Consider the difference between things being equivalent and things being equal. I certainly did not equate all of those things. I merely gave examples of ideas that are on the fringe relative to the national character.
Well, from where I am standing, the people who are currently demonstrating the least moral restraint are the ones who are most vociferous in claiming an allegiance to various religious tenets. Lies to indulge in warfare, the defense of torture simultaneous with lying to deny it occurs, calls for the assassination of leaders of other countries, the insertion of false science into classrooms, campaigns of hatred directed toward people based on sexual orientation, and, of course, the interesting fact that people in states supporting the most conservative religious views tend to have fewer successful marriages, more births out of wedlock, higher percentages of STDs, and higher rates of murder (to say nothing of those “religious” people who choose to resort to harrassment of their neighbors to enforce religion on their communities) all combine to lead me to the conclusion that a lot of lip service to some sort of religiosity has absolutely nothing to do with the welfare of the nation.
http://www.andrewsullivan.com/main_article.php?artnum=20041128
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_11_07.php#003958
http://www.oregonherald.com/n/radicalruss/20041212_red-state-moral-values.html
If you can find notes from the convention that indicate that atheism is fair game for abuse and persecution, I will acknowledge that the framers did not intend to protect atheism. (Of course, if you come up with some personal quotation that has nothing to do with the actual First Amendment as written, I am going to cry foul.)
However, in terms of how the issue should be decided, today, I remain in the practical camp. Vague references to the divine are constantly cited by religious bigots as support to attempt to turn the U.S. into a “Christian” nation. With 229 years of sporadic religious intolerance as witness, I see no practical reason to support more of the same watered down pap that expresses no genuine religious belief while providing bigots more ammunition for their attempt to turn the U.S. into a theocracy.
Hmmmm, equivalent.
e·quiv·a·lent (ĭ-kwĭv’ə-lənt) pronunciation
adj.
1.a. Equal, as in value, force, or meaning.
b. Having similar or identical effects.
2. Being essentially equal, all things considered: a wish that was equivalent to a command.
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Mathematics. a. Capable of being put into a one-to-one relationship. Used of two sets.
b. Having virtually identical or corresponding parts.
c. Of or relating to corresponding elements under an equivalence relation. -
Chemistry. Having the same ability to combine.
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Logic. Having equivalence: equivalent propositions.
n.
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Something that is essentially equal to another: “Prejudicing vital foreign policy considerations in order to rescue individuals finds its domestic equivalent in the inflated awards paid to … accident and malpractice victims” (Moorhead Kennedy).
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Chemistry. Equivalent weight.
I know that “In God we trust” Is on our Money,and Under God has been added to the pledge in the 50’s,but I see very little trust in God,and if we are a “Nation Under God” I wonder why people are forever saying God Bless America! Wouldn’t it imply that America is already blessed(what ever blessed means)? Are they asking God to bless America(when it is already blessed? Just wondering about the logic of the situation.
Monavis
I’ve read most of the thread, and I keep seeing the same three problems that seem to pop up in every single Establishment Clause discussion.
- Atheism/Secularism is not a religion.
- The GOVERNMENT was/is/and should be secular. The NATIONAL IDENTITY, or the people in the government, however, may very well be Christian.
- Being forbidden from establishing your religion is NOT putting Christianity under fire. Christians who believe that the government is somehow stopping them from practicing their religion when it forbids the pushing of their beliefs on others need to get the fuck over it. You are not, nor will you likely ever be, martyrs.
It is an excruitating rare occurence when you can have a fruitful debate about Establishment clause when there is a disagreement about these three things.
Yes, but that should not affect how we interpret the amendment anyway. It doesn’t matter the motivations of the people that wrote it, what matters is what the words were understood to mean by the people who passed the amendment, the state legislators. The phrase “original intent” is a little misleading - it’s not the intent of the people who write something, but the people who vote on it that counts.
That does not address my hypothetical, but never mind.
I notice how often you and others argue this issue by focusing on the “religious bigots” and those that wish to “turn the U.S. into a theocracy”. Could you please answer these specific questions:
- Do you think that is a fair way to argue?
- Can no one interpret the Establishment Clause differently than you and not be a “religious bigot”?
- Can one not hold the opinion that our Founders intended the “Divine” to be more a part of our public experience without it being “watered down pap”?
- Do you agree that you do not know what the Founders intended and, like the rest of us, try to glean their intent from the documents they left us.
