be a day dedicated to it. I believe in freedom of religion. We celebrate our religion every single day. This is just something that can cause more separation of the people of the US. Politics and religion!

grammasnook: All that is good and well. If people want to get away from Christmas and want to ditch prayer days, that's on them. But to have the government and courts start in on removing stuff is a bit off putting for me. And I'm not even religious. What's next for them to remove? It just seems too much like nanny state nonsense to me. If something is there that isn't hurting anyone, then choose to subscribe or don't. It doesn't need to be gasped at and erased from the board by activists. It's not a KKK day or Che week or something. (Although, ironically, since a minority would be the ones celebrating Che week, it would actually be 'special interest' and get prime placement instead of being removed. ) To me, it's part of a broader picture - one that's not necessarily separating from "religion," but pulling away from Christianity and the notion that we're a Christian country. Not that I have a dog in the fight one way or the other. But neither does government. I almost want to believe that this was a correction of Truman's and eventually Congress' declaration, observing that they had no Constitutional authority to recognize a day of prayer. But I certainly do not believe that to be the case.

you have Days for everything. earth day, no smoking day, hamburger day, shotgun day etc. no reason why a group of religions shouldn't have a prayer day but your government probably should not be involved.