Religious
Freedom Day and Freedom from Religion
Talk to Norfolk, Virginia Chapter of Americans United
January 15, 2006
Ellery Schempp
Good Afternoon.
Thanks to you, Bob Clapp, for making my visit here so enjoyable. Thank you to Rubyjean Gould and AU members for the very nice award. I am very happy to be here in Virginia, a state that once played a vital role in defining the ideas of separation of church and state. This was before the days of Pat Robertson.
This is National Religious Freedom Day. Religious freedom is certainly a lofty ideal, and given our history, it would seem that all Americans agree with it. But it turns out to mean different things to different people. Sometimes, diametrically opposite things.
For myself, I think it is very important to understand religious freedom as including freedom from religion. Without this understanding, the idea of religious freedom is reduced to dealing with quarrels between various sects as to which church is the right one or which religion should have political power.
We often hear the issue stated as separation of church and state. This phrase, as we all know, is not in the Constitution; rather, the word in the First Amendment is religion. It is religion which is prohibited from being established by laws (not a church or church establishment). This was not an oversight; the men of this era were thoughtful men, and they did not chose religion over church or world-outlook without careful thought as to the meaning. James Madison here in Virginia noted that throughout history superstition, bigotry, and persecution have accompanied the union of religion and government. He also noted that Christianity did not need the support of government to flourish.
Tomorrow is a day of remembrance for Martin Luther King. King had the passionate ideal that just because you were born with white skin does not mean that you are ordained to have power over dark-skinned people. Our Founding Fathers had a similar passionate ideal that just because you espoused a Christian faith, this did not entitle you to preferred status. Equality for Afro-Americans is on a different plane than separation of church & state, but they are related. Unfortunately, our Founders did not see this as clearly as we do today.
The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was drafted in 1779 by Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson argued that the concept of compulsory religion is wrong for 5 reasons:
1. The imposition of anything on a human mind, which God made to be free, is hypocritical and mean.
2. Jesus never coerced anyone to follow him, and the imposition of a religion by government officials is impious.
3. The coercion of a person to make contributions especially monetary to a church he doesn't support is tyrannical and creates favoritism among ministers.
4. Government involvement in churchly matters tends to end in the restraint of religious thought.
5. Civil rights do not depend on church beliefs, and what a person thinks is no business of the government's.
One part of this remains to our day, in Article 1, Section 16 of the Constitution of Virginia:
"...no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."
Jefferson was proud of this achievement, and had it listed on his epitaph along with his founding of the University of Virginia and the writing of the United States Declaration of Independence.
Jefferson did not have the last word on this.
Jefferson and Madison fought hard for this separation because they were convinced that state involvement in religion had been a leading cause of repression and coercion throughout history. When Jefferson drafted the bill in 1777, heresy was a capital offense, Roman Catholics were excluded from civil office, and free thinkers and Unitarians were subject to be declared unfit and even have their children taken away from them.
Although most of these laws were rarely enforced, their existence was a reminder of what was possible when state and religion were joined. Madison saw the dangers firsthand when, as a young man, he witnessed the imprisonment of Baptist ministers in western Virginia for doing nothing more than preaching their beliefs. That diabolical Hell-conceived principle of persecution rages among some, he wrote to William Bradford. [P]ray for liberty of conscience.
In colonial Virginia a person convicted of blasphemy was subject to imprisonment for the first offense, having a knife put through his tongue for the second, and finally being put to death for the third. Massachusetts was not far behind, and hanged Mary Dwyer on Boston Common, for the heresy of being a Quaker. In Europe, almost every country had a state church and in one way or another made persecution of non-believers mandatory under its laws. Our Founders were keen to separate us from these European ways.
We remember that Martin Luther's protest was in 1517260 years earlier and years of strife occurred during the Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, when the Vatican tried to regain control and political advantage. There was no refuge for Jews or non-believers during these wars. Our founding fathers were well aware of this.
Passage of the Virginia Statute was a great victory for no establishment as a core principle of religious freedom. It is honorable for us, Jefferson wrote to Madison, to have produced the first legislature who had the courage to declare that the reason of man may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions.
Three years later, James Madison ensured that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution would open with the most important 16 words in the history of religious liberty: Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,&.
But there is an issue that we must address. Are the public schools embracing atheism? Are humanism, secularism, non-theistic views also religions?
