The 2015 Year in Secular Perspective Blogs

by Gary Berg-Cross

2015 was a diverse year with many issues, some ups and more seemingly downward trends.  In between, as they say there were some learning situations and perhaps some insights. On this Secular Perspective site we had range of topics posted which offers its own perspective.  In case you missed it here are some of the top ones from our volunteer posters. Edd Doerr, president of Americans for Religious Liberty, provided the first 6 or so on some of his favorite issues.

10. Aborting Aristotle  Edd Doerr’s review of a book by  Dave Sterrett had over 200 readers.  He found it an “odd little opus” with an “ anti-abortion screed extruded by an evangelical publisher and concocted by a youngish Southern Evangelical Seminary grad who evidently dwells in a rickety Ivory Tower somewhere in the Twilight Zone beyond Cloud Nine.”

9. Edd Doerr  also had A brief comment on "Zombies of 2016"

Based on Paul Krugman’s column in the April 24 NY Times, that  choped up Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and other Repubs who would like to infest the White House.

8. Edd Doerr also provided a Review of Liberty’s First Crisis: Adams, Jefferson, and the Misfits Who Saved Free Speech

Freedom of speech, press, assembly and petition, like religious freedom  and church-state  separation, were/are intended to be protected by the First Amendment to our Constitution. However, in 1798, less than a decade after the Bill of Rights was adopted, the Federalist controlled Congress and President John Adams enacted the Sedition Act, which was immediately used to prosecute/persecute the slightest printed or spoken utterance that annoyed the Federalist establishment.

7. Edd published several on vouchers including, “The unpopularity of vouchers” which discussed the DC situation with the Congress and the Obama administration on the wrong side of the issue.   “Despite the council’s objections, Congress seems determined to continue D.C. school vouchers”

6. School Choice Works, Privatization Won't noted the importance of knowing  where the candidates stand on important issues like improving public education.

5. Edd’s Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools? Had over 300 readings and give a 5 star rating to a book by Mercedes K. Schneideron the controversial “Common Core State Standards” system.  The “Core” was largely pushed by big-money entrepreneurs and so-called “reformers” with little actual connection to teaching, including such conservative school-voucher-promoting outfits as the Fordham Institute.

4. I authored the next three mostly popular starting with the seasonal Channeling  Robert Ingersoll for Thanksgiving which had over 300 views.  It excerpted Robert Ingersoll’s 1897 , “Thanksgiving Sermon.” Turning from the divine he instead asked who should be thanked.  He found real groups of people - scientists, artists, statesmen, mothers, fathers, poets in contrast to religious organizations and their operatives.. He found plenty of things to be thankful for starting with the long rise from savagery to civilization.  

  

3. The trouble with Hanukkah? Had over 600 views since it was posted in Dec. based on a fact finding article on the Jewish Holiday.  The blog’s title is based on Tom Flynn’s more famous take on that bigger winter holiday in The Trouble with Christmas.

2. Also seasonally popular (>800 views) was my Sustained Seasonal Symbolic Struggles noting various symbolic struggles over words and associated values.
 such as Italian parents who were reportedly furious when a school canceled the "Christmas" concert with a winter recital.

1.  By far our most popular blog was by Matt Goldstein whose recent Can leftism be saved from Jeff Sparrow?  Had over 1000 views since published on Dec. 6^th. Matt notes that the Guardian newspaper’s Jeff Sparrow has been on the attack against New Atheism for some time. Matt rebuts Jeff’s latest salvo We Can Save Atheism From the New Atheists which begins with the question "Why are the New Atheists such jerks?". The provided explanation for the New Atheist's "dickishness" is "anti-Muslim bigotry" and "paranoid, racist shit". Matt sides with Chris Hitchens & Sam Harris’ idea that, "All religions are bad but some religions – especially those in the Middle East, by sheer coincidence! – are worse than others." 

Matt proposes that “What we really need is to save liberalism from bigoted regressive leftist dickish know-it-all jerks like Jeff Sparrow.”

