Founding fathers and church/state separation

rturner76 said:

I don't believe there is such a thing as a worthless degree.

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Consider that at one point in the past....you could have studied phrenology.

You can't study that now....because it was a scientific theory and science has a tendency to disprove bad theories and discard them.

If what you study has no basis in factual reality....it's hard to imagine any value that could ultimately be derived from it.

If you put two people up for a job and one has a BA in women's studies and one has a GED. the person with the degree will get the job every time.

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Lol that's a great example. Let's assume this is true, and let's assume that the reason is that despite not believing or having any use for anything in "women's studies" our businesses hire more people with the college degree....and less people with the GED.

Here's the test...do they perform better or worse than the GED on average?

We might find out after 5 years, the problems of hiring these college students with "women's studies" degrees are mainly a result of these employees focusing more on "workplace culture" or "political advocacy" than doing actual work. Our CEO is constantly being bombarded with demands he release public statements regarding social issues or protests will happen. This doesn't happen at those branches of the business where they hire GED employees who integrate more successfully to their jobs.

What happens to the value of the degree over time? Worth even less than the GED, right? Did the GED change value?

If the last 10 years of college students repeat this over and over....those degrees become worthless.

So their prospects aren't nil, they just might not be able to work in their chosen field for a while.

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I disagree. If you spend 100k on a degree and can't find a job that will allow you to pay off the 100k in loans you owe....and any job you can find is something you could have gotten with a GED.....your degree, in a monetary evaluation, is worth -100k.

It's not that the job market is bad....it's that you pursued something you found interesting, but is worthless.

I mean you're talking to someone who went to college, got a relatively worthless degree, and the only upside is my job criteria requires one. It doesn't really matter which one. I could have pursued the cheapest and easiest degree and got the same job. If I were working with people doing my job and they've only graduated high school? I've done nothing but burn money.

They used to offer degrees in "forensic psychology" which isn't even a real job. It's just something people believed was a job because of movies like Silence of the Lambs and TV shows like CSI.

Aldebaran said:

"In it's place"?
Right now, even a Rosary is labeled as an "extremist symbol".
Atlantic op-ed claims Catholic rosary has become ‘an extremist symbol’

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Actual article: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/a...list-catholic-christian-rosary-weapon/671122/

Like such networks, radical-traditional Catholics sustain their own cottage industry of goods and services that reinforces the radicalization. Rosaries are common among the merchandise on offer—some made of cartridge casings, and complete with gun-metal-finish crucifixes. One Catholic online store, which describes itself as “dedicated to offering battle-ready products and manuals to ‘stand firm against the tactics of the devil’” (a New Testament reference), sells replicas of the rosaries issued to American soldiers during the First World War as “combat rosaries.” Discerning consumers can also buy a “concealed carry” permit for their combat rosary and a sacramental storage box resembling an ammunition can. In 2016, the pontifical Swiss Guard accepted a donation of combat rosaries; during a ceremony at the Vatican, their commander described the gift as “the most powerful weapon that exists on the market.”

The militarism also glorifies a warrior mentality and notions of manliness and male strength. This conflation of the masculine and the military is rooted in wider anxieties about Catholic manhood—the idea that it is in crisis has some currency among senior Church figures and lay organizations.

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hislegacy said:

The destiny of America is to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men everywhere. ~ John Adams

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John Adams, Sam Adams and John Quincy Adams were Unitarians, so would you even consider them to be Christian? CF does not.

The original debate on state and religion might have concerned states’ rights of religion vs the federal government. 9 of the original 13 states ( former British colonies) had religious provisions in their constitutions although it seems that they soon did away with these when the Bill of Rights were added to the US Constitution.

Religious Tests and Oaths in State Constitutions, 1776-1784

Ana the Ist said:

I mean you're talking to someone who went to college, got a relatively worthless degree, and the only upside is my job criteria requires one.

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That's what I was getting at. I worked for the YMCA for a number of years and worked my way up to a supervisory position. I could never advance to a director position because it required a BA. It didn't matter what the degree was in, you just had to have one. So I saw directors get hired straight out of college with no experience over me who had years of experience supervising the same group of people as a coordinator. It was just a policy they had that directors need a degree. That's what I meant by no BA is worthless. It will have value somewhere, it just might not be a job in what you studied.

Everything below the director level was hourly with no benefits. The directors on up got a salary with bennies. So I do think people see value in a BA no matter what it is if nothing else because it proves you can set a long-term goal and complete it. A desirable trait in an employee.

Lukaris said:

The original debate on state and religion might have concerned states’ rights of religion vs the federal government. 9 of the original 13 states ( former British colonies) had religious provisions in their constitutions although it seems that they soon did away with these when the Bill of Rights were added to the US Constitution.