In Jefferson's document he declares "...that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right."
I am doubtful about natural rights. It is a cute phrase that stirs our heart strings, but it does not stand up on examination. We humans have evolved in our social understanding, and Jefferson was a wonderful step along the way. Since Jefferson's time, we have rejected slavery, we have allowed women to have rights like to vote. We have rejected domestic abuse, we have rejected racial, ethnic, and gender stereotypes. We have accepted that human sexuality comes in different forms, and that gays are also part of the human family. All these now-accepted ideas were rejected in Jefferson's time as a violation of natural law.
The notion of natural law is used to condemn gays, to condemn birth control, to justify unequal health care. In the last century, Natural Law was used to justify slavery and denying women any rights, and to put children in horrible situations. I think it is time to throw away natural law as a basis for morality. Natural law is the religious notion that our rights come from a god and is invoked by Catholics to prohibit contraception.
Much as I admire Jefferson, he was a product of his times. In 2006, we admire his thought, but we move further.
Our Constitution is not based on natural law, not based on 10 Commandments, not based on Christian doctrine, not based on ministers or priests. It says clearly, we the people do ordain... This is a humanist statement.
And I will tell you why we have to address this. The fundamentalists, the evangelicals are insisting that prohibiting prayer in schools, teaching evolution, restricting displays of the 10 Commandments are all evidence of hostility toward Christianity.
First of all, I want to emphasize that there is a false dichotomy here. In my view, the role of government is neither to promote religion nor to impede it. There is a neutral position, and we call that secular government. Secular means without regard to faith doctrines. It is, therefore, incorrect to try to define the argument as you are either for us or against us. In simple terms, the role of schools is, we don't care if you are Christian, Hindu, atheist, you still have to learn the quadratic equation; you have to learn that the Holocaust is established fact; you have to learn that evolution is established fact; you have to learn good English.. Along the way, we hope students can learn to see logical fallacies, to doubt astrology and ancient texts as offering worthwhile explanations, and we hope they come to wondering whether rockets pass through heaven on their way to Mars.
Our society establishes public schools at great cost in the conviction that they are good for every child individually and for our society in general. My view is that public schools are to be islands of learning. They also serve pupils in learning social skills by being in a community.
Bringing in religion throws all this into chaos. Consider prayers: if we insist on equal respect for all religions, we will have Muslim prayer rugs, Jewish Stars of David, innumerable Christian rites, Hindu gods, and places for non-believers to go. After all this, I wonder if there will be any time for history and math.
Anyone who has ever watched a class of 3rd graders going through the motions of reciting a prayer or pledge knows this: "we stand up, we mumble, we sit down, we did our duty"; it's like peeing, necessary, but not meaningful.
We are not going to accept that a faith-based student says, I don't believe in the value of pi you know, 3.1416& or I don't accept the theory of electricity for faith reasons. We do not excuse pupils from failing their geometry exams on the basis of their faith.
This tells me that we accept that there is a materialistic, natural world out there. This would hardly seem controversial. In this world, physics works, chemistry works, biology works. Human intelligence and observation work.
There is an alternative view. One could say that all this is illusion, that a faith trumps all such evidence, that texts from 2000 years ago contain more truth than our present-day understandings. This is a different understanding of truth.
I recall the aphorism, Praying is talking to God; when God speaks to us, we call it schizophrenia.
I am not a great believer in sin. I do understand wrong-doing, but the idea that we are sinners from birth or maybe before, since the religious right wants to define babies as from the moment of having sex is very strange to my way of thinking. I think we understand crimes of violence, abuse, financial cheating, exploitation of the weak from an understanding of human values they have nothing to do with any Commandments. There is nothing in Biblical commandments about stopping for red lights, prohibiting racial discrimination, and respecting equality for people of different sexual orientations: these are matters of human values, not divine values.
Is it really a matter of respect? We all have friends who base their lives on wishful thinking faith healers, psychics, astrologers, etc, and our brains seem to be wired to seek this comfort from a force that is beyond us. I wonder why it is that some of us seek comforting thoughts however irrational rather than the challenges of thinking and questioning.
I am going to turn to my personal history, which some of you might be interested in.