- To what degree should the Founders personal notes be considered in attempting to divine the intent of official documents?
- If we, as you say, have 229 years of “sporadic religious intolerance”, does that automatically justify relegating religion to a more minor role in the public sphere? Shouldn’t the good and bad both be weighed?
- Do you think the “slippery-slope argument” (which you seem to be invoking) is valid justification for determining a position (give them an inch and they’ll want a mile)? Or should an issue, like gun control, gay rights, abortion, and this one, be determined by the actual merits of a position?
Direct answers would be much appreciated. Thanks.
If mythology is completely useless for understanding the origin of the human species, are you then arguing that until recently we were absolutely clueless about the origins of man, and that the people attempting to encode what they had learned via the transmission through myth had nothing to teach us about the origin of the species?
You do realize that many myths are encoded scientific knowledge right? In the vedas they talk about ways to properly grow crops, and many other such civil advancements.
Are you arguing that you now, know more about the origin of humans than all of the people born before Darwin combined?
Erek
“Clueless” is a good word for it.
They actually knew how to grow crops back then; they knew nothing about human origins.
They knew nothing, so yes. It’s not that hard.
No thank you I don’t want one of your tracts right now.
You know all the myths huh?
You’re an expert on what our ancestors knew eh?
Erek
Sorry, I hate to wander late into a thread, not actually read all of it and post, but I don’t think I have seen anyone actually respond to the OP (with the following argument)
No, it is not.
By removing the “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, it is not adding “under no God.” That is, it merely removes the material that mentions God without adding wording to denote the philosophy of no God. The removal allows one to honestly say the pledge without forcing them to take a Theistic view. The new version would not force a Theist saying it to feel they were being atheistic*. It makes the pledge as theologically nuetral as, say, a law on drunk driving.
-Geek
*The Theist may feel that anyway, but that feeling will have nothing to do with the wording.
What an odd thing to say. How would you expect to see such a response without reading all the posts? Had you read them you would have realized that many before you had made the same point.
They are equivalent in terms of being aspects out of line with the national character. You are so very talented with your dictionary, but how is it that you refuse to recognize what it was I was saying with that point and would instead force words in my mouth? Be reasonable.
- If it is not a religion, then there is nothing in the atheist viewpoint that is “trampled” by acknowledging viewpoints they’d find discordant as their right to practise their non-religion is not affected.
- Yes, though Christian, as a term, is very general. I go back to the term “theist” because “Christian” is a term that has specific connotations for individuals that they treat as general connocations and this is frequently innacurate.
- I am not a Christian and don’t advocate pushing religion on anyone. I don’t believe not having theistic allusions stops them from practising religion, in the same way that the presence of theistic allusions doesn’t stop atheists from practising their non-religion.
This point has been made frequently. And what I have said is that since atheism is not an establishment, their practise thereof is not impeded by the presence of theistic allusions in government, even while the government practises successful secular legal procedures.
I asked by what further right they would limit these allusions.
Sorry, I scanned. Since I did not see what I thought were any arguments around the point I was making, I made the point. My apologies for having repeated what was already said.
I would argue the point that Atheism is not an establishment.
Atheism as a philosphy has been established, has within it established codes of thought, has many political organizations, (ok, no church, got me on that one), and I say, e.g., JREF is a place of business and a private institution.
It’s an establishment in the same way that Christianity is. There are many subsets of belief systems within both Atheism and Christianity (and any other philosophical group, theism, etc.).
As to the other part of your argument (that e.g. “under God” does not impede the practice thereof), I would argue that it does, but not through a direct method. Do I feel, as an atheist or miltant agnostic, that the government is out to get me or keep me from publically naming myself as such? No, so far, the government has not. However, and here is the point, there are individuals in government who do feel that atheism is a bad thing and have historically equated it with, e.g. communists. Yes, I am refering to Joe McCarthy. No, I don’t mean that all Theists secretly want to kill all Atheists. What I am saying is that some people in power may want to force their views on others. Keeping such phrases as “under God” or “in God We Trust” in use by the government is a reminder that some people in a supposedly secular government get “authorization” from a deity.
The right to limit these allusions comes from “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. Although there is no law that declares “a USA citizen must be a Theist,” the inclusion of references to God in governmental documents is an ipso-facto statement that our government uses the existance of a deity to grant authority to its legal system, which is a religious position, and thus a de-facto law respecting the establishment of religion.
