“Hey! You in the blue shirt. You are going to hell.” A few moments before the wrath of the malevolent lady, I was walking across campus to my class as a pleasant breeze carrying a mixture of fragrances flew past me. The sun’s warmth was soothing against the side of my cheek and areas of shades of serving as safe havens from the warmth was delightful. The Beatle’s “Got to get you into my life” drowned out other surrounding noises. Walking to my own beat and singing along in my head I was headed towards my class and I crossed the Memorial Union I was greeted by a few friends and I kept walking. A few steps later I saw a lady in her late fifties or maybe early sixties was pointing at my violently. Not sure whether she was trying to say something to me I took out my headphones and I was greeted with a “Hey! You are going to hell.!” and being unable to comprehend her unknown hatred for me, I walked towards her and ask her why she decided to select me from the crowd and her response was, “Do you believe in Jesus Christ?” Being a deists myself I said, “I’m not sure but I’m not against the idea of Christ.” With her stern, wrinkled she replied with a scorn, “So you don’t believe in Christ well guess what? You are going to hell, but for now carry on with your day. Your time will come. You are going to hell.” In the name of religion and God she went out of her way to not only crush my positive attitude towards my day but also she had the guts to curse me out in front by clueless bystanders. That verbal assault not only made me cringe in embarrassment but made me question whether the first amendment truly stood by this lady and her beliefs. The problem is not what people believe in but what they choose to do with the beliefs.
Religion is ...
... middle of paper ...
...will not only get rid of the problem but also bring about a compromise that will be fair both to the community and students. A sole voice today will echo through time till it becomes a roar.
Works Cited
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Flax, Bill. "The True Meaning of Separation of Church and State." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 09 July 2011. Web. 29 Mar. 2014.
Godfrey, Olivia. "Why Religion Should Not Be Taught in Public Schools – Olivia Godfrey." Knightly Herald. The Knightly Herald, 23 Sept. 2013. Web. 29 Mar. 2014.
"Writings." Thomas Jefferson : Note on the Texts (The Library of America). The Library of America, n.d. Web. 28 Mar. 2014.
Although the Edwards excerpt sentence involved fear, emotional deception and mental deception to obtain the audiences full attention, the opening sentence of Jefferson's Declaration gives the audience a much different approach to procure the audiences focus. Jefferson's opening sentence has a mild tone of diction, for the beginning of an informative speech. The eloquent words highly imposed among the s...
The purpose of this paper is to give a brief chronological accounting of the writing of the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson. A short description of the structure of the Declaration of Independence will be included. The process was relatively fast, from the formation of the committee.
Jefferson, Thomas. "The Declaration of Independence." The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines. 8th edition, Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. New York: McGraw Hill, 2003. 305-308.
Wilson, D. L. (1992). Thomas Jefferson and the Character Issue. The Atlantic Monthly , 270 (5), 57-74.
The Myth of the Separation of Church and State retrieved on January 7, 2005 from: http://www.noapathy.org/tracts/mythofseparation.html
“As a boy, Thomas Jefferson’s was shy and often tongue-tied…Preferred the company of books to that of most people.” (Wilmore, 1) These were words to describe the young Jefferson; his childhood would prove to be a key in shaping the man, who through his words would change a nation. Jefferson was born on April 13th 1743, in Shadwell Virginia. During his childhood he would spend 15 hours each day reading and writing, this would prove to make his writing skills at a high level (1). As he grew into an adult he would study law in his home of Virginia at the William and Mary College at Williamsburg (Bottorff, 15). During this time he would become a member of the Whig party and would advocate for the rights and liberties of mankind (Peterson, 1). It was in his childhood and as turned into an adult which he learned how to write and how to express his political views through words. “For Thomas Jefferson, the pen truly was mightier than the sword. From his pen flowed some of the worlds most famous and influential words.” (Wilmore, 1) Truer words could not have been spoken about Jefferson’s because it was through his words which adv...
In 1958 five parents of the Long Island community brought suit to stop the prayers use in schools. Two parents were Jewish; one parent was a Unitarian, One a member of The Ethical Culture Society and One Self-Professed Atheist. At first the lawsuit failed. Justice Bernard S. Meyer found the prayer religious but not in violation. Instead, Justice Meyer ordered the schools to set up safe guards against “embarrassing and pressures” towards children who did not wish to participate. The New York Appellate Division upheld this decision along with the state’s Court of Appeals, by a vote of 5-2.
Brodie, Fawn M. Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1974.
First Amendment issues of the separation of church and state and state establishment of religion have long been litigated in the federal courts. Until recently, the Supreme Court had a consistent track record of preventing the intermingling of religion and government, especially when it came to the nation's public schools. Yet this past year, a newly activist conservative court has set about rewriting some of the Warren Court's judicial legacy. In the 1995 case of Rosenberger v. University of Virginia, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, declared that the University of Virginia was constitutionally required to subsidize a student religious magazine on the same basis as secular publications and activities. This decision opens the door to greater government financial support for religious organizations. Groups like the Christian Coalition and the American Center for Law and Justice, the legal wing of Pat Robertson's financial empire, saw this narrow decision as a victory for their agenda of weaving together government and religion, thus tearing down the wall of separation between church and state, To justify their pursuits, they site the need for moral leadership in this country, which many view as ethically and morally rudderless. Yet Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, the Christian Coalition, and other similarly thinking individuals and groups are promoting an agenda more far reaching than their mainstream supporters have in mind. The move to infuse government with a greater religious presence has almost nothing to do with instilling traditional values and morality, and almost everything to do establishing Christianity, specifically evangelical Christianity, as the state religion. ...
The removal of prayer from public schools is a very controversial and misunderstood debate. This paper will address the history of the debate, common myths and misunderstandings, and the current trends.
Jefferson, Thomas. "The Declaration of Independence." Mountain View College Reader. Neuleib, Janice. Cain S., Kathleen. Ruffus, Stephen. Boston: 501 Boylston Street, Suite 900. 2013 Print.
However, the author 's interpretations of Jefferson 's decisions and their connection to modern politics are intriguing, to say the least. In 1774, Jefferson penned A Summary View of the Rights of British America and, later, in 1775, drafted the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (Ellis 32-44). According to Ellis, the documents act as proof that Jefferson was insensitive to the constitutional complexities a Revolution held as his interpretation of otherwise important matters revolved around his “pattern of juvenile romanticism” (38). Evidently, the American colonies’ desire for independence from the mother country was a momentous decision that affected all thirteen colonies. However, in Ellis’ arguments, Thomas Jefferson’s writing at the time showed either his failure to acknowledge the severity of the situation or his disregard of the same. Accordingly, as written in the American Sphinx, Jefferson’s mannerisms in the first Continental Congress and Virginia evokes the picture of an adolescent instead of the thirty-year-old man he was at the time (Ellis 38). It is no wonder Ellis observes Thomas Jefferson as a founding father who was not only “wildly idealistic” but also possessed “extraordinary naivete” while advocating the notions of a Jeffersonian utopia that unrestrained
The “establishment” or “religion” clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (Education Week, 2003, para. 2). It is from this clause that the idea of separation of church and state comes. It is also the basis for much of the debate regarding the practice of religion in public schools (Education Week, 2003). One of the big questions regarding the religion issue is where to draw the line between separation of church and state and religious freedom. The practice of religion in public schools can balance these two ends by allowing students to individually exercise their religious freedom, so long as they do not interfere with that of other students.
University of Michigan. “Religion in Schools: A look at how religious practices influence education.” .
"The ACLU and Freedom of Religion and Belief." American Civil Liberties. (2013): n. page. Web. 2013.