Not in conflict, Not persecuted, Founders' beliefs, No idols, Insulting God, and more

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Not in conflict

As I have been pondering the responses to the suspension of the student from Colonial Heights Middle School, the following comes to mind. The Bible and science really are not in conflict. The Bible tells us the who (God) and the why (love) and science tells us the how of creation. All one has to do is ponder the miracle of the process we are beginning to see with the change in seasons.

If one is standing up for one's rights and or beliefs, one doesn't get someone else to carry to carry the burden for them. Our society is a society of rules and laws. You break the rules and you get punished. Society has enough problems as it is without conveying the message to future adults that it is OK to break the rules. Think about it. In closing, my faith while personal, runs very deep.

Dave Light
Kingsport

Not persecuted

To those who see Alabama's intrepid judge as a persecuted martyr, Roy Moore is not being denied his religious freedom. Here is a basic lesson in American government that many seem to sorely need.

Our First Amendment forbids our government from establishing one religion over another. It doesn't mean religion is banned and it doesn't mean Christians are persecuted. It means every religion gets equal treatment in the eyes of the law. Some fundamentalist Christians make claims about God and the Bible being banned from schools, referring to court decisions forbidding schools from telling children to recite the Lord's Prayer or read the Bible. This is a gross misunderstanding. Children can do whatever they want in their free time, including pray or read the Bible.

The school, however, isn't allowed to force them to. And the government isn't allowed to sit idly by while one of its representatives attempts to establish one religion over all others, which is what Judge Moore was clearly attempting.

The fundamentalist Christian population in America doesn't see getting equal treatment in the eyes of the law with everybody else as fair. It wants schools to teach fundamentalist Christianity as fact, the government to promote it, and every other religion to be thrown out of the window. When this doesn't happen, they claim that they are being persecuted. There are plenty of people in the world, Christians included, who truly are persecuted. American fundamentalists are not among them.

Diane Williams
Elizabethton Copyright September 26, 2003, Kingsport Publishing Corporation.

Founders' beliefs

Actually "The Great Lie" (Bill Davis' letter 9/23) is that anything positive at all could come from further intrusions upon our government by institutionalized religion. That some intrusions have already occurred doesn't mean that more would be beneficial. That the framers of the Constitution had personal religious notions does not give sanction to religious icons in our houses of government. Bill Davis would likely find Thomas Jefferson's religious notions, and those of many of our founding fathers, to be far from his own.

If Mr. Davis would delve into the sad history of church-state entanglements and the tribulations they have brought and still bring upon the human race, he surely would want to modify his position in this matter. But, if his determinants of right and wrong for America today are to be the intentions of our forefathers when they devised our governmental system, without the insights gained through time and experience, then Davis should also strive for the revocation of women's voting privileges and the reinstitutionalization of slavery. Even an eighth-grader can understand that women's suffrage and freedom for all were not among the original intents of our religious forbears.

As to Davis' closing remark, "Only Christians, it seems, are not welcome to the right to assemble or speak our minds,'' how could anyone, whose opinions are printed in the newspaper and whose home town has Church Circle as its centerpiece, make such an irrational statement? Sounds like the usual twist and spin served up to provoke righteous indignation and rally support for an unworthy cause (HR 235, supporters of which should get off the government dole and give up tax-exempt status if they don't want governmental restrictions.) In referring to those who disagree with his viewpoint, Davis probably should label them "demagogues'' rather than "demigods,'' unless his purpose is to exalt them.

Chris McGlothlin
Kingsport

Letters to The Editor - 09/16/2003

No idols

A Ten Commandments monument at a center of a bitter dispute over the constitutional separation of church and state was removed from public view in Alabama's state judicial building.

The words in the Ten Commandments appear first in Exodus, when God lay down the law to Moses at the top of Mt. Sinai. They appear next in Deuteronomy (Chapter 5) 40 years later on the plains of Moab where Moses goes over the law before he is taken up by God.

There's nothing about engraving them in granite or carving them in wood, nothing about putting them in the courthouse, nothing about including them in manmade constitutions or codes. That's because the Ten Commandments aren't a legal agreement among people or between the government and the people. Government's got nothing to do with it.

The Ten Commandments were given to Moses at Sinai, not to Alabama's justice Roy Moore. Honor and keep the Ten Commandments. Don't make them into cast idols at the local courthouse.

Darrel E. Lyons
Elizabethton

Insulting God

Re. the Ten Commandments, it's time to stop insulting God and remove them (from public buildings.) While running religious crusades from public office, Sullivan County has lost 450 students. When I asked for equal access to hang a plaque, I got threatened with a lawsuit to shut me up. When I wouldn't, Mr. Street concocted this "plaque procedure" to discriminate against those asking for equal access. The fundamentalists didn't have to follow that procedure, standing as further proof of government sanctioning of religion in violation of the Constitution.

