"So Help Me God . . . "

[sfumato_420]

Article: www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/31/inauguration.lawsuit/index.html

So, a lawsuit is being presented to take all references of God and Religion out of the inaugural.

Now, I understand the necessities of a separation of Church and State, and advocate strongly for it.

However, I am against people telling people what they can or cannot believe.

So

Comments

[leornere]

I think what worries me about it is the implied (in my view) dedication to running the county by that faiths moral values. I don’t see why we should fear that a person won’t take an office seriously without making an oath to that deity. I make oaths to my Gods in sacred contexts about sacred things, but I also make oaths based on my word as a man, in secular settings about secular things.

Though it is not necessarily the case, I worry that is someone is oathing to their God, that they will feel bound to that God to uphold that Gods moral point of view.

Of course with a religious person in power that is always a possible worry, but, what can you do? Some people just need to scream :)

Love posting at you Keith!

[bookofmirrors]

Wow... that video is amazing. I would have loved to have seen the painting afterwards.

In response to the post, I agree. Although I imagine you'd get a lot more protests from Christian fundies if a Muslim president wanted to swear on a Koran or something. Of course, other (lower-level) officials have done so, and I didn't hear anything about it until after the fact.

Perhaps those wanting God out of the equation would be mollified by the fact that Obama is being sworn in on the Lincoln Bible... Lincoln, who is widely quoted as saying "The Bible is not my book", among other things.

[pestleman]

I concur.

http://www.break.com/index/firepainting.html