Mr. Left The Building has gone bye-bye (apprx 9 years ago)

Asked by someone(?) on Yahoo! Answers presumably 9 apprx years ago

"

Amendment I (1791) to the Constitution specifically states Freedom of Religion.
No where does it state the rights of Atheists or Agnostics.

Is this relevant?
Is this topic open for interpretation for the individual or since there was no specific wording for non-belief, does that mean it has no inalienable rights under the constitution?

Update: JT, clearly the interpretation for Atheism does not exist in the document.
What happened?
That must feel like a load off of the face.

"

 

I don't know who JT is, I didn't see any answers posted as being from "JT"...

 

This is "Left The Building"'s response to "someone(?) on Yahoo! Answers" 

 

Given the fact the 1st Amendment prohibits the government from establishing a religion and the constitution prohibits religious tests for office holders, it's fairly clear the US was founded as an atheist nation.

  
I rather childishly thought the same thing myself, mainly because I am pathetically ignorant of history and science.  I'm not even that good at grammar etc., although what grammar I do know I do respect its purpose and try to reflect that in my writings/typings and I get really annoyed when the tiny bit of grammar that I am aware of is entirely disregarded by people that are old enough to know how to phrase a sentence and aren't immigrating from some poverty stricken land where their government doesn't have the funds to teach its citizens how to speak English.  People that are from non-English speaking territories need to either learn English or not speak it at all.  I understand immigrants not feeling the need to learn English.  It's really not necessary.  Granted, it can be uncomfortable to wander into a city or town where nobody there knows what you're saying, but when all of the residents of x town/city can understand each other, what exactly is the problem?  If you're living in some gigantic city like NYC or Chicago and you can't speak English, it's not exactly logical to go to the white neighborhood(s) for the purpose of buying something at the Wal-Mart located there.
 However, if you're going to speak English, do it right or learn another language.  The purpose of grammar is to make communication more effective.  Which is why it irks me to no end that people in Alabama do not know the difference between Coke, soda and baking soda.  And why in fresh hell does the English dictionary need 9 different synonyms for daffodil?

But anyway, getting back on the topic that I started to talk about and then completely got off topic from (sorry), I'm not educated, to put it simply.  I have a high school diploma, which I do not feel I earned since I was in special ed when I should have been expelled before entering 1st grade, except the law does not allow for children who are too dumb or crazy to learn much of anything to simply not attend school.  
But I can tell the difference between somebody who took the time to carefully examine their information and someone who'se just running their mouth for the hell of it.  People can make impassioned speeches and say very provocative things that stir up the heart in the name of a political or social agenda.  Some Christian leaders are like that.  When Pastor Jeremy Clayton speaks, I can tell he's doing so with love in his heart.  He does not preach in a self righteous manner.  He does not preach to build himself up nor to knock others down.  He does occasionally say some decisive things that some church goers and athiests would probably take offense to.  He once exclaimed that (paraphrasing) if telling someone that they are going to Hell because of their sin was an effective way to change someone's behavior, Jesus excruciating torture would have been utterly pointless.  I don't think anybody in the congregation was significantly offended.  I didn't notice anybody stomp out of the room.  But some church goers, as well as pastors, seem to want to demonize people from outside the church rather than focus on how to strengthen themselves as a body of Christ.  Stomping out of the room is something I would expect those types of "Christians" to do, perhaps too discreetly for me to notice.... 

Taken from Yahoo! Answers posted there roughly two days ago:
Q:

Do you agree with Stephen Hawking that science cannot know reality as it is, only models of reality?

Hawking accepts what he calls model-dependent realism: External reality itself is unknowable, only models of reality are knowable. Different models may make different predictions of observations, but none of them can be said to be "real" or "true". E.g. the Big Bang may explain more of our observations of the world than young Earth creationism, but neither the Big Bang nor YEC can be said to be "real" or "true".

 

 

"Randy The Atheist"'s answer from 2 days ago apprx:

 
"Objective Reality can be demonstrated independent of the human nervous system by taking a chemical photograph. The photo it creates exists on the plastic film strip embedded with silver halide and can be transferred to many mediums like paper, parchment, plastic, metal and wood without any involvement of human interpretation or inference.

By using this simple test, the brain is interpreting the image from two distinct and completely independent sources. One source is the photons reflecting off the object's surface to your eyes. The other source is the film that reacted to the photons from the object in reality. So we know that our eyes are reacting to an object in the same way that plastic and paper react to it which clearly demonstrates that reality as we perceive it is correctly identified and objective.

Another way is to use a laser scanner and 3D printer to duplicate the object in reality using only the formula for the speed of light and a Cartesian coordinate system.

The BB is actually an exception to this because of our incomplete understanding of gravity and so for that example, Hawking is right.

HOWEVER, we DO KNOW that something very similar to the BB must have occurred at some point in the distant past."

 

It's interesting that I agree with everything this dude says, unless "Randy" is actually a lady, and in that case...f'ever...

The following is my answer, which is more or less a preaching of sorts...thought I'd post it here since most people reading this question and it's answers will probably dismiss the entirety of the post BECAUSE I am not a college graduate.....but hopefully with the words above, it won't take as much to consider the validity of what it is I'm trying to get across.

 

 I don't know that much about science, but obviously the big band THEORY is not a fact. Ditto for evolution. It may be true, but how the heck can human beings know something that they were not there to witness? There is no written history of how the world was created, except in religious texts, which many scientists are understandably skeptical of, since it's impossible for all religions to be true since many of them have conflicting statements in their texts, but if you take all the religions, and you look at their corresponding texts, and cross reference them with science, most of them do not hold up. From a purely scientific perspective, not taking into consideration psychological matters like social harmony (or lack thereof), familial and financial stability, religion is not an important matter. But if you do take into account societal matters, history did make substantial progress because of Christianity. Jesus came to teach mankind that love is the key to solving every problem you could possibly face. From the apostle Paul and his apprentices, much of the world was radically changed through Christ's messages. The philanthropic atheist is a relatively new lifestyle.

Source(s): The Bible, unabridged

 

 

I posted the above, so if you still can't at least consider the possibility that my answer is true more or less, then you can at least research these topics yourself if you feel the need.  I wouldn't advise everyone all at once call up my pastor and start asking him questions.  But if you can keep it civil, and don't have time to wade through a bunch of historic documentation, maybe call him.  He might be on Facebook.  I can give his office # in the comments, although I doubt anybody will respond, so it may be a few days before I see you've requested anything.