Happy New year all, from one of the editors of Secular Perspectives.

Why is the Post knuckling under on D.C. vouchers?

On Dec 19 the Washington Post ran an editorial titled “Knuckling under on D.C. vouchers” deploring Congress’s refusal to expand the D.C. school voucher program. 

Here is a portion

of the original article followed by comments:

"Left by the wayside — despite pleas from D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) — was a five-yearreauthorization of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program that allows children from low-income families to attend private schools with federal vouchers. The program was created in 2004 as part of a three-pronged investment in D.C. public education that funds the vouchers and provides extra allocations of federal dollars to the public school system and public charter schools. Indeed, the three-sector federal approach has brought more than $600 million to D.C. schools, with traditional public schools receiving $239 million, public charter schools $195 million and the voucher program $183 million. The vouchers have allowed thousands of students, predominantly minorities, to attend private schools. Parents of scholarship students have extolled the benefits of school choice and the positive impact of better schooling on their children’s lives. Interest in the program, according to its administrators, has never been higher."

Responses Here are replies by LaborLawyer and myself.  – Edd Doerr

LaborLawyer 12/19/2015

Given that taxpayer $ is already supporting two K-12 school systems in DC, what rationale -- other than helping parents send their children to religious schools -- is there for the voucher program?

Parents who do not like their regular neighborhood school, can apply to regular out-of-neighborhood schools. Parents who do not like any of the regular schools, can apply to a wide variety of charter schools. Why do parents need yet another option? This editorial fails to even attempt to offer an answer to this obvious question.

Two possible answers -- 1) the WaPo editorial board wants to encourage parents sending their children to religious schools; and 2) the WaPo editorial board wants to weaken the DC teachers union. I'd say the answer is almost certainly #2. The WaPo editorial board has long been irrationally hostile to teachers unions, public sector unions, and unions in general.

(And no, I'm not a union "mouthpiece"; in 30+ years practicing labor law, I represented govt and management, never unions or employees. I have, however, been reading the WaPo editorials for many years and, given my real-world knowledge regarding the good/bad/ugly of unions, am surprised by the WaPo editorial board's irrational animosity towards unions -- particularly the public sector unions which have relatively little economic power and whose impact is largely limited to providing some protection against arbitrary or invidious management action.)

Edd Doerr 12/19/2015 1:00 PM EST

Excellent comment. As for the voucher plan forcing all taxpayers to support pervasively sectarian private schools, it should be clear that this means violating every taxpayer's right not to be compelled by government to support religious institutions. James Madison made this point in his 1785 Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, which was the forerunner to the First Amendment.

Let me cite a Washington Post editorial from March 3, 1971: "Americans have every right, of course, to seek for their children a religiously oriented education and to send their children to private schools which provide the sort of religious orientation they want. But they have no more right to ask the general public to,pay for such schools -- and for the religious instruction they provide -- than to ask the general public to pay for the churches in which, happily, they are free to gather for prayer and for worship as they please. The religious schools are organs of a church. The public schools are organs of a secular authority, the state. Would it not ne wiser, as the Founders of the Republic concluded, to keep church and state altogether separate?"

The Post ran a similar editorial on June 21, 1969.
 

Edd Doerr (arlinc.org)

EddDoerr

12/19/2015 10:20 AM EST

The DC school voucher plan is paid for by US taxpayers nationwide -- and US taxpayers have made it clear that they oppose vouchers. The 2015 Gallup education poll showed opposition at 57% to 31%. State referendums from coast to coast -- 28 of them from 1966 to 2014 -- have shown that Americans oppose vouchers and their variants by 2 to 1. In 1981 DC voters defeated a school voucher plan by 89% to 11%. DC's city council majority opposes vouchers. A coalition of over 50 national religious, educational, civic and civil rights organizations told Congress in October that they oppose vouchers. Why on earth are the Post's editors so keen on vouchers? It makes no sense. Who does not see that diverting public funds to sectarian and other private schools through vouchers or tax credits can only fragment our student population along religious, ideological, social class, ethnic and other lines while undermining our public schools?

