This is INSANE!! What do you think of this?

Question

MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris told a religious journal that separation of church and state is "a lie" and God and the nation's founding fathers did not intend the country be "a nation of secular laws."

The Republican candidate for U.S. Senate also said that if Christians are not elected, politicians will "legislate sin," including abortion and gay marriage.

Harris made the comments -- which she clarified Saturday -- in the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention, which interviewed political candidates and asked them about religion and their positions on issues.

Separation of church and state is "a lie we have been told," Harris said in the interview, published Thursday, saying separating religion and politics is "wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers."
Electing non-Christians a 'legislative sin'

"If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin," Harris said.

Answer 1

I agree, it's insane. Clearly, the woman cannot read without inserting her own bizarre interpetation to the Constitution. I wonder how she plans to come up with showing the word "God" or "Christianity" in the Constitution when asked for proof. Hopefully she will cement her public ignorance when she points to the only place she'll find it - where it is dated. You would think someone in her position would bother to read Thomas Jefferson or at least have knowledge of the Treaty of Tripoli.

And there are people who still do not recognize the threat to our democratic republic from those who desire theocracy...amazing.

Answer 2

She is actually right about the intentions of the founding fathers. They did not want there to be a separation between church and state. All that you have to do is actually read what they wrote and look at what they did to see this. Let's start by taking a look at the document that actually defines the relationship between church and state, specifically the Constitution. Would you believe that no where in the Constitution does the phrase "separation of church and state" appear nor does any word similar.

In stead what the first amendment says is, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." An establishment of religion is one that is specifically supported by the state. It is something like the Church of England. The Church of England is supported by taxes taken from every citizen of the United Kingdom whether they actually belong to that Church or not. Major changes in doctrine or practices must be approved by Parliament and the Crown before they can be instituted. This is the kind of relationship that the founding fathers wanted to avoid, one in which the government give preference to and controls one religion.

Furthermore, Article 6 of the constitution states, in part, "...but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." This means that the government cannot exclude anyone from holding a public office based on religion. Therefore, you may not keep religion out of government because you may not keep out religious people. The point is that the founders did not want one religion from dominating the government.

Additionally, when you read what the founders said about religion you will see that they saw it as providing the moral foundation that would keep the country strong. They feared the complete separation of religion from public discourse because they saw that step as leading to moral decay. One very eloquent example of this attitude was expressed by George Washington in his Farewell Address to the nation as he left the Presidency. Read it for yourself. Se if he wanted a separation between church and state.

Finally, there is what the first Congress did. It was the first Congress that wrote the Bill of Rights which includes the above quoted phrase from the First Amendment. So, these are the men who would have best understood what they intended by those words. These men also created the positions of House and Senate Chaplain (one for each house). If these men who wrote the Bill of rights had intended for there to be a complete separation between church and state, then why did they create such overtly religious positions within their own chambers? The answer is that they did not want that. The idea that the founders wanted a complete separation between church and state is a myth.

Answer 3

I agree with much of what she said. The "separation" thing has been used to try to keep believers out of the public arena and for such silly things as removing nativity scenes from the public grounds, even though the community has no problem with it. The idea of separation, which is nowhere legislated, was to keep the state out of the church, to stop the Government from controlling the church. I am much more confident that a legislator will vote for moral issues based on a Biblical mindset if they are a Christian, than if they are not, that only makes sense.
God does divinely choose leaders, He causes them to rise, and to fall. But, as a Christian, we are subject to our rulers and must honor them as such, whether we agree with them or not.
Whether electing a non-Christian is "legislative sin" is for ones own conscience to decide. I would bring up the scenario of choosing between say an atheist and a Muslim, do I vote by issues, or not vote at all? Again, that is where we allow our conscience to lead.
Understand this, no Christian wants a theocracy, that is not our goal. We are subject to a higher power and a higher kingdom. Our job here is the spread the Gospel, disciple those who believe, refute error and stand up for the truth of Scripture. All we ask of our leaders is to respect our beliefs and not force us to accept sinful activity.

Answer 4

Unless we require that any elected official have no ties at all to any church or religious organization, then there will be a connection between religion and government. The idea is that the churches should not be involved directly in legislation or government business. However they are involved at the level of campaign money and lobbying, and put huge amounts of pressure on the candidates and the political parties that take their money. The only government that truly had no religious involvement was the Communist Party.

Answer 5

If the government forces people into religious worship against the person's beliefs that will be serious tyranny. There are countries in the world that do this such as China and Burma and a number of Muslim dictatorships. These are the types of countries that the founder fathers of USA did not want USA to be like.

We as voters must be sure to vote for candidates for public office who believe in religious freedom. They must believe that the government should not pass and enforce laws that require people to be of a particular religion. Citizens must have the right to worship according to the dictates of their conscience, unless those worship practices break existing laws against murder, theft, property damage, etc.

Answer 6

The idea behind religion is to unify all sources of understanding into one gigantic easy to use concept of how things work. Christianity is just as screwed up as any other form of thought system we have, as it does not accomodate every answer to every question, as it explains the essence of ultimate reality in non-physicsy earthly terms that just place us back to where we were originally asking the question from: a confused person trying to define everything endlessly, and physics does the same thing as well as politics. The soul is an infinite energy source and our grasp of it is a measure of our evolution and the only real marker for problem-solving.

Answer 7

Maybe the US will declare a theocracy of three gods. Now that would be insane!



The Father, Son and Holy Spirit is like the soul, the body and the works in a single person.

Answer 8

Well in "essence" i think Harris has a point in a literal sense but as far as the christian gaining predominance in politics and christians being the flawful people that they sometimes are, i dont think that thinking is going to keep abortion and gay marriage from becoming justified in law anyway, its almost inevitable, but i do believe christians slow the process down alot.

Answer 9

I sure do hope the non-Christians and the liberal Christians come out in FORCE for this election. This is not only offensive and bigoted, but sheer pandering! Her statements illustrate why separation of church and state was put in place to begin with--our Founding Fathers intended that there be no religious requirements for a leader!

Oh, and I come from Florida and have lots of friends and family there, including members of my home coven. I'm telling them all to make sure they're registered and come out.

Answer 10

Church and state were meant to be separate from the beginning. Some of our first settlers were fleeing religious intolerance.
The in god we trust that is still on the money used to be g.o.d. Short for Government Organized deposits to try to gain the trust of people who saw no value in paper money.