Religious fanatism in the US public sector

Great Debates
1

When it comes to religious fundamentalism people in the USA tend to look exclusively outside their own country as if such a thing is unknown to them.

To outsiders this comes across as very weird, seen the fact that you find religious fanatics on every level of US public sector and government, who clearly bring their reilgion into their speach and decision making policy.

Americans seem to have no idea on how weird such public expressions of religious fanaticism come across on people outside the USA, who are slammed around the ears daily by Americans that “there is no influence at all of religion” on any aspect of the way their country is governed or in the way public servants do their job.

Today I came across an article on the BBC website that once Iagain exposes this clear contradiction of what is said and what is done.
It gave me the idea to ask how others look at this and how come that such a person can be in such a powerfull position and stay there.
I for one wouldn’t want to be on the other side of the bench in the courtroom of such a Christian fanatic. No hair on my head would trust his capability to judge me without religious founded prejudice.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3154225.stm.

**(quote)The chief justice of the state of Alabama has defied a federal court order to remove a huge slab of granite inscribed with the Ten Commandments from his courthouse, and vowed to call on the Supreme Court on Friday to prevent the order being enforced. (/quote)

(quote) Mr Moore is a conservative Baptist who was elected to office in this God-fearing state based on a campaign pledge to install “the law God gave to Moses” in his courthouse. (/quote)**

I would welcome input, thoughts and reflections of both American and non US members. I also look forward to (serious) explanations about how this is even possible to happen.

To give you some idea of how incredible such a thing comes across on non Americans: I can’t even imagine this to be a remote possibility in Belgium. The person in question would not only be ordered to leave his function. The whole country would declare him a clear lunatic and would be flat of laughter at the same time.

Salaam. A

2

A few points to consider, this judge was elected, so clearly a majority of his constituency are ok with his attitude. I don’t know the procedure for removing judges in Alabama, but I imagine it involves some sort of public process, and some demonstration on being unfit for his job, in any case much more than just “ordering him to leave his post.”

Like it or not that’s the way democracy works, here at least.

3

My bolding. Can you provide any direct evidence that this has ever been said by either a prominant American or by any significan number of Americans? Sounds to me like something you made up to bolster your argument.

The religious fanaticism that most Americans criticise is, I believe, the kind that encourages people to fly airplanes into buildings full of civilians (from many countries of the world) or to strap explsoves on themselves with the express purpose of killing school civiilans, including school children. Then of course there is the “milder” version that makes women walk around in tent-like coverings and beg for a living if they don’t have a husband or male relative to support them.

Last time I looked, American religious fundamentalism seemed pretty tame in comparison. I am no fan of religious fundamentalism of any stripe, and think it has no place in American government. Sure there are government officials who base their actions on religious belief. But I’m also able to keep things in persepective. I’m a completely non-religioius person, and I have never once in my many years of life in this country been subject to a religious edict that affected me in even a minor way.

4

I was with you up until here.

I guess it depends on how you define “religious edict.” I’d consider blue laws to be religious edicts, for example, and they affect me.

Julie

5

Julie: A fair point. However, our friend in the OP was contrasting religiosity in the US with that in Europe. If you think our Blue Laws (only existing in a few states, BTW) are bad, try finding stores open on Sunday in most European Countries. Makes the US look like a country of heathen!

6

It should come across as weird inasmuch as your opening statement in incorrect.

There are, indeed, any number of people in the U.S. who might be described as “religious fanatics.” However, they are frequently described as religious fanatics by people in the U.S. Trying to portray the U.S. as caught by some religious fanaticism that is not recognized except outside the country simply indicates that one does not really understand how opinions are held by the widely disparate peoples that make up the U.S.

For one thing, the U.S. has one of the most pluralistic approaches to belief in the world. Whereas Europe divided (pretty much physically between Protestant and Catholic in the sixteenth century, then saw each of those groups overwhelmed in their own regions be secularism, beginning in the nineteenth century, the U.S. has always had to put up with different (and opposing) groups living side-by-side. In response (after some nineteenth century bloodletting), most people in the U.S. take a live-and-let-live attitude toward others’ beliefs. There is still hostility among some groups and there are always agitators to destroy the pluralism, but the overwhelming number of U.S. citizens cannot get excited about it.

