Does the Bill of Rights guarantee Atheism?

[tracer]

UDS wrote:

A law which forbade me from expressing athiest views might arguably not be one prohibiting the free exercise of religion, but it would certainly be one abridging freedom of speech, and would be unconstitutional on that ground.

They could always try to nail you for “speech calculated to incite violence,” which isn’t protected under the Freedom of Speech clause of the First Amendment.

“Your honor, this man was spouting atheist views! It made me want to throw rocks at him, so I picked up a rock and threw it at him. I must’ve thrown five or six of 'em, but he just kept on spouting his damned atheist views, even though he knew it would make me want to throw even more rocks at him. Therefore, it was calculated to incite violence, and he should be thrown in jail for it!”

[Brutus]

The BoR does protect atheism I would think. Atheists, like Catholics, Muslims, etc, have their own belief regarding God/Gods/lack thereof.

In a sense, it is a ‘religion’, as it cannot be proven or disproven; It is simply a collection of beliefs, like any ‘traditional’ religeon. So I suppose it would get equal protection.

[Northern_Piper]

*Originally posted by Neptune *
**What about Nova Scotia? It’s still illegal for stores to open on Sunday here.

Maybe they changed the name, no longer affiliating it with religious practice. Those who condone the law say that it’s nice just for everyone to have one quiet day. **

Neptune, I’m not familiar with the situation in Nova Scotia, but the Supreme Court has upheld laws that regulate retail holidays without reference to religion. Their approach is that if the Legislature regulates store hours as an aspect of labour standards/employee holidays, without a religious purpose, that can be upheld under the Constitution.

See R. v. EDWARDS BOOKS AND ART LTD., [1986] 2 S.C.R. 713.

By contrast, the federal statute struck down in R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd. was a federal criminal statute, the Lord’s Day Act, which required shopowners to observe the Christian sabbath. The purpose of a statute can be important in determining constitutionality.

[richardb]

Apparently the Supreme Court ruled on what “establishment of religion” means back in 1947.

I am quoting here from a post by MEBuckner in another thread:

The ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between Church and State.’ – Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township, U.S. Supreme Court decision, 1947

There is a link to the actual decision or case law or whatever it is called, but instead of copying it you can read his post yourself:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=122685

The thread is entitled “Your Views on the Pledge of Allegience” and his post is the second one down (the first answer to the OP).

Of course, the title to this thread is mis-worded. Even given the above, the constitution certainly doesn’t guarantee atheism, it only guarantees that the GOVERNMENT may not make any law preventing people’s belief that there is no such thing as god, or actively recruiting or prothstheletizing (sp?) those who do not believe in god to believe that there is one.

Thus the law passed by Congress in 1954 adding the words “under god” to a school-led (read: government-led and sanctioned) pledge (read: indoctrination) is unconstitutional.

[Spoke]

This thread and another in GQ inspired me to go back and flip through my copy of The Adams-Jefferson Letters for references to atheism. (By the way, anyone who is curious about the thought processes of the founders really needs to own that book.)

I found a fascinating series of letters between Adams and Jefferson wherein they specifically discuss atheism, and their reactions to it.

The letters are far too long for me to reproduce here, and I can’t find them on the internet, so I will give you the gist of them.

It starts with a letter from Adams to Jefferson dated March 2, 1816. Adams discusses several French philosophers, and their supposed atheism. (One gets the impression that Adams is probing his friend and noted francophile Jefferson, to see whether Jefferson might admit to being an atheist himself.) Adams makes it clear that he is no atheist:

Why then should we abhor the word God, and fall in love with the word Fate? We know there exists Energy and Intellect enough to produce such a world as this, which is a sublime and beautiful one, and a very benevolent one, notwithstanding all our snarling, and a happy one, if it is not made otherwise by our own fault.

At the same time, Adams makes it clear he is no Christian:

I should prefer the Philosophy of Tymaeus of Locris, before that of Grimm and Diderot, Frederick and D’Alembert [some of the supposed French atheists]. I should even prefer the Shast[r]a of Indostan, or the Chaldean Egyptian, Indian, Greek, Christian, Mahometan, Tubonic or Celtic Theology.

Note how Adams lumps Christianity in among the religious philosophies he rejects.

Jefferson replies in a letter dated April 8, 1816. Jefferson takes the view that atheism tends to arise as a philosophy from Catholic countries, while “the infidelity of the Protestant took generally the form of Theism.” (Jefferson’s own philosophy.) He then goes on to give his logical reasons for rejecting atheism:

[Atheist philosophers] always insisted that it was a mere question of definition [which separated the Atheists from the Theists], the hypostasis of which on both sides was ‘Nature’ or ‘the Universe:’ that both agreed in the order of the existing system, but the one supposed it from eternity, the other as having begun in time. And when the atheist decanted on the unceasing motion and circulation of matter thro’ the animal vegetable and mineral kingdoms, never resting, never annihilated, always changing from, and under all forms gifted with the power of reproduction; the Theist pointing ‘to the heavens above, and to the earth beneath, and to the waters under the earth,’ asked if these did not proclaim a first cause, possessing intelligence and power; power in the production, and intelligence in the design and constant preservation of the system; urged the palpable existence of final causes, that the eye was made to see, and the ear to hear, and not that we see because we have eyes, and hear because we have ears; an answer obvious to the senses, as that of walking across the room was to the philosopher demonstrating the non-existence of motion.

In a letter dated May 3, 1816, Adams responds, waxing philosophical on the question of the existence of an afterlife:

All Nations, known in History or in Travels have hoped, believed, an[d] expected a future and a better State. The Maker of the Universe, the Cause of all Things, whether We call it, Fate or Chance or GOD has inspired this Hope. If it is a Fraud, We shall never know it. We shall never resen[t] the Imposition, be grateful for the Illusion, nor grieve for the disappointment. We shall be no more. Credat Grim, Diderot, Buffon, La Lande, Condorcet, D’Holbach, Frederick Catherine [atheistic philosophers]; Non Ergo. Arrogant as it may be, I shall take the Liberty to pronounce them all, Idiologians. Yet I would not persecute a hair of their Heads. The World is wide enough for them and me.

(My emphasis.)

In sum, Adams, while he rejects atheism for himself, makes it clear that in his world view, atheists should not be persecuted for their beliefs.

I’m confident that both Adams and Jefferson would agree that the protection of religious beliefs includes a protection of the right not to believe at all.