Should Separation of Church and State be more Heavily Enforced? (US)

"I think you missed my point here." I could say the same for you, since it seems you didn"t understand the point I was trying to make. "Under God" implies religion, and since it was adopted by the government, it cannot be played in a secular area (school) with religious connotations to it. It also implies Christianity, because Jewish people believe in Yahweh, and Muslims believe in Allah. God is not the same word for every religion, so of course it will still favor others. "There are plenty of laws that are still "in the books" but are not enforced." Yes, are there are outdated laws that manage to get enforced if the Supreme Court wants it to be enforced. Our system is easily corrupted and is being corrupted (also voters make bad decisions: Donald Trump has a chance to be president!) which puts our country in danger. Just as you"ve listed your court cases which disadvantaged Christians, there are countless more that disadvantage everyone else, especially minorities. ""First of all, there is nothing unconstitutional about a child praying in school." Then why did the court say it was? Reed v. van Hoven, 1965. [9]" As for this, I could easily use the same argument that you used for the Atheists not being allowed to run for office argument I made. I know plenty of students that can pray before a meal, and I never see this law enforced. Also, there are a lot of schools which religious students actively practice their beliefs. (5) Collins v. Chandler was denying prayer in a school assembly. If it was private prayers then there would be a problem but the school is a public school and you can"t conduct a prayer during an assembly like that. This isn"t persecution, this is making sure people don"t overstep their boundaries. Stein v. Oshinsky, 1965 " Teachers are not allowed to do anything which isn"t secular in school. As for the children not being able to pray, I"ve said it before that I disagree with not allowing children to pray in school. However this one isolated case is not the law of our land. Children are allowed to pray in school, and they have been for some time. Just like you argued that they law preventing Atheists from holding office haven"t been used, you can also say the same for children praying in school. (About your link #6) "The teacher offered several reasons for rejecting the paper. She wanted students to dispassionately research a new topic, she said, not to dwell on something on which they already had strong, personal opinions." You didn"t mention that when explaining the situation, and I think that is a little unfair. "Despite being allowed to write about reincarnation, witchcraft, and the occult," Most people don"t believe in that, but many people believe in Jesus. The teacher was not wrong for rejecting the paper, especially when Britney was told in advance that she wasn"t allowed to do it. Britney decided to write the paper anyways, which got her a zero. There isn"t clear evidence that the teacher even did it specifically because of the religion either. Elliot Mincberg says in this article "This was supposed to be a research paper, not an opinion paper. If the courts are going to second-guess a teacher's decision in a case like this, it will mean just the kind of meddling in local affairs that conservatives always say they oppose." Just like it says research papers can"t have personal opinions. You just seemed to have just cherry-picked from this article. There is plenty of valid reasoning for not allowing Britney from writing her Jesus paper. (Addressing Link #7) This is a heavily biased source and all links related to this story are either religious or conservative. (Addressing answers to the questions I gave you.) It sounds just like the stereotypical "Christians are persecuted" even though a majority of our country is Christians and all of the politicians basically have to be Christian to be liked by the people. Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? It"s like if there is a white person saying they are being persecuted in a nearly all white neighborhood, and with only a few minority families living there. When you are part of a religion that has a stranglehold on a majority of the world, one of the number one religions, influence a huge amount of things people believe, and it the easiest way to be favorable in the public eye, that religion is not persecuted. Far from it, in fact. (Let"s not forget that a many wars were fought over religion, the Crusades being one of them. Christianity has too much power in the world, there should be no denying that. Trying to say that they aren"t that powerful and that they are persecuted is just lying.) Also I checked out this website (2) that lists the places where Christians are persecuted the most, and guess what? The United States, The UK, Canada, and most other first world countries are not even on the list. You can"t play the victim card in an extremely religious country, especially since the real victims are people like Muslims (because of stereotypes and ISIS) and Atheists (I hope I don"t have to explain why.) This website is all about Christian persecution, but even it says that Christians aren"t heavily persecuted here. Almost all of the stories are of events outside countries like the United States, and they don"t even take place in majority Atheist countries (just in case you wanted to make a point against Atheism.) Also take a look at this: (3) (3) If we were to allow Christian beliefs to fuse with our laws, it would not end well. The Bible endorses many outdated beliefs which almost no one would support today (slavery, incest, animal sacrifice, war, murder, homophobia, patriarchal rule, mindless submission, and much more.) Letting the two mix means allowing someone to argue for these beliefs to be implemented. Don"t say that it won"t happen either, giving someone the ability to do so will mean someone will argue for it at some point. Also, what gives Christianity the right to have more power than other religions? If you think Christianity is better fit to be in law than other religions than that would basically be a holier-than-thou mentality. If your reasoning is that Christianity is the "one true religion" then that wouldn"t even be good reasoning. Every religion claims that, so someone else doing that wouldn"t make a difference. Christianity is no more fit a religion than any other, so it has no right to be in government while other religions aren"t. We are not a theocracy either, if you want religion and government to mix than I suggest you move to a theocratic nation and see how that suits you. Here we let the people decide (even though it doesn"t always work out) and not all people want religious beliefs in their government (in fact most wouldn"t and that"s why government is supposed to be secular.) What if I thought that Islam was the religion that should be involved with government? Do I have any right to force women to cover up simply because I think my beliefs are good for government? We are doing fine (or as close to fine as we could be) without religion. People realize that murder and theft is wrong without religion, that people deserve to do what they want with themselves and their bodies, but most of the people who oppose this are religious people. Most pro-lifers are Christians (taking away a women"s choice in what she does with her body is wrong, period.) most anti-gay marriage people are religious, and many Conservative people in general are religious (so are the people opposing them, because this country is so religious like I said before.) People often use their religion as an excuse to support things that often limit the rights of others. I think it isn"t fair to constantly use excuses; people should be thinking about other people"s liberties and rights when they make decisions like that and not their personal beliefs. Why do you feel the need to force a religion"s agenda on all the people of this nation?