Briefly, Pennsylvania and some 30 other states had a practice called morning devotions. Pennsylvania required that 10 verses of the Holy Bible had to be read every morning in each public school classroom. Then kids stood to recite the Lord's Prayer and the flag salute. One November morning in 1956nearly 50 years ago I objected to this. I choose another holy book happened to be the Qu'ran and read it to myself, nervously I might add and remained seated during the prayer. My homeroom teacher was flabbergasted; he sent me to the principal, who lectured me that it is a matter of respect for others; I replied that I thought it was matter of respect for the First Amendment and individual conscience. He sent me to the guidance counselor.
I long forgot, but just last year, it turns out that my letter to the ACLU was found in the National Archives by Prof. Steven Solomon. I typed it out on my Dad's typewriter with two fingers. (I see some young people here, typewriters put letters onto paper without lasers or inkjets. Really, they actually did that; don't giggle, ask your grandparents!)
The letter I wrote to the ACLU said:
"November 26, 1956
"Gentlemen:
As a student in my junior year at Abington Senior High School, I would very greatly appreciate any information that you might send regarding possible Union action and/or aid in testing the constitutionality of Pennsylvania law which arbitrarily (and seemingly unrighteously and unconstitutionally) compels the Bible to be read in our public school system. I thank you for any help you might offer in freeing American youth in Pennsylvania from this gross violation of their religious rights as guaranteed in the first and foremost Amendment in our United States' Constitution.
Sincerely yours,
Ellory F. Schempp"
Speaking for American youth is rather pretentious, indeed. I was 16 years old then. And I learned to write shorter sentences.
I really had no idea about going to court. I had read the First Amendment "Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." It is only 45 words long and thus not taxing even for teenagers. I thought that having a Christian practice in the schools was pretty clearly against the First Amendment. Surely they weren't serious, and once I pointed this out, it would be corrected.
Besides, I had got to thinking always a bit risky! Since I knew that kids in other states weren't having Bible-readings and prayers, were they less moral than us in Abington?
And I had also read writings of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Thomas Paine. Paine is the unmentioned of our Founding Fathers, but perhaps the most important, because his pamphlet, Common Sense, published in Philadelphia in 1776, rallied colonists to oppose the British Monarchy and to the cause of American independence at a time when morale was flagging. Tom Paine later contributed greatly to making skepticism about clerical claims to be respectable in his The Age of Reason. He insisted on granting rights to citizens without any religious tests in the American Constitution. Paine regarded all pastors and churches as parasites on society. He had a point.
We received about 5,000 letters about 1/3 supportive, 1/3 opposed in terms where reasonable people might differ, and 1/3 simply vituperative. We were accused of being the incarnation of whatever the writer hated: what are you?commies, Jews, Nazis, Catholics, Baptists, atheists? I particularly remember those that said, In the name of Christ, go to Hell! I don't recall any letter that accusingly asked: What are you, Zoroastrians? I conclude that nobody hates Zoroastrians. (You might want to look into this.) We learned that atheists are the most despised group in America.
My parents actually replied to every letter that had a return address. This was before Xerox machines, and stamps cost 7½ cents then. Still, several hundred dollars.
The case did change our lives a bit. My sister, Donna wrote, I think the Bible reading case put a lot of strain on our family [in the years after I left to attend Tufts]. It was the center of our lives for many years, between letters from people, phone calls, etc. It put a lot of strain on Roger and me who were attending school and being taunted by kids because of it. I, in particular, was embarrassed by it. It was a time when I wanted to be just like everyone else and this, by definition, singled me out. So, although I supported it intellectually, I hated it emotionally. It has taken me a lot of time to recover from that embarrassment and sometimes I get scared, like I was worried how my mother-in-law would react if she found out about it a little old lady in Iowa who is very religious."
I was motivated by several thoughts and feelings:
First, I felt that there was a fundamental issue of fairness for all. Jews do not consider the New Testament the Word of God, and there are certainly passages there that have been hurtful to Jews over the centuries. The Bible is not the Holy Book of Muslims, Buddhists, or Hindus. Non-believers, pagans, and others do not need Christianity preached to them in the schools.
Nor do I consider the Bible a valuable source of truth certainly no more than any other book written 2000 years ago. While there are some beautiful verses, there are also many quite ugly sections. And the notion of reading about Noah's Flood under the imprimatur and authority of a state-sponsored devotion and then going to geology or biology class was, and is, deeply offensive to my scientific understandings. We all know that Noah's Flood never happened. I do not believe in miracles or supernatural interventions in human affairs, and I thought it was wrong for the schools to teach them. I do not think any book from 2000 years ago has any wisdom that we don't have today.
