wyndhy,

In some ways, I couldn’t agree with you more … any debate or discussion that proceeds civilly is not only not a waste of time, but is valuable – at least to the people involved.

In other ways … “just anti religion-in-our-government remarks”?

Perhaps statements such as the above do not appear anti-religious to you, but there are other reasonable points of view on that matter. Additionally, I note that Sugarsprinkles’, yours, and Lilith’s posts presume a religious agenda on the part of the authorities, although religion is mentioned in neither the original post nor the mayor’s statement.

I don’t contest that you call ‘em as you see ‘em. Respectfully, I suggest that in the absence of supporting evidence you are seeing what you want to see. If what Jude30 reports is correct, there is a depressingly familiar and equally likely explanation – racism.

Dogmas, those doctrines or codes of beliefs accepted as authoritative, come in many flavors.

I am surprised that you see no relevance of declining church attendance on the purported trend you refer to. I suggest it indicates that the current administration’s practice of utilizing faith based organizations to direct some federal aid money is a temporary one, which will be curtailed when a Democratic administration is elected. The reason it predicts such a change is because the fundamental support - attendance - these faith based organizations receive is declining over time.

If government is to be of the people, by the people, and for the people, then if those people have religious sentiments, it will be impossible to exclude religion from that government. Trying to do so is doomed to failure. The best you can achieve is to constrain and limit the States’ annoying tendencies to meddle in religious practices. This is what the First Amendment to the Constitution does reasonably well, I think.

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Eudaimonia