Religious Tests and Oaths in State Constitutions, 1776-1784

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Correct. The important point is that government at any level--neither federal, state, or municipal--cannot give preference to any lawful religion over another. And by extension, cannot favor religious belief over non-belief. I live in Missouri, a very conservative state. This is Sec. 7 of our state Constitution. Religion and government are completely separate entities. And I believe you will find the same in any state constitution.

Section 7. Public aid for religious purposes—preferences and discriminations
on religious grounds.—That no money shall ever be taken from the public treasury,
directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect or denomination of religion, or in aid
of any priest, preacher, minister or teacher thereof, as such; and that no preference shall
be given to nor any discrimination made against any church, sect or creed of religion,
or any form of religious faith or worship. (emphasis mine.)

I forgot to mention that only one federal holiday has any direct connection with Christianity. Which obviously is Dec. 25. (Or the Friday or Monday before or after.) And that's far more due to commerce and tradition than religion.

DaisyDay said:

John Adams, Sam Adams and John Quincy Adams were Unitarians, so would you even consider them to be Christian? CF does not.

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Looking into it, it seems John Adams only became a Unitarian in the last few years of his life. Now, the quote offered was:

hislegacy said:

The destiny of America is to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men everywhere. ~ John Adams

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Unless this quote was given in those last few years, him being a Unitarian later in life doesn't seem relevant.

That is, if he said it. No source was provided by hislegacy for the quote, and a search online turns up a lot of people offering this quote but without any sources. I have run into far too many false quotes, especially on the Internet, to trust one without a source being offered. Thus I am not prepared to accept this as an accurate quotation unless a source is offered.

In regards to the other two, it appears John Quincy Adams was a Unitarian, but I didn't find evidence that Samuel Adams was--at least if you're referring to John Adams' cousin. I found a currently living Sam Adams who is a Unitarian but he clearly is someone else entirely.

JSRG said:

Looking into it, it seems John Adams only became a Unitarian in the last few years of his life. Now, the quote offered was:Unless this quote was given in those last few years, him being a Unitarian later in life doesn't seem relevant.

That is, if he said it. No source was provided by hislegacy for the quote, and a search online turns up a lot of people offering this quote but without any sources. I have run into far too many false quotes, especially on the Internet, to trust one without a source being offered. Thus I am not prepared to accept this as an accurate quotation unless a source is offered.

In regards to the other two, it appears John Quincy Adams was a Unitarian, but I didn't find evidence that Samuel Adams was--at least if you're referring to John Adams' cousin. I found a currently living Sam Adams who is a Unitarian but he clearly is someone else entirely.

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It is also worth noting that John Adams, as President, signed the Treaty of Tripoli. It also passed the Senate by unanimous vote. It states, in Article 11, "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion...."

SimplyMe said:

It is also worth noting that John Adams, as President, signed the Treaty of Tripoli. It also passed the Senate by unanimous vote. It states, in Article 11, "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion...."

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The Treaty of Tripoli doesn't mean anywhere near as much as some think it does. All it does is say it isn't founded on the Christian religion--which means nothing other than that there isn't a state church, which is established by the First Amendment. Attempting to get any more out of it than exists in the First Amendment seems foolhardy.

Especially when one considers what would have been required to change this. This line in the treaty wasn't requested by the US government, but was done by the negotiators (and, oddly, appears not to be in the original Arabic from what I can tell, and rather added in the translation).

There's another important factor that must be remembered as to why there would be no desire to haggle over it even if there were objections. Let's recall what the treaty was about and why they wanted it ratified. US ships were being attacked by Muslim ships around the coast of Africa, and due to the Revolution, the US no longer had British ships to protect them. So in an effort to stop the attacks, they wanted to get a treaty set up with the Muslim governments to stop their privateers from doing so.

So the (not necessarily perfectly translated) treaty comes to the US be ratified. Let's remember the length of travel in these days. If the US rejected it on the basis of that line, what happens? Well, they'd have to have people go all the way back to Africa (which would have been, from a search online, a trip of about a month and a half), renegotiate the whole thing and hope the Muslims didn't get annoyed by all of this and demand greater concessions, then come back to get it ratified for real. That's an extra three months at least to get it all done. Would the United States have wanted an extra three months of their ships being attacked, and the possibility of having to give greater concessions, just because of a line that doesn't give any additional requirements to them? Probably not.

Given these circumstances, I feel that attempting to get anything out of the Treaty of Tripoli regarding the opinions of Adam (or anyone else) on church-state relations beyond what is already is in the First Amendment is simply foolhardy.