Yes, because the hypotheticals are without foundations. Until you have a real-world example of what you are proposing (and I have not seen one), then I offer my real-world history in opposition to it.
Sure they can. I do not claim that everyone with whom I disagree on this topic is a bigot. I simply think that they are letting a majoritarian view of the world drive them to accept bad decisions that will be corrupted by the bigots who follow. If this is a “Christian nation,” (for example), are you willing to demonstrate that fact by joining the Christian Dominionists? If this is not a “Christian Nation,” (or if our references are to some vague deity that has no definition), then what is the point of injecting that word into governmental actions?
No one has demonstrated an example of “divine” in a governmental context that is not either expressly denominational or pap. If the government recognizes “god,” is it recognizing the Earth Mother, Jesus, Marduk? People who actually hold religious beliefs can come together to share their beliefs. There is an ongoing discussion between different Christian groups and some Buddhist groups, for example. However, those people find themselves very carefully defining their terms and their experiences to avoid getting to the end of a discussion only to discover that they have been talking at cross purposes throughout their discussion. So just what care is taken when the government tosses out the word “god” in some declaration?
Sure. So what? I do not hold, to begin with, that original intent is innerrant Gospel handed down from God so when I notice that many founders and framers had conflicting views, just as we do, then I look to the logic of their arguments, in the context of how their words have been used subsequently to determine the appropriate actions for our time.
I have no desire to relegate religion to a smaller place in the public sphere. (Some) churches took the forefront in moving first for abolition of slavery and later for the recognition of civil rights and (some) churches are active in calling attention to economic and class injustices in this country and (some) churches are active in providing education for those who follow those beliefs. I believe that those religious groups should continue their efforts and I believe that the government should do nothing to impede the adherents of belief from exercising their religious liberty (provided those groups are not actively working to destroy our society).
I have no problem with the President swearing his oath of office on a bible to demonstrate that he is taking his oath with the utmost seriousness implied by his religious beliefs. (I could wish he was less hypocritical, but that is a different topic.) I have no problem with Presidents Washington, Lincoln, and others declaring their thanks to God for deliverance from war or seeking God’s guidance. They are humans and their religious beliefs are part of their characters. Where I draw the line is when Congress (or some legisture) creates a law (or a president issues an executive order) that places either some denominational god (or some vague word with little meaning) into a formal action of the country.
I see no slippery slope. I see a pretty clear line (that is, admittedly, sometimes fuzzier than at others) that keeps government from interfering with religious belief and keeps government free from religious interference. The adherents of any religious belief are bound by civic duty to bring their beliefs to the public for consideration, but the decisions regarding actions should be determined by the arguments of the issue, not by some popularity vote of who owns the most church buildings. Churches led the drive for civil rights, but the laws to ensure civil rights needed to conform to our secular Constitution, not be swept in because it was a “Christian” thing to do.
I don’t need to, as the knowledge wasn’t available to be put into the myths.
No, but this is hardly an expert level question.
A belief doesn’t need to be a religion to be trampled.
You think Jefferson was a capitalist? Italians were not part of the national character in 1787 - do you think they’re not now? Hindus? Black people who aren’t slaves? Is the national character frozen as it was over 200 years ago?
But it was written to be more general than that.
Of course not. But even if a representative decides to back a law based on the Bible, there must be a secular justification. Banning, say, the wearing of mixed fibers because the Bible says it is prohibited would not stand up, no matter how right the representatives think this law is.
For instance, Blue Laws only stand on their secular, not religious purpose.
Link
You cannot know a false thing, so they could not “know” that we are all descended from Adam and Eve, for example.
Want to give a cite to a myth that correctly describes human origins - without a lot of radical reinterpretation?
Cite?
Do you find diminishing a question’s importance to be a good way of addressing it normally? Is this the rational approach?
- How do you know that we are not descended from Adam and Eve?
- Adam and Eve are not the only creation myth.
No that’s reframing the question in a way that benefits you unecessarily. Myths are about interpretation. They are allegorical in nature and are an attempt to pass on knowledge in a way that it can be extrapolated by future generations who may not speak the language in the same way on down the line. You seem to be expecting myths to accomplish something they were not intended to accomplish.
There is a wide gulf between a myth being the end all be all of the creation story, and claiming that they do not have clues as to our origins as Der Trihs does.
Dismissing their value outright is just as irrational as accepting them as gospel.
Erek