Why do atheists...

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Sly, perhaps you didn't understand, so I will try again. The 14th amendment to the Constitution applied the Constitution, and all amendments, to government - state, local, and all branches of the federal government. So it is no longer just Congress prohibited from establishing a religion - it is government, at all levels..

If you would like an example, the government of New York established school prayer in government schools, until the Supreme Court overturned it. The case was called Engel vs. Vitale. Justice Black:

"The respondent Board of Education of Union Free School District No. 9, New Hyde Park, New York, acting in its official capacity under state law, directed the School District's principal to cause the following prayer to be said aloud by each class in the presence of a teacher at the beginning of each school day:
Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessing upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country.

This daily procedure was adopted on the recommendation of the State Board of Regents, a governmental agency created by the State Constitution to which the New York Legislature has granted broad supervisory, executive, and legislative powers over the State's public school system. These state officials composed the prayer which they recommended and published as a part of their "Statement on Moral and Spiritual Training in the Schools," saying: "We believe that this Statement will be subscribed to by all men and women of good will, and we call upon all of them to aid in giving life to our program."...

We think that by using its public school system to encourage recitation of the Regents' prayer, the State of New York has adopted a practice wholly incon-sistent with the Establishment Clause. There can, of course, be no doubt that New York's program of daily classroom invocation of God's blessings as prescribed in the Regents' prayer is a religious activity. It is a solemn avowal of divine faith and supplication for the blessing of the Almighty. The nature of such a prayer has always been religious, none of the respondents has denied this and the trial court expressly so found...

The petitioners contend among other things that the state laws requiring or permitting use of the Regents' prayer must be struck down as a violation of the Establishment Clause because that prayer was composed by governmental officials as a part of a governmental program to further religious beliefs. For this reason, petitioners argue, the State's use of the Regents' prayer in its public school system breaches the constitutional wall of separation between Church and State. We agree with that contention since we think that the constitutional prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion must at least mean that in this country it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government.

It is a matter of history that this very practice of establishing governmentally composed prayers for religious services was one of the reasons which caused many of our early colonists to leave England and seek religious freedom in America. The Book of Common Prayer, which was created under governmental direction and which was approved by Acts of Parliament in 1548 and 1549, set out in minute detail the accepted form and content of prayer and other religious ceremonies to be used in the established, tax-supported Church of England...
http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/47.htm

Do you disagree with that ruling?
Do you think that prayer written by government is a good idea?

 

Thelt, why do you do good things?

Did you ever do good things before you were a Christian?

 

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i think morals are deeper human traits than simply choices people make on a daily basis. humans are social animals and social animals can't go around hurting each other or they won't stay very social. i think morals are partly instinctual -- or at least, the "root" moral: don't hurt people.

 

see kris' claim that you like to "own" people.... nevermind.

 

got it now

 

No I don't.
No I don't.
But the answer to either of those questions doesn't really boost your case at all.

 

I became a christain at twelve years of age and although I may have done some good things before that it was mostly due to my parents telling me to do it or because I had been taught that way. The reason I do good things now is because I have a code of right and wrong I follow that is derived driectly from my religion.

 

Would you kill a homosexual, if you could get away with it? Is killing a homosexual good or bad?

Thelt, your morality is no better today than when you were a child. You did good things then because your parents told you, you do good things now because your Bible tells you.