This is one reason why the calls of Ayatollah Khomeini and the odd attampts at fatwa by bin Laden or the bloodshed in Northern Ireland, accompanied by the rantings of Ian Paisley, bother so many Americans (which, I suspect, is why you think that people in the U.S. “look outside.”) When Robertson gets up and calls Islam names, he is targeting “other” people. When his spiritual predecessors got up and targeted Catholics (and some of his junior followers still do), they drew blood, (while the current demagogues are seen as prejudiced nutballs) or, even when people agree with their arguments, no one would now be willing to rise up and rid North America of the “influence of Rome.” We already had our lynching of the Smith brothers, our Mountain Meadow Massacres, and our Phildelphia, Baltimore, and Louisville riots in the nineteenth century and have put them (mostly) behind us. It strikes most Americans as very odd that such things continue elsewhere, since they have no experience of such matters.

Sure, we’ve got nutcases, but our nutcases no longer seem to have the power to start wars or pogroms, so we react with more astonishment when religious nutcases outside the U.S. are actually able to inspire people to go out and kill other people.

As to the story that spurred your post

It is entirely possible that this judge might rule harshly against a non-Christian, but

  • it is unlikely that he will actually encounter a non-christian in his region,
  • he may (or may not) be quite capable of compartmentalizing his beliefs, so that he would judge each case on the law, either because or despite his faulty belief that the law came to us through the Christian bible. (I have not yet seen any evidence that he has issued a decision based on his personal beliefs.)

(I do not agree with his position, but if you are willing to decide that he cannot be trusted, then may we choose to believe that no Christian, Jew, Druze, Baha’i, or Hindu could ever receive a fair verdict when a Muslim judge in a secular society (Turkey? Egypt? Indonesia? quotes Sharia outside of court?)

7

Sorry?
What has the closing day, implemented by the law in many countries, to do with my OP?
In Belgium all bakeries and most florists are open on sundays and official holidays. So are many other shops. They simply put their obligated closing day on a day in the week.

Care to explain what your comment has to do with my OP?

??

Salaam. A

8

Tom,

I don’t think you will find a Turkish judge who puts a Qur’an cutted in stone in the courthouse.

Salaam. A.

9

Now that I think of it, since writing in English: doesn’t even the word HOLYday refers to the Christian religion?

10

Well, that may be true, John, but I’ve got my pedant shoes on and had to call you on your post.

I know that there are other things than blue laws that are attributable (that looks odd, I’m probably misspelling something) to religious belief. But most of the things that popped into my head–laws against pornography, prostitution, gambling, etc.–while largely religious, are also supported by areligious people.

But I’m sure I’ll think of something.

By the way, while I consider blue laws completely riduculous, I’ve benefited from them. I’ve gone car shopping on Sundays in places where the lots aren’t allowed to be open. No salesmen! Perfect! :slight_smile:

Julie

11

Aldeveran: Julie indicated she agreed with me except that she had experienced Blue Laws in the US. Blue Laws are laws that exist in some states and require certain busninesses to be closed on Sunday. This obviously has roots in the Christian religion. My point was that one of your your key points seemed to be that European countries were more secular than the US. I suggested to Julie that she complare Blue Laws in some states in the US with similar laws in many European countries. I contend that the Sunday Closing Laws are probably no worse in the US than in Europe. If anything, European counties, as a whole, are more restrictive.

12

As is my spelling!

Julie

13

John Mace,

Isn’t the separation of religion and state part of the US constitution?

So how come a judge can be ELECTED (and sorry, but the system of electing judges is also something incomprehensible for me) because he made it clear that his goal is to undermine this principle. Which he not only stated to become elected, but which he shouws to be practicing by putting a stone 10 commandements in the courthouse and refusing to get rid of it even when he was ordered to.

If you don’t dfind this a blatant contradiction with what Americans claim the USA to be, then I don’t know what you find a contradiction.

Surely many US’ers will find this man a nutcase. But the fact remains that not only his ELECTION was possible, but that it was made him possible to put that thing there and thus to make it clear his judgement is overall influenced by “the laws God gave to Moses”.
That is what strikes people outside the USA as being extremely weird. (Not to use the words “lunatic”)
Salaam. A

14

There’s a couple of things to bear in mind. First, the general appearance of religiosity, to foreign eyes tends to be exaggerated by our system of government, viz: a small rural state, where people do tend to be more religious, gets to send two senators to Washington, just like California or New York. Said Senators may get returned to Washington election after election, and eventually achieve a position of great prominence. Ashcroft is a good example of this.

The other point is that Christian fundamentalists have not yet, at least in modern times, succeeded in taking over whole countries, and they don’t slaughter busloads of tourists or bomb nightclubs. Until that should happen, there’s no way I’m going to be able to think of a Bible thumper in the same light as a Taliban mullah.

