Speaker Johnson: Separation of church, state ‘a misnomer’

If I were a betting cyborg I would bet that they would thrive by converting to the other religion at near light speed.

arguing that the founding fathers wanted faith to be a “big part” of government

No they didn't. They came from a nation where the King was head of State and Church. That was literally one of the things they absolutely DID NOT want in the next form of government.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

— Thomas Jefferson (1802)

There needs to be an understanding that many founding fathers of this nation wanted religion to be between themselves and their chosen god. Because there isn't a "establish religion within Government" that's what foolish people think it always ends as "Government establishing religion".

Like we could have Members of Congress that establish laws and participate within the marketplace they have created, come win or lose. However, we know that instead Members of Congress manipulate the market solely for wins at the loss to others.

If Congress cannot help themselves to be greedy when given a free market, what makes anyone think that they won't outright dictate religion if given the chance? And the answer is, they wouldn't. That's why there is a separation. Given the chance, if enough Baptist got into power, they would absolutely outlaw Catholics.

The Founding Fathers weren't idiots. They absolutely held tight to the "power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely." Any time a government is handed the power to mix religion and law, that law turns into dictating religion. That's why there is a separation. So we don't have to go Salem Witch hunting folks based on which definition of the Trinity they hold to.

They all think this moment of peace between the various Christianities will just last until forever, not realizing that the reason there is this peace is because all of the various flavors get treated equally. Change that equation and we're right back to the 1600s where we've got one cult trying to murder and outlaw the others.

These idiots have zero idea what they are clamoring for. They think their team, should the equality barrier get taken away, will be the one that wins out. And it's likely that enough zealots exist that Speaker Johnson would be burned at the stake for some odd reason his version of God isn't the correct one. Or even worse, Speaker Johnson's version get outlawed so it'll be legal and cool to burn him at the stake.

Like how bad does one have to fail at history to not understand this point?

Cherry-picking

Bible 🤝Constitution

Whichever church the listener that might vote for her is part of.

There's no honesty or intent here. Just malicious orchestration of dumb people.

I was corrected on this recently. The Hebrew Bible was written by Iron Age folks. As was the Gospels.

FYI

That's a very positive outlook that humanity will survive to explore the stars without being killed by religious fascists.

You live in amazing times where we are inventing and learning new shit all the time. If you're not exploring now when that exploring is relatively very safe, you wouldn't be the one sailing off to the new world hundreds of years ago. People can be miserable or content in their own time, no matter what that time is.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/thomas-jefferson-religious-institutions/

I agree with your sentiment, but please don't spread misinformation regardless of intent.

Constitution only says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Jefferson coined the term in a letter regarding the 1A.

Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but in any case "separation of church and state" is how we have always interpreted it.

You should already hate faith. Faith is what the religious use to justify doing nothing themselves.

Hell, faith is the reason half of them are sitting around hoping for Armageddon...

Are you trying to equate the Catholic, Baptist, protestant, etc. church dictating governance as being no better than the concept of Sharia law?

That's how I'm interpreting your statement, and in that specific context, I fully agree...

Sharia isn't specific to Taliban, but whatever, I think I'm on the same page still :)

Tax the FUCK Out of them if they think they have a say on govt

Would they be fine with all this?

And in today's lesson, we will learn the term "double standards": yes they would be fine with this because they think they are the state, also they think they are basically god's will and anything contradicting that will be fought tooth and nail. IF they should ever see another religion even approach their level of power, then they will attempt everything in their power to restrict that religion's advances because they were always proponents of a separation of ( at least that other) religion and the state. Any inconsistencies in that worldview are not, as it may seem at first glance (or second [or third and all thereafter]) pure hypocrisy because it's obviously an ENTIRELY different situation when they are affected. As soon as their power is then consolidated again, separation of church and state shouldn't be taken THAT seriously anymore - it's not that important as long as the RIGHT religion is the state...

As always, they are the one's in power, and therefore assume they'll be the only one's writing the rules.

A better example than pork products might be abortion.

There are literally no Jewish groups that are anywhere near as hard-line on abortion as Christians are. And the pro-life crowd would be quite upset if the laws on abortion were written by either reform or conservative rabbis.

The problem with Mike Johnson's position is that once you get past the basics like "don't murder", religions disagree significantly on the specifics. For example, according to Orthodox Judaism, you must abort a fetus that's threatening the mothers life, while some Christians would call that murder.

There's no such thing as generic "faith based principles" to base a government on; at some point you simply have to pick which religions' principles you'll enshrine.

Without separation, the government could impose and anti hypocrisy clause when people claim religious freedom -- if the person claiming it has demonstrably and willfully gone against their religion's rules, they can't claim religious freedom for a different rule.

Permanently Deleted

I would love to see what the rules are after all the major religions cooperate and build a new world order. I’d imagine it’d be something like “everyone is vegan now. Be nice to everyone. Except the Roma”.

They would just change the argument again to "the founding fathers were Christian they had every intention of allowing Christian religion to inform government decisions. The founding fathers never were Muslim or Jewish nor did they enact any policy that originated from their respective religious books. So based on that history we only allow Christian laws to be made, anything else is unconstitutional."

/Vomit

@fubo and Rhode Island was born.

@jeffw

This goes along with someone else's question above in response to Boebert - "which church?" It's ironic that the biggest benefactors of separation are religions, and they're the first to try and dismantle it.

The founders of the Constitution and others back then disagreed on a lot of issues and had a few false starts, as well as expected us to continue to modify laws as society changed. But they certainly agreed on no religion within politics, they lived in a world where that had been shown to be problematic over and over. We can see it now as religion creeps back in to our current politics as well as worldwide in other nations.

Hey some people like being whipped. No kinkshaming please! ;)

Misnomer - Intentionally misleading name

So I understand what he thinks it means, a catch-all for things like "I know what it sounds like, but it isn't.", like how the Observer in Quantum Phenonemon refers to the tools used, not people actually looking at it... Leading to many misunderstandings on the Dual Slit.

But it's a title for something that's INTENDED to be misleading for one reason or another, like if I named a terrible place to live "Paradise", or a completely harmless and actively friendly snake "The Incredibly Deadly Viper"

Yes, A Series of Unfortunate Events was my English Lesson as a kid