On 9/2/11 1:39 PM, BAR wrote:
In ,
says...
Fredom of religion, not freedom from religion. The first amendment
doesn't give you the ability to regulate my religion. If you want to get
into defining what a religion is then we can take the discussion in that
direction.
I agree completely with everything you said in the paragraph above. The
Founding Fathers did want people to be able to practice the religion of
their choice, but were emphatic that they did not want the government to
be involved in endorsing any religion. So many of the early colonies
were established because of Europeans having state sponsored religion.
I am Catholic, in the not too distant past Catholics were not considered
Christians and many people called them "Papist" who could not be a good
Americans because they were loyal to the pope. The article from
Wikipedia discusses the history of "papist", but even when Kennedy was
running for president his detractors was calling him a Papist.
The KKK called Catholics Papist and Jew's Christ Killers. We don't want
to return to a period where the majority religion can restrict the
minorities ability to practice the religion of their choice, or the
Catholics and Jews would not be tolerated by many in the majority.
from Wikipedia
Papist is a term, usually disparaging or an anti-Catholic slur,
referring to the Catholic Church, its teaching, practices or adherents.
It was coined during the English Reformation to denote a Christian whose
loyalties were to the Pope, rather than to the Church of England. Over
time, however, it came to mean one who supported Papal authority over
all Christians and thus became a popular term, especially among
Anglicans and Presbyterians. The word, dating from 1534, derives via
Middle French from Latin papa, meaning "Pope".[2]
The word was in common use until the mid-nineteenth century, as shown by
its frequent appearance in Macaulay's History of England from the
Accession of James II and in other historical or controversial works of
that period. It also appeared frequently in the compound form
"Crypto-Papist".[3][4][5]