Pragmatic Progressive Ethics and Penny-wise Issues

by Gary Berg-Cross

The observation of being penny-wise but pound foolish probably covers lots of example of poor reasoning, some of it public that misses the big picture because of things like niggling adherence to narrowly interpreted dogma. We don’t conduct witch trials anymore, although there is still a non-enforced, minority belief that the devil is abroad and the anti-Christ may be with us.  It is reassuring to observe that we’ve slowly come to the realization that religious beliefs, such as from the Hebrew Bible, change as our knowledge and understanding of reality advances. Religious prescriptions, such as women’s rights or the inherent evilness of people, are not anchored in granite; and thus do not provide an ethical basis for establishing just & durable laws. Instead a good portion of society has come to understand that ethics and morality can be and are best

separated from religion. There is a pragmatic element to laws which are based on experience with lessons than come to be rationalized and mutually accepted.  These are then empirical, rational and institutionally vetted beliefs that in turn ground ethics and morality. As Ron Lindsay (A featured speaker at our regional WASHcon15 in Lynchburg, VA., October 2-4, 2015.) put it in Future Bioethics: OvercomingTaboos, Myths, and Dogmas  we want 

"a well-reasoned, pragmatic approach" with substance.

One might talk about this in terms of pragmatic ethics , a theory of normative, progressive philosophical ethics going back to ethical pragmatists, like John Dewey. The idea is that some societies have progressed morally in a way that is similar to scientific progress. Progress is based on inquiry into testing ideas.  Is no fault divorce a good idea?  Let’s test it and if it proves useful future generations can refine, build on or replace is as social principle.

So as we still find enemies enough and have institutional cruelty in some areas of society there is preponderance of pragmatic sense and we’ve seen some cultural progress on a large scale.  One example is growing acceptance of gay marriage.  But bucking the trend are some penny-unwise spots of resistance on very narrow symbolic grounds provided by a blend of religious, emotional and ideological roots. 

In the gay marriage case it is some free floating belief in the idea of the “sanctity” of marriage. Exhibit A might be from fundamentalist Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis (she had served a deputy role in that office for many years) who pitches a penny-narrow definition of a religious, civil right. Indeed the Davis family has a long history in Rowan County, Kentucky.  She ran her election campaign to replace her mother who was Rowan County Clerk before her.  Among Kim’s arguments for the office was efficiency - the public needed a seamless transition from mom Davis and Kim could provide uninterrupted services including for things like marriage licenses. This sounds ironic now, but daughter Davis was (narrowly) elected in 2014 to be County Clerk.

Now in office, rather than keeping her “civil (religious freedom) rights” to herself, she seems to feel privileged as a public official to pick and choose from ancient prescriptions as her guide to public behavior.  This seems surprising since she was elected to a public, secular office she know well and there are laws governing behavior. We expect that public officials will understand that to operate efficiently we have a pragmatic, modifiable Constitution that is not based on faith this side of the Enlightenment.  Our founders themselves realized that basing laws and governmental practices on religious beliefs would be ultimately unworkable at the public level. But Kim’s penny foolishness, like others, anchors itself in frozen, fundamentalist ethical judgement on things like marriage.  And as Ron Lindsey points out they can defensively externalize their own real dogmatism to attribute righteousness on others:

"Any attempt by humans to control and shape their lives in ways not previously contemplated by some religious tradition results in the claim that we are trying to 'play God.'"

Projection may not be the only psychological process going on here. Pragmatic agreements take time, effort and compromise.  They require "thinking slow" and critically and taking many things into account.  It is not at all playing God to do the hard work and getting agreement. So one suspects that selective “articles of faith” provide an unreasoned rationalization for "believer's"  distaste for things just can’t relate to and don’t like. It’s part of the take back America and “making America great again” slogan we hear as part of the cultural wars.