15

John Mace,

In my late mother’s country, which is Belgium, the law making a shop close at least one day in the week has nothing to do with Christianity. It is simply a law that makes at least one day rest for shop owners or their personal an obligation. Of course many shops close on sunday and this it is a heritage of the past when people were overall Catholic. Yet it has nothing to do with any interference of religion in opening hours anymore since many decades. Anyone can close his shop at any day in the week and stay open on sunday.
There is also a law which counts every day the shops are open and regulates the amount of hours they may stay open a day. Some are open at nigh and close during the day. Most are open during the day.

So what has all of this to do with my OP?

Salaam. A.

16

Oh we have religious fanatics but we tend to call them cultist. We also have them that kill innocent people.

Timothy McVey was a prime example. He was a die in the wool Christian fundamentalist wasn’t he? I would call him a terrorist and a damn successful one who killed his fellow citizens…

And what about these cults that either get their members to commit mass suicide or in the case of Jim Jones, if you don’t drink the cool-aid you get shot…

Don’t yawl remember that ball-less fruitcake in southern California who got all those people to kill themselves so they could meet the spaceship behind the Hale-Bop comitt…

David Karesh (sp?) is another one. Now the federal government sure did go about wanting to talk with him about his possible criminal activity the worst way but at the end of the day he sure as hell helped kill all those people if not indirectly. There were several dozen children that died in that horrible stand off.

The result is the same. Dead people even if some go willingly…

Usually though they seem to be a very specific sects in this country and they are only recognized by a small number of people.

You do have some religious secs that seem to be very high profile that some consider being cults and seem to have bad reputations for having sinister hidden agendas like Scientology, Kabala and Harri-Christners (don’t know how to spell that one). Not trying to offend anyone just stating that they are often referred to in a derogatory way.

But then again you have a lot of people who think the Catholic Church is the most organized crime family on the history books so I guess it just boils down to opinion . Again just stating that the belief is there.

Do you know that right now there is a substantial amount of the US population that filled out their most recent census forms stating that Star Wars was their religion…

You also have people who think Elvis Presley is right up there on the board of trustees of God inc…

Who the hell knows…lol

17

Firstly, there is some legitimate disagreement over the meaning of the 1st Amendment. It does not say anything about “seperation of Church and State”, but that Congress shall make no law establishing a religion. Some feel that certain religious concepts can be incorporated into law w/o establishing a religion. Others feel that the gov’t must completely seperate itself from even the smallest aspect of religion. Most people have found a happy medium: They don’t want something like the 10 commandments in a courthouse, but they don’t mind saying “under God” in the pledge or the fact that our money has “In God we Trust” on it.

The judge in question could be removed from office quite easily if he actually acted contrary to the law when dealing with defendants. If, for example, he meeted out justice not for actual laws broken, but for some religious infraction, he would be removed quite quickly. The issue at hand, though, is whether or not having the 10 Commandments displayed in the courthouse created an air of intimidation to non-Christians.

I don’t want to see the 10 Commandments in a courthouse. But the sad fact is that I would not be surprised if many people in this judge’s jurisdiction didn’t know the difference between the 10 Commandments and the 10 Amendments to the Constitiution (Bill of Rights).

18

Aldebaran, just as an aside, here is a report regarding religion in Belgium. In it, they discuss how Belgium, in fact, goes much farther than the United States in “establishing” religion by officially recognizing certain religions and not others, and by financially supporting those religions, including providing teachers for religious teaching and subsidizing some of the work of the churches (like restoration). Belgium also came under fire here and elsewhere when they took steps to seriously restrict religious freedoms. Just as an aside and for your edification of course.

19

Sorry, but your characterization of Americans is turning into a caricature.

As an American who is also Wiccan, I’m quite well aware of the influence that religion plays in my society and in the workings of government. I’m sure the many Atheists here also worry about the influence the Fundamentalists have on our supposedly secular government. Not all Americans are blind to the influence that religion has on our government.

If it were up to me, the US government would lose any trappings of religion in its daily business, from the “In God We Trust” on our money to opening ceremonies that invoke deities. The government would be closed on various holidays not because of religious observance but because too many people requested the day off for its administrative offices to function effectively.

But that’s the way I would run things. For better of for worse, I’m not an elected public official.

20

Hamlet,

There is no restriction to religious freedom in Belgium.
Yet it is the responsibility of the St