Aaron Heath sent me this image:
Reminds me of the Point of Inquiry podcast I listened to this morning with Peter Irons. Irons is “a noted constitutional scholar, historian, and lawyer, he is the author of the bestselling May It Please the Court; The Battle for the Constitution; War Powers: How the Imperial Presidency Hijacked the Constitution; and A People’s History of the Supreme Court. His newest book is God on Trial: Dispatches from America’s Religious Battlefields.” In the podcast he mentions that the “Founding Fathers” of the US were very clear that the country was NOT based on Christianity or any other religion. They were fighting FOR separation of church and state and yet, somehow, many Americans seem to have turned that on its head.
For all our problems (and, having just watched BLOOD DIAMONDS, we don’t have many), Australia is at least not run by the religious right. Not yet, anyway.
Aaron also has this video on his blog. Nicely done.
“The United States is based on freedom of religion, speech, etc, which means you can believe in God any way you want (Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, etc), but you must believe.”
A-wha? Hello crack-smoking American! I woulda thought “freedom” would mean you could believe in any gawd you wanted to or none at all… silly me! I need to go look up the word “freedom” in the American English dictionary or something, they must have a different definition than everyone else on the planet.
You can have freedom of religion, but you must believe in the approved gawd figure! Otherwise you must get out! Duh.