I’m Christian, and I totally oppose anything like this being mandatory.
A few years ago, somebody proposed putting the Ten Commandments in schools, ostensibly to prevent shootings or something, and I mentioned in that story’s message board that I had been to the optometrist a few days earlier, and it was posted on the wall of the waiting room. An optometrist added two more:
Thou shalt not change thy disposable contact lenses less frequently than thou manufacturer recommendeth
Thou shalt use thy glaucoma drops exactly as thou doctor hath prescribeth.
Now that I think about it, this was proposed locally to my area as well, and somebody wrote a letter to his local paper stating that he attended school back in the days of daily prayer and Bible lessons, and he couldn’t remember ever seeing them posted in a school, or even in a church for that matter. (As for the latter, I have, although I never really paid attention until after this kerfluffle arose.)
ISTM a polytheistic religion would have a very strong establishment argument for the ACLU to run with. The whole “it’s a ‘generic’ God, not specific to any religion” argument is obliterated.
It’s actually quite a difficult argument, because some polytheistic religions (Hinduism, Ancient Greek polytheism) have an abstract concept of “god.” Your average ancient Greek would either understand that generic concept, as in Platonic writings, or else presume Zeus.
A lot of contemporary pagan polytheists aren’t organized within any religious system, so it would have to be an individual bringing up the argument, and our legal system doesn’t have a very good understanding of what religion even is: much easier if you can point to an existing church group with a building and a hierarchy.
Speaking as a theist (Jew if it matters), this really pisses me off. It’s clearly a violation of the establishment clausse (whether the current SCOTUS will find it to be so is questionable). I love the ideals the USA was founded on. One of those ideals was that the government would never endorse any religion. I’ve posted before that I remain angry and disappointed by tax dollars being used here in Philly to put up ‘snowflakes’ that are obviously rayed crosses every winter. I’d sue the City Of Brotherly Love over it if I thought there was a chance I could win.
I’m currently reading a book called “Empress of the Nile”, about a female archaeologist who spearheaded the preservation of Egyptian and Sudanese artifacts during the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1950s and 1960s. There’s a lot of talk about, to put it simply, primary deities and secondary deities. Just imagine having to deal with something like that.
I think that the American experience makes it clear that mixing church and state ruins both. The negative effect the religious right has had on the politics of America is obvious, but obvious too in my opinion is the negative effect that right wing politics has had on religion. Jesus’ teaching of peace and Charity have been replaced with gun rights and tax cuts. For Og’s sake we have preachers holding up the human embodiment of the seven deadly sins as a role model.
No no, he’s like Cyrus, the more sinful he is the wiser Jeebus is for seeing past that and anointing him anyways because it will lead to the Greater Good.
To bring the lawsuit. What I’m saying is that it would be rather difficult to demonstrate to our legal system that there are religions that do not acknowledge capital-G God, as some polytheistic religions, in fact, do so, and many of the ones that don’t lack structures parallel to Christian churches.
These religions exist, and no doubt have practitioners in Louisiana, but I think establishing that to a court’s satisfaction would be difficult, given the systemic biases. One can hope, though.
Which is, of course, also bullshit. . Cyrus is revered by the Jews was a great leader who was know for his tolerance of other cultures (after he conquered them) but whose greatest sin as far as the Jews were concerned was that he happened not to be Jewish. Trump’s sin isn’t that he isn’t Christian, it’s everything else.
Re: “third largest”—are you talking about Hinduism? Because as I said above, it is possible to talk about “God” in Hinduism (Brahman) without necessarily meaning one of the specific deities.
A religious studies scholar would point out that Hinduism isn’t just one thing, and there are certainly Hindus who don’t have this concept of God. I don’t think American lawyers, judges, and juries have a deep understanding of religious studies.
There’s similar difficulties in arguing about Buddhism. My students often make the argument that Buddhism is a philosophy, not a religion. I disagree, but I can see a similar argument carrying weight in Louisiana, because it doesn’t look enough like they expect religions to look, which is like Christianity.
My whole point here is that the legal system is not well equipped to deal with religion as a cultural phenomenon because all of their history and precedent and most of their personal experiences are with (1) monotheistic Abrahamic faiths, and (2) largely with established religious institutions.
You don’t need to convince me that there are polytheists and other religious practitioners for whose religion the concept of God is absent. You need to convince a court, and all I’m saying is that I think this argument would be very easy for a biased system to dismiss, as, indeed, they already have with the nonsense of “ceremonial Deism.”
Just say “Christianity”. Most of them, especially in places like Louisiana, are ignorant of Judaism, as well (despite the Jewish scriptures literally being a part of the Christian scriptures), and actively resist any experience of Islam.