I note that when Catholics and Protestants and Muslims talk about morality they actually mean sex. But no writer in Biblical/Koranic times had the slightest clue about sperm, ova, and genetics nor all that much about human emotions and feelings in what we understand today as psychology. Women were regarded as property and primarily as incubators of the seed. The female ovum was discovered only in 1823; before that time nobody had a clue as to how human reproduction worked. This was about 40 years after the Constitution was written.
The idea of a pre-existent, god-given morality is rather suspect. I do not see any concern for family values or children in the 10 Commandments the phrase soccer mom is entirely missing there. Our legal system and laws are clearly based on capitalism and humanistic values, and have nothing whatsoever to do with any Commandments. Is there anyone in this room that thinks our tax laws and Medicare laws are based on the 10 Commandments? The morality of corporate financial frauds, workers rights, and social justice is oddly missing when the religious right talk of morality. The super-religious seem just hung up about sex. Teens seem pre-wired to notice hypocrisy, especially about sex. Bless them, they keep the rest of us on our toes.
Secondly, I consider that the First Amendment has served our Nation very well, and the more we respect it, the more strength it gives us even at the present time. It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties, said James Madison, 4th president of the United States (1751-1836).
It is important to remember that part of the genius of the First Amendment is that we do not have simple majority rule, an idea not well-understood. The majority does not have the right to round up Jews or Muslims or Unitarian-Universalists or non-believers and deport them or worse. Here I mean the legal right, not to mention the moral issues. Hidden within the First Amendment is a fundamental protection for the rights of minorities' prayer, or its absence, is not to be decided by majority vote. And each one of us as an individual is a minority.
Thirdly, I oppose the view that praying and searching for spiritual peace/healing is a satisfactory substitute for learning about difficult issues in the world, and struggling with them. I think our struggle is not to find inner peace, but to keep alive the itch that makes us want to do better. As Andrew Marvell observed, there is peace in the grave, but none, I think, do there embrace.
Moreover, religion by rote does not promote spiritual values, nor does constant repetition of the Pledge promote patriotic or civic values. Public prayer is NOT intended to promote spiritual values, but to enhance the authority of some churches and some political views over others. Similarly with the posting of the 10 Commandments. It is about power, not about religion.
I was always curious about the objectives of missionaries we might call it the missionary position. We observed that many people who protested the Supreme Court's decision said, Well if it weren't for prayers in the schools, many kids would never hear about Christ or God. What a wacky idea! But so what?? what is the source of this notion that everyone has to be introduced to Christ or to Allah in order that their souls might be saved? If believers are happy with their souls, why not leave mine alone? It makes me think they are insecure in their faith, and only by getting converts do these missionaries gain confidence that they may be right after all. The right to privacy is an important civil liberty and inherent in separation of church & state.
I mean, it is worrisome enough if some god is peering down every moment as to my soul and thoughts, but evidently Bush and Homeland Security do not trust God, and they have to do it again. This seems rather inconsistent with faith-based doctrines.
There is an important connection between separation of church and state and other civil rights and civil liberties. And personal freedoms. After all, it is largely religious dogma that opposes gay marriage and rights of women. It was religious dogma that made contraception illegal. It is religious dogma that promotes abstinence and categorizes masturbation as sin. It was religious dogma that defined Native Americans and African slaves in our Constitution as three-fifths human for counting in the census.
Across the country efforts are being made to substitute creationism or intelligent design for the teaching of evolution. This strikes at the heart of education, deciding truth not on the basis of evidence, but on the basis of faith or revealed truth. Revealed to whom? I always ask. Tele-evangelists and preachers claim to know God, but I always notice that they never share Gods email address with the rest of us. This makes me think they are more interested in money than in in truth, more interested in political power than in salvation, and they sell one-way tickets to heaven.
