[Honeykiss1974]

Originally posted by daoine
Thus the second point about how our culture views greek mythology. If I decide to worship money, do we have to remove it from the government? What if I choose to worship the American flag? Does it go too? The president? [If that's the case, can we all start worshipping corrupt politicians?] We all have the right to worship whatever we want - it makes your description of separation impossible to implement.

I'm reiterating myself, but the point is that money, flags, greek gods -- all of these things have primarily <i>secular</i> meanings within our culture -- religious meanings are secondary, and are to a select group. It has nothing to do with a majority/minority, and everything to do with how our culture developed. The 10 commandments do not share that same meaning -- they have no secular purpose; the sole purpose is the religious meaning.

The separation between church and state does not mean "take anything out that could be construed as religious to any human being" -- it is, by design, meant to allow people to feel free to worship whomever or whatever they want, and to prevent religion from directly influencing how the people are governed. In my eyes, that means that anything with a primarily religious purpose is not appropriate.

Well to avoid repetition, let's just agree to disagree on this issue because you and I have different views as to what constitues "a religion", especially if its based on what our society has deemed as being "secular".