Friday, November 23, 2007

Church and State

Over the couple of years since I started this blog, I've made a large number of posts on religion and separation of church and state issues, so it isn't surprising that I've finally managed to get on someone's "hit list".

But what fucking rock did this moron crawl out from under?

Way back in August I did a blog post on The Faith Based Pentagon, excoriating the Christian Embassy crowd for sticking their stinking noses into the military tent.

So now it's November, and someone calling himself "Curtis Patton" is just now trying to take me to task over it:

Where in the Constitution do you find seperation of church and state. No it is not in the 1st amendment. The phrase was in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to a Clergy letting him know that the state would not get involved in Religion. You atheist have gotten it wrong for so long you think that your wrong ideas are the truth.
He goes on to gamely try to disprove evolution for a couple more sentences, but to no avail, of course.

So, in spite of myself, I answered the lame-ass motherfucker thusly:
Curtis:
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
So why don't you tell me where in the Constitution it DOESN'T say there is a wall of separation?
It will probably come as a surprise to you, since I'm pretty sure you haven't actually READ it, that the US Constitution mentions religion exactly TWO TIMES and ONLY two times:
One is in the often-misrepresented-by-your-side First Amendment, and the other in Article VI - Debts, Supremacy, Oaths
...
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. [Emphasis added]
And if that's not a clear indication of that Wall of Separation, then I don't know what would be.
You Fundos in the Wingnuttery are so fond of pointing out the "intent of the Founders" when it comes to constitutional questions, except when it doesn't support your own thesis.
And as far as your comments about evolution...well, if you cannot see the truth in the theory, then you are beyond help anyway.
(BTW, don't you have a spell-check on your computer? "seperation", "disproveing", "absense", etc. Please, come back when you've managed to get yourself an education and we'll talk some more -- Remember, I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man...)
He hasn't come back, of course. The vast majority of them never do. In the immortal words of Harry S Truman, "If you don't like the heat, get out of the kitchen."

6 Comments:

billie said...

perhaps he's a little slow. apparently, he's a little slow :) i suppose the hamsters don't know that their wheels are going down with their ship.

The Future Was Yesterday said...

Three words: Pound The Moherfucker!!

fjb said...

Bwwwaaahhhaaahhhaaa. And they wonder why so many of us choose atheism.:-)

Chuck said...

...and they make up 30% of the population! deep, deep shit!

derekstaff said...

You missed the crucial third time, Farnsworth. “Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth...” So obviously “The Founders” intended this to be a Christian nation, in which our values were forced upon everyone for their own salvation. Hallelujah!

I’m a faithful religious person myself, and the inanity of my fellow worshippers astounds me to no end. It is a wonderful thing to be devout--just do not do so ignorantly. I wonder what these people would do if they were to actually crack open a history book and discover that Madison, primary author of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, felt that government should not even be cognizant of, let alone supportive of, religion. The sooner the evangelicals and other Right-wing Christians realize that true faith is developed through persuasion and love, not legal coercion, the better off both our religion and our government will be.

Farnsworth68 said...

Thanks, Derek.
And folks, this is the owner of A Liberal Mormon blog, where I engaged one of his apparent regular readers in a mini-debate on the legality of the Iraq War.
When I went to his blog, I was very pleased to see someone from what is generally considered a very conservative religious perspective commenting "liberally" on some of the topics which we find entertaining and important.
Welcome, Derek!