I do not think that the founding fathers ever intended for this to be a solely Christian nation. Of course, they arose from the general Judeo-Christian tradition of Western Europe, but they were keen to throw off the shackles of old thinking. We forget that every government they knew was under the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings where it was thought that Kings and Nobles were anointed by God to enjoy their status. Emperors and Kings all over Europe were anointed by the Pope, even after Martin Luther, in Catholic lands. The children of the aristocracy seemed to automatically gain this blood-blessing, which fit with the hierarchical structure of the Church a very cozy arrangement, indeed.
Owing to Paine and the general intellectual movement of the times the Enlightenment and distaste for the existing systems, the founders reached back to ancient Greece a pagan civilization for inspiration about democracy and a government based on the common man. Having discarded the Divine Right notion, they had no intention of allowing a new set of religious doctrines to take over. Divine Rule was also a feature of Asian societies, especially in China and Japan. The notion that the Emperor was the son of god neatly combined civil authority and religious authority. The US Constitution was the first serious attempt to separate these ideas.
It is important to notice that nowhere in the Constitution is there any mention of God or Jesus. In the original body of the Constitution, religion is mentioned just once in Art. VI, no Religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
This is bright, clear, and unambiguous. It is a profound statement of separation of church and state neither Christian beliefs nor a god-belief are required. It is a profound statement about individual persons. If you think about it, this was an extraordinary concept for the time. Amazing even in our time. The Constitutions oath for taking office does NOT contain the phrase so help me God. That has been appended by various oath-takers.
The danger to government by entanglement with preachers was recognized in the colonies. Several colonies specifically prohibited clergymen from being allowed in town council government. This was a clear understanding that clergy had their domain, but the practical matters of the people neither needed them nor wanted them. (There were no clergy-women in those days.)
The lack of mention of God or Christ was far from an oversight. This was hotly debated, and there were some members pushing for more God. However, the final document omitted all such references, and it was submitted to the States, where this was debated again, but finally approved. Then the Bill of Rights was added, and approved sentence-by-sentence in state legislatures, to make the point even clearer.
Today the evangelical religious right seem to be a very unhappy lot. They claim their beliefs are under threat and are being persecuted. I have great trouble taking them seriously. When I bicycle down the street, almost every corner has a church, with a prominently displayed cross. Christianity pervades our public life and culture from Christmas (remember Christmas trees?) and Easter, to great classical composers like Bach and Mozart, to a great deal of art and literature. And films, like Passion of Christ-and March of the Penguins. You didn't know about penguin faith? March of the Penguins has become the 2nd highest grossing documentary, because evangelical Christians are sending busloads of people to view it. (As a side note, I have had some experiences in the Arctic and Antarctic, so I am happy that people come to understand these amazingly beautiful regions. There is a good reason in evolutionary history why the North Pole has polar bears and the South Pole region has penguins.) But religiously, well, penguins are somewhat monogamous. About the same as humans, I think. Anyway, it is absurd to think that Christians are an endangered species.
In fact, Christian churches are thriving and flush with political power. But are they using this power to promote tolerance, good government policies, decent conditions for our citizens? Sadly, often not. They are exercised about posting the 10 Commandments; having more public prayer; getting tax money for religious, sectarian schools; denying gays the right to marry; and sleepless about keeping under God in the Pledge.
I think people turn to god-beliefs when their own situations are unhappy or confused. If there is fear for the future and little joy, then a promised reward looks attractive.
Some say that symbolism is important. We should have God symbols to show we accept His/Her dominance. This is in the matter of public displays of religiosity and public displays of piety. I reject the notion that any god worth worshipping requires such hypocrisy. Public displays are particularly rejected in the Bible, in Matthew 6. Public displays are not allowed to invade schools.
It seems rather odd to me that Christian evangelicals are exercised about having organized prayers at city councils and in schools. But they do not care about prayers in order to enter a shopping mall. I mean, if ever prayer was going to be needed, this is it. And many kids spend more time in malls than they do in school. Think about that lets demand prayers at every shopping mall entrance! I mean, far more people go shopping than attend town councils, and one could pray for the success of commercial enterprise, the success of the next designer label, and for Wal-Mart to offer health insurance. The possibilities are endless.
I reject the notion that any god is dominant I do not see any evidence that a god determines the course of our democracy, that any god determines our laws, that any god gives the United States or Israel or any nation a favored position in the world. We are a product of our tribal origins and the new tribalism is family values. But our Constitution and our Bill of Rights says that our tribe is all of us.
At the end of the cold war 15 years ago, it seemed to me we had an opportunity to enter a golden age. Freed of this threat, we could use our nations resources to explore space, make medical advances, to provide health care for everyone, to focus on real issues. But something went wrong. We seem to have entered an age of fear. A vague, nameless fear, mostly--but terrorism is invoked whenever Bush's policies sink to a new low. We are changing as a society, with new immigrants, with expanding our understanding of humanness to include gays, and the reaction seems to be we need more religion. Does anyone truly believe that we as a people are worse off now than 10 or 50 years ago?
This is not the first time in American history we have had periods of religious fervor before, the First Great Awakening as called by historians was before the War for Independence. Interestingly, this religious fervor did not extend to giving us a religiously-based Constitution. The 2nd Awakening was in the middle 19th century, and ended after the Civil War, giving us "In God we Trust" on our money. This seemed to work miracles, indeed the Rockefellers, Carnegies, Scaifes, Vanderbilts, and robber barons proceeded to make millions. (I've tried "In Bush I Trust", but it doesn't seem to work. Must be that that that god-thing connection is missing.) The 3rd Great Awakening was in the early 20th century.
It is amazing none our Founding Fathers ever recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Nor did Abraham Lincoln. It was only written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a minister with socialist leanings, and only widely used after WWI.. How could it be that the United States survived for a hundred years without this "Pledge"? The phrase under God was added only in 1954at the urging of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic group that favors Vatican-based government. I always wonder were George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams , James Madison less patriotic and less under God? However did the USA manage to win WWII before we had "under God" in the Pledge?
In our Civil War as well as in WWII, both sides had Christians praying devoutly for victory, and we attribute our success to "under God". Surely this is a silly attempt to placate a god unlikely to change his mind. In the Civil War, both sides prayed feverishly for victory. That war cost more than 500,000 lives. All the matters of politics, religion, life, beauty, prayer, sexuality end when one is dead.
We are now in the 4th Awakening. I would call it the Great Darkening. But it will end, I am sure of that.
Terrorism is a threat, but the roots of terrorism are fundamentalism, and to some extent, lack of constructive employment, like in Iraq and Palestine. But the fundamentalist way of thinking whether it be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or fundamentalism of all varieties stemming from ancient texts and out-dated beliefs is the notion that says only my way of thinking is correct, only my God is right. This neatly eliminates dialog and compromise.
Today, when our legal system is under attack by religious zealots, when many of our fellow Americans feel vague fears and seek refuge in the supernatural for a naive sense of security by displays of religiosity, the role of separation of religion & state is all the more important. We recognize that some people are addicted to such beliefs and need them.
And let us not forget another side of fear. There is huge belief in psychics, astrology, UFOs, dowsing, faith healing, appearances of the Virgin Mary even on cheese sandwiches!stone statues that burst into tears, in exorcism, ghosts, prayer, life after death, crop circles, body meridians, laying on of hands, foot-ology, raptures, tarot cards, Nostradamus, book of Revelation, red heifers appearing in Israel, alien abductions, alternative medicine, feng shui, magnetic bracelets all stuff related to supernaturalisms and countless urban legends the list of irrational nonsense is endless. We are in an age of belief in silly things. Many are relatively harmless, but it is a sign of an unhealthiness in our society. And, this is, I think, related to fear.
Apparently for many, the world does not to make sense. And is thus a bit unknown or worse, unknowable. This makes people want to cling naively to all sorts of weird notions that give them comfort and seem to make sense. My plea is using the power of our rational minds to question claims and to understand the world.
And to return to the free exercise clause for a minute, we can have personal religious beliefs of every and all kinds. Yours do not have to make sense to me, nor vice versa. Where we get into dangerous territory is when we say that because I believe, you should also. We all know that freedom has limitations your right to swing your arms stops where my nose begins. Your freedom to pray stops when it imposes on my right to consider prayer as just a magical incantation. This is a separation of private belief from public religiousness.
Some apparently believe that God is looking out for this nation especially, but I think it is a superstitious notion that public prayer will make Him or Her more favorably disposed. The danger is that by wrapping God up in political discussion, we short-circuit and short-change the public square of discourse. If it is a good idea, then it will succeed by persuading others, not by saying God says so.
A god-view is frequently used by political scoundrels. Faith believers and churches have always tried to capture the power of government to achieve temporal power, promising heaven, in return for tithing and lip service.
Discussion about the complexities of dealing with terrorist threats and foreign governments is impaired when God and religion are mixed up with patriotism.
There is no doubt: the fundamentalists are on the wrong side of history. The movements of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment and scientific knowledge and medical knowledge previously threw off the shackled-thinking of Biblical literalists and self-proclaimed moralists.
Fundamentalists, evangelicals know God's truth with certainty, and those who think otherwise are deceived or deceitful. Thus they seek to save us from ourselves by working to take over every facet of government from school boards to town councils to the national legislative and executive branches. Their final frontier: to own the judiciary and to mold it to their reconstructionist Christian-nation view of history. In short, to remake America as a de facto Christian theocracy.
Fundamentalists see a messy world and seek to control it from a Bible that supposedly anticipated and prescribed everything we need to fix the world. They feel called to impose their plan, perfectly written for anyone to see as they see it not only imposed upon individuals, churches, and congregations, but also, finally, upon public policy.
Yes, it is a messy world that does not fall into neat categories. I think our challenge as AUs is to understand why 63% of Americans disbelieve in evolution and prefer the myths of Genesis. I favor churches, where, as my father said, you do not have to park your mind at the door.
I reject seeing the word secular being used as equivalent to satanic. There is a neutral position that government should neither favor nor hinder personal religious views. This is what secular means. My property taxes and drivers license do not depend on prayer. School education also does not depend on prayer.
Ultimately, our goal is not to win SC cases. And I don't think we are going to win many for a long time. Our goal is to make America a nation of social justice, a nation united on human values, and thus a leading light among nations in concert with the rest of the world, freely exploring religious thought and other thought, but rejecting self-appointed religious authorities. Our goal is understanding fears, insisting on evidence, analytical thinking, and emotions without threats from a government of priests, preachers, imams, popes, mullahs, or pastors. This calls us to think about separation of religion and government and the personal or social insecurities that want a god.
I return to the question: Are humanism, atheism, secularism religions to be equated with other church-beliefs?
My answer is NO. I think Jefferson and Madison included in their objections to religious establishment the freedom to disbelieve. Secularism is a statement of neutrality as regards various faith claims. Humanism is an affirmation that our Constitution and laws and society have arisen from human values and considerations. As for atheism, I have no quarrel with believers in a god, but I have never found the notion of a god helpful to my understanding of the world around me.
I think skepticism is a valuable human value. I am doubtful that ancient texts provide anything of value, scientifically or morally. For example, in the Bible there is an account of a talking snake, and this account is supposed to have changed the whole history of humans. I am doubtful. I mean, snakes cant even pronounce Yiddish properly. There is a website that has collected 631 different creation myths.
There must be a website that collects all the politicians statements that they are in favor of god, they assert they have gods blessing, and they will do gods will. Jesus! if only one of them was believable! Wrapping the cloak of godliness around themselves is a favorite strategy of politicians and it seems to result in big bucks, but we should be suspicious. The desire to be holier than thou is dangerous.
Somehow emotion counts more than rational thinking in terms of religion. The desire for psychic comfort outweighs rational thinking, for some people. This is what happens in a period of fear or a need to find other satisfactions in life. I do not understand why political Christians and others reject the natural world, but I do understand their desire for political power. Their desire conflicts with my wish to be left alone for my private opinions.
Everyone knows that religious views get determined in early life when we are kids and we worry about punishment, parents who invoke right/wrong, using a god to bolster their views. It is a pernicious idea to instill fear in children. No child understands everlasting life, but to promise this is a deception. It violates natural law.
Every one of us knows beauty in our personal lives, expanded we know beauty in a larger vision. Every one of us knows of our own life, expanded we include the lives of others. Being conscious of our own existence is enchanting, and sometimes terrifying. Let us remember not to yield to passing terrors, as a child about what is under the bed, and remember that we offer something positive the simple pleasure of thinking; a love for the beauty of the world; love for our fellow humans; respect for the natural environment that allowed us to evolve; a keen sense social justice; and confidence in the power and joy of rational thought.
This is my idea of religious freedom.
These sites discuss the many creation myths:
http://www.magictails.com/creationlinks.html
http://www.cs.williams.edu/~lindsey/myths/myths.html