Constitutionality of National Day of Prayer?

All I'm saying is even if we get rid of the problem, it'll just come back a century later.

Solution: Passing down values and morals with each generation.

If the survivors are in agreement (which presumably they would be since they most likely would have been active participants in the revolution) that the world that they had come from and are now moving away from was virtually evil in every aspect I think they/we would be determined to make sure it will not happen again.
At some point it all comes down to; do we want to destroy ourselves by destroying the land we live on? Or do we want to live with nature as intended the only harmonious way possible?

If the survivors are in agreement (which presumably they would be since they most likely would have been active participants in the revolution) that the world that they had come from and are now moving away from was virtually evil in every aspect I think they/we would be determined to make sure it will not happen again.

I'm gonna go right ahead and call you out on this one, because I think you're wrong. And to perhaps lend credence to my argument, it kinda validates Skurai's assumption that things will always end up back where they were, which annoys me to no end because I generally can't stand the fucker.

Why did people originally come to America? To escape religious persecution. The "founding fathers" as they're often labeled wanted to make sure this didn't happen again, because they and their ancestors had endured it. However, look at America today. It would be beyond foolish to claim that religious persecution is absent today. It would be an UNDERSTATEMENT to say that religious persecution runs rampant. Our own elected officials swear on the Bible to uphold the constitution. Try growing up in the south as a person who questions religion and tell me that religious freedom exists in America. Hell, tell me that much freedom at all exists and I'd call you crazy. And freedom is exactly what our country was supposedly founded on.

You can try to change things all you want, but reality is that "good" and "evil" (or as I'd rather like to call them, "side 1" and "side 2") are both going to be around forever, because they fundamentally define each other. In my opinion, the best way to deal with them is to learn to let them coexist. The more one side fights against the other, the more the other side fights back. I like to think of it like a tug-of-war match with a giant rubberband. The harder each side fights, the more stress each side experiences. The natural tendency of things is towards neutrality. Because really, why the fuck should we pull on the rubber band when we could just stop, get together in the middle, and smoke a fatty?

Isn't there always a chance for change? A chance that we may learn after so many mistakes? It sounds like you have given up hope. I don't blame you, sometimes I wish I could just live an ignorant blissful life as well. We can't though, our eyes are not blind the horrors around us. You have to pose the question to yourself KA, when your in your deathbed and you look back on your life... will you be happy with it? Will you have made a difference? Even tried? Or just sat idly by and watched.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
- Edmund Burke

A quote like that doesn't stand the test of time without having some basis.

I think your mashing two different historical events together. The colonists who originally left Britain elected to do so for religious reasons (among many other personal reasons I'm sure), but they were still considered British subjects and remained under British power for a while after coming to America, it was only after a course of events that they wanted to severe all ties. Mostly taxes, but other Acts as well.

Isn't there always a chance for change? A chance that we may learn after so many mistakes? It sounds like you have given up hope. I don't blame you, sometimes I wish I could just live an ignorant blissful life as well. We can't though, our eyes are not blind the horrors around us. You have to pose the question to yourself KA, when your in your deathbed and you look back on your life... will you be happy with it? Will you have made a difference? Even tried? Or just sat idly by and watched. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke A quote like that doesn't stand the test of time without having some basis. I think your mashing two different historical events together. The colonists who originally left Britain elected to do so for religious reasons (among many other personal reasons I'm sure), but they were still considered British subjects and remained under British power for a while after coming to America, it was only after a course of events that they wanted to severe all ties. Mostly taxes, but other Acts as well.

I don't think I'm doing "nothing" by being neutral, Kaneda. I think I'm doing more good by being neutral, because I think any deviation from that causes the conflicts in question. Like I said, "Good" and "Evil" fundamentally define each other. Without one, you can't have the other. If you truly want to get rid of "Evil," the only way to do so is by getting rid of "Good." In reality, I don't think you can completely get rid of either, but I think minimizing differences is the key to peace and serenity. Which, in my eyes, is true freedom.

And I'm not mixing up historical events.

"Many of the British North American colonies that eventually formed the United States of America were settled in the seventeenth century by men and women, who, in the face of European persecution, refused to compromise passionately held religious convictions and fled Europe. The New England colonies, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were conceived and established "as plantations of religion." Some settlers who arrived in these areas came for secular motives--"to catch fish" as one New Englander put it--but the great majority left Europe to worship God in the way they believed to be correct. They enthusiastically supported the efforts of their leaders to create "a city on a hill" or a "holy experiment," whose success would prove that God's plan for his churches could be successfully realized in the American wilderness. Even colonies like Virginia, which were planned as commercial ventures, were led by entrepreneurs who considered themselves "militant Protestants" and who worked diligently to promote the prosperity of the church. "

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=...772fca588841f8

I don't think I'm doing "nothing" by being neutral, Kaneda. I think I'm doing more good by being neutral, because I think any deviation from that causes the conflicts in question. Like I said, "Good" and "Evil" fundamentally define each other. Without one, you can't have the other. If you truly want to get rid of "Evil," the only way to do so is by getting rid of "Good." In reality, I don't think you can completely get rid of either, but I think minimizing differences is the key to peace and serenity. Which, in my eyes, is true freedom.

It seems to me good and evil only exists in a human world. You take away the people and what do you have left? A utopian world that would ultimately settle into a nice equilibrium years after we have passed.

And yes, I will agree that persecution exists today, and that they did elect to leave because of it. Just because they are persecuted though doesn't mean they can't practice whatever they want still. I was wrongly thinking a long the lines of Governmental persecution.

That's exactly my point though. People came here to flee religious persecution. Where did we end back up? I can guarantee you eventually (and probably soon, from the look of things) there will be some sort of anti-religion revolution. And I can pretty much guarantee you religion will come back, as long as anti-religion is there. Dualities are essentially "illusions" that drive change. Happiness and sadness, good and evil, right and wrong, hot and cold, whatever. I like to think of it like a Sine wave.



And basically, the harder that people or forces or whatever pull things in one direction (say, up or down), the "noisier" the wave and the stronger the other side will come back. You could say that the "amplitude" of the wave is defined by the strength of the force acting on the wave.

And I'm not suggesting that everyone should just sit around and do nothing. The whole point of the system is to promote change and I think change is a good thing. I just think we are capable of evolving the system to where we can have change in a harmonious way.