Unfortunately articles of faith, such as the earlier belief in witches, provide ready-made, emotion-laden explanations rather than reasoned one for when “bad” things happen in the new America. Recently we had Bill O’Reilly explain away the phenomena of mass shootings. It’s not guns or mental illness he argued but atheism. This taps into a cauldron of witchy beliefs common among fundamentalists and perhaps Kim— that morality derives from religion. It follows that: "Bible good", "atheists bad", since they lack any real basis for ethics or morality and live empty lives in pursuit of pleasure in this world.

Not all religious folk are like that and at least think through what is ethical for them and could step aside if religious values kept them from doing their jobs.  United Church of Christ's Rev. Emily C. Heath described how she handled the dilemma of private belief vs public service. She decided not to apply for a job with the Federal Bureau of Prisons because she of the death penalty, which went against her religious beliefs. As she observed:

"Religious liberty is guaranteed in this country. But that does not mean that every job needs to bend to your particular interpretation of your faith....If you really believe doing your job is violating your faith, then stepping aside would be a small price to pay for the love of the Gospel." 

But, unfortunately a rational stepping-aside approach is not what we see as faith intrudes into our civil processes.

You could hear more pragmatic takes from the WASHcon15 speakers:

·                     Ron Lindsay, Center for Inquiry President and CEO , 

·                     Julien Musolino, author and scholar 

·                     Tom Flynn, Executive Director Council for Secular Humanism 

·                     Dr. Andy Thomson, author and psychiatrist

·                     Dr. Jason D. Heap, United Coalition of Reason Executive Director , and 

·                     Linda LaScola, author and researcher .

Godless environments & sweeping tax-credit school voucher bill

Edd Doerr, president, Americans for Religious Liberty, Silver Spring, Md.

Texas Republicans are trying to push a sweeping tax-credit school voucher bill through the legislature. As part of the plot the lieutenant governor’s hand-picked advisory board issued a letter calling every public school “a Godless environment.” The May 1  Ft Worth Star-Telegram ran a long comment by a group of ministers (Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, Christian, Presbyterian) slamming the letter, defending the public schools, and defending church-state separation  and religious liberty. Below is my letter that was published in the Star-Telegram on May 7. – Edd

The pastors who signed the commentary opposing the diversion of public funds to private schools through vouchers or tax credits are in the very best tradition of religious leadership in America.

They see, as did Founders Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, that religious liberty for all requires that government refrain from forcing all citizens to support religious institutions, either directly or indirectly.

This church-state separation principle is enshrined in the Texas Constitution in Article I, Section 7 and Article VII, Section 5.

Religious freedom and our heritage of free public schools should not be tossed away by politicians in Austin or Washington.

Picking Winners

By Gary Berg-Cross

A form of March Madness is leaving the bracket-littered scene, but it provides lingering thoughts about what is given emphasis and effort in our culture and the limits of knowledge and prediction.  It’s all humbling and a bit of a mirror both on our values and also human limitations.  Basketball brackets and the associated discussion are highly structured and “professional.” They are laced with expert observations, data of all kinds and statistical analysis.  There is a run up to the tournament with lots of predictions:

NOTABLE TEAMS RISING: Saint Louis, Florida

NOTABLE TEAMS FALLING: Creighton, Michigan State, Baylor

And on the day after the last regular game newspapers have special sections on all 68 contestants.  The main players on each team are discussed and strengths and weaknesses noted.  You can see a range of predictions. This year one heard of the analysis we had statistical NCAA bracket “optimization” and lots of simulations. You can read about how off or not off predictions were explained as Bracket VooDoo which is way of gesturing that things turned out a bit different than experts believed. 

Of the 11 million people who filled out a bracket on ESPN.com, only 1,780 predicted a Kentucky-UConn final. That’s 0.016% of entrants. It was pointed out that statistically a high school basketball player filling out a bracket on ESPN has twice as much chance of getting drafted by an NBA team (0.03%) as he would have at accurately predicting the final.  Pretty humbling. Our cognitive biases have once again beaten our critical thinking, but there are psychological strategies to consider and use next year.  In America we are optimistic (well not about climate change). 

