No prayers before city council meetings, Charlotte mayor Roberts says

For Nelson: Looking at the First Amendment as written by the founding fathers--"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." Of these two points made relative to religion, the first point is indeed very straight forward. It says clearly that the government of these new United States is prohibited from establishing a State religion as was the case in several European countries in that day; and, including our Mother Country's Church of England. That point was made and that point stands. There is no Federal established or enforced religion in this country. The second point was set forth by the founders to combat religious intolerance. It was established to protect citizens' rights to practice their faith and not to inhibit it. Historically, this was an outgrowth of the religious wars of earlier centuries in Europe and the persecutions many of the earliest settlers to New World suffered in their various homelands. Now opening prayers at graduations, city council meetings, etc, are "not to be tolerated." I see that as counter to the intent of the First Amendment and an infringement on the rights of citizens to practice their religion. The men who wrote and/or ratified the Constitution, along with the Bill of Rights, were not dissimilar from us. They ran the gamut from the devoutly religious to the abject nihilist with great majority falling somewhere in between but, from that day to this, Congress has opened with a prayer, the inauguration of a new Presidential term begins with a prayer and the Supreme court goes into session with the following traditional invocation, "God bless the United States and this honorable court." I cannot fathom as to why prayer is suddenly such a bad thing.

LTC Tom Jones - sir, you are free to do so, to believe as you wish as to a Christian deity, and to encourage others to do the same. In the same manner, I'm free to reject those beliefs that don't have evidentiary support, to encourage others to base their beliefs on rational arguments and evidence, and to generally object to the imposition of the morals of the religious on the rest of us.

Separation of church and was designed to protect religion from government intrusion AND to protect government from religious intrusion. It goes both ways.

If you're going to interpret and pull straws and fine lines on the First Amendment, shouldn't we also interpret and pull straws on the Second? You can have prayers and someone else can ban your guns.

Second point: I wouldn't mind as much if a contemplative moment, a minute of silence or even a non-sectarian, non-Trinitarian, non-Christian prayer was a part of the agenda. Or even sectarian, but together with other faiths/non-faiths represented on different days. It would actually be a good practice as it would represent the rich diversity of our nation and that, despite our differences, were are one.

But invariably, some folks take their Mark 16:15 and make an issue out of it. So even in places where they have started doing Buddhist, Humanist, Hindu, or Koran prayers, it ends being a temporary, and the agenda returns to establishing one religion as the one, privileged, exclusive practice.

Mark, Luke or anyone else in the good book have no legal standing. Nor does Mohammad, Buddha or Vishnu. So as the adagio goes, "that's why we can't have nice things".

Lawrence, retaliatory down-voting is a violation of RP policies. You may want to rethink what you're doing here.

Besides, what both LTC (Join to see) and 1stSgt Nelson Kerr said was absolutely correct. Studies have shown the ineffectiveness of prayer, and your comment to 1StSgt Kerr was inappropriate and insulting.

Next, you certainly have no problem belittling those who don't believe as you, but you get offended when someone believes that a "personal relationship" with a likely imaginary being is BS? So what? You have an imaginary friend who you believe is going to torture Nelson and I for all eternity, yet we're supposed to be good with that?

Yeah, right.

Cpl Lawrence Lavictoire - I wasn't preaching to you. And if all you've got to defend your faith is to tell someone to grow up, you don't have much to bring to the discussion.

Capt Gregory Prickett - I'd like an imaginary friend who deposited money in my bank account.

LTC (Join to see) - Actually nor do you mitch. Like I said before,
I will defend my faith and my God! You carry on with your building-blocks.
I will say this for the last time; I be-little no one, (I do not draw first blood,as they say) but, I will not let anyone belittle or call names of any kind to God. I will throw at you what you throw at my God. That is my right prickett/mich/nelson. You guys clean up your act and put downs and I will do the same! And again, I will pray for you all. God Bless!

Cpl Lawrence Lavictoire - So it does not mean what the words say, but what you find convenient? Sadly typical

Cpl Lawrence Lavictoire - Jesus gave a lot of blessing and gave thanks to the Father in public. What other prayers did he give in public?

Cpl Lawrence Lavictoire - When Jesus said, "When you pray, go into your room and close the door." He didn't really mean that? Or did he mean it?

1stSgt Nelson Kerr - why do you think that there are over 40,000 sects of Christianity? My take on that is that if you, as god, are trying to get your message out to people, but there are over 40,000 different interpretations of what your message means, you've pretty much failed at what you tried to do.