By tradition, Moses received 613 commandments in Hebrew, not 10 in English, clearly understood to symbolize fundamentalist Protestant tyrants that publicly attack fellow Christians and non-Christians alike. Quoting Mr. Street, "To me it seems perfectly clear that a governmental entity cannot post the Ten Commandments ... attempting to influence the public." To refer to the Christian commandments as a "secular historical document" demeans Christianity to a petty political position. The Declaration of Independence only mentions "nature's God." (The universal God of deism, not the biblical God.)

Our freedoms are not based on manmade religious books interpreted by fanatical mobs and cults. Finally, from Jefferson, "our civil rights have no dependence on religious opinions ... the priest has been hostile to liberty; he is always in alliance with the despot ... It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." And Francis David, "God always took care of his truth Himself and He will always do that in the future as well."

Lewis Loflin
Bristol, VA.

Letters to The Editor - 09/15/2003

Copy Commandments

There is a better way of promoting the Ten Commandments than a 5,000-pound stone located in one city with over 300 churches.

The churches are the ones who should be doing the promotion. It could be done in a simple, inexpensive and legal way that might just reach millions all over the nation.

I suggest the churches make copies of the Ten Commandments and place them in every church in the United States that believes in Christianity. Let the people circulate them where ever they wish - except schools and government buildings. This may also be a useful idea for the Puritans and other civic-minded groups. Copy machines are plentiful and cheap. I believe it is worth a try, how about you?

Kyle E. Jennings
Gate City, VA. Copyright 2003, Kingsport Publishing Corporation.

Letters from September 5

Free to worship

This is in response to the "Fighting Back" letter Aug. 20. It appears this individual's definition of religious freedom is having the Ten Commandments, among other Christian artifacts, plastered all over every public building and the return of Bible reading and similar activities to public schools. The author is correct that the founding fathers saw freedom of speech and freedom of religion as very important, and she correctly states that they did encode it in the First Amendment.

However, the First Amendment comes with two clauses that deal with religion, the free exercise clause which has already been mentioned, but it also contains the establishment clause. What this clause says is that the government cannot give a preference for or against any religion. It is as simple as that. Federal courts have not limited, by one iota, the freedom of individuals and groups to practice religion wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as it is done in a private setting or on private property.

The government cannot tell you that you cannot pray in your house and they cannot prevent students from praying in school if they do it appropriately such as in between classes in private groups, or before and after school. See You at the Pole is a prime example of a situation where students and teachers alike can pray on school grounds. However, just because you can't compel all the students who go to school to pray and read the Bible doesn't mean your own personal religious freedoms are being violated.

Suppose every courthouse, school, fire station, and city hall had, for example, statues of Mohammed and the Koran everywhere, or they all had Wiccan artifacts plastered all over their walls. Would you as a Christian really feel that you had true religious freedom if the government was supporting a religion like that?

That is exactly how minority religious groups would feel if we did decorate all public buildings with Christian artifacts. It wouldn't be religious freedom for all, it would be religious superiority for Christians, and only Christians, with all other religions pushed aside. That is not how the United States is supposed to be.

Joshua Chambers
Kingsport

Show faith

If someone wanted to take down the American flag at the courthouse, how many people would turn out to defend it? Thank God for Mark Vance. It's about time someone took a stand for the Ten Commandments. Leave it alone. Those who believe that the Ten Commandments should stay at the courthouse, start standing up for what you believe in. It has already gotten to where you can't pray in schools or have the Bible there. I can remember praying in school and saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

When God returns to take us home, will you be ready to go? Or will he tell you what you did, that you were into having the Ten Commandments taken down? This country was founded on the Bible and prayer. It's time we put it back where it belongs.

Roma Stewart,
Kingsport

Hypocrites

Re. "Teacher Claims Race Discrimination in $6 Million Lawsuit," this story touched me. I moved to this area in May 1992. I heard from so many people that I would love this area and would never want to leave because of the beauty and the people here, and that everyone goes to church and this is God's country.

Well some of this book is true until you start reading the story inside.

The area is very beautiful and some of the people are very nice, but I just can't understand these people who go to church and preach the Bible and then they talk behind your back, or hold grudges, or discriminate. I think if they are going to go to church and read the Bible they need to live by the Bible. That's why I don't even bother going to a church around here - too many hypocrites.

Patricia Williams
Kingsport

Evolution controversy in Sullivan County:

On top of disrupting school over religion, we have a Rev. Poff that wants to ban Halloween as Satanic.

See Evolution Debate

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