Bracketology: Somewhere between Art and Science lies perfection

So when we turn to other, important areas of American life, like political campaigns one wonders why predictions seem so much more accurate.  It seems strange that the dynamics are simpler.  Well, of course, there aren’t 68 teams.  But still if we think of an election day there is the notion of predicting the future and winning, which every 4 years involves hundreds of different races at the national, state & local level.  The results of those contests are of much greater importance for the direction of the country than the NCAA tourney, but the culture devotes less consistent, if frustrating, effort to covering it for the citizens and our evolvement seems less focused.  Perhaps this reflects the fact that unlike basketball professionals and experts, pols and their advisors want less intellectual power devoted to help citizens figure out the contests.

So perhaps it is time for the citizenry to bone up on the process of selecting good candidates and what better way than leveraging some ideas from that big elimination contest – March Madness.  Given the disappointments with most of our March brackets we’d probably be far from the ideals of our founders, but I sure would feel better if, as a culture we tried a bit harder and smarter.  

Oh, and of course the bracket metaphor is used widely including for rating religious things as below where people get to vote for their favorite eJsus movie:

More Discussion Topics following Rob Boston’s Talk

By Gary Berg-Cross

A previous post has summarized Rob’s main points and another one on the big discussion topics of united approaches during Q and A. With Edd Doerr as our March speaker talking about“ Humanist Priorities and Strategies in an Election Year” we are likely to have another good session including the several hot button issues this year such as school vouchers, attacks on public education, the “invasion of the soul snatchers”, abortion rights, the new HHS birth control regulations, and what Humanists can do about all that. I hope that readers of this blog will turn out for this and participate

Rob’s February talk was a good warm up for this and for those who didn’t hear the Q & A here is a quick listing of six other topics and questions discussed in February with some links for more information:

1. Originalism
2. The Rhode Island prayer banner case
3. George Washington’s letter to Touro Jews
4. 19^th century Blasphemy laws
5. United States military chaplaincy
6. Fights we might be able to win: Religion and Holding Public Office

• See also my blog on the problem of historical generalizations
  

1. Originalism the principle of interpretation that tries to discover the original meaning or original intent of the constitution was discussed. There is a kernel of truth to it but the constitution is neither rigid nor silly putty. It is more a set of general priniciples from which we progress. These general principles (perhaps derived from the experience o the tine) get expanded in the context of new times and in the face of experperience.

In a phrase used by Rob “Scalia is a phony” on orignialism (although his 1988 Taft Lecture, entitled Originalism: The Lesser Evil has been influential.

As Randy E. Barnett (Georgetown University Law Center) noted in his artiicle Scalia's Infidelity: A Critique of Faint-Hearted Originalism that Justice Scalia allows himself three ways to escape originalist results that he finds to be objectionable:

(1) when the text is insufficiently rule-like,

(2) when precedent has deviated from original meaning and

(3) (when the first two justifications are unavailing) just ignore Originalism

to avoid sufficiently objectionable results.


2. The Rhode Island prayer case where the public school district case committee voted not to appeal a federal court decision ordering the removal of a prayer banner displayed in Cranston High School West auditorium since 1963. It was a school tradition but then again slavery was a tradition.

The dispute began after student Ahlquist noticed the prayer banner displayed in the school auditorium at the end of her freshman year. Ahlquist, who has been an atheist since age 10, started a Facebook page to support removing the banner and argued for taking it down before the school committee, according to court filings.

3. George Washington’s letter to Jews of Touro synagogue (Newport, Rhode Island) on religious liberty and the expression:

To bigotry no sanction,to Persecution No Assistance”

4. Rob’s commentary on the Old Blasphemy laws that came back in the late 19^th century and involved free thinking societies.

The summer of 1886 was a bad time for Charles B. Reynolds. The iconoclastic religious skeptic (and former Methodist minister) took his free-thought message to Boonton, New Jersey. If Reynolds expected Bosntonians to abandon Christianity and embrace free thought, he must have been disappointed. Instead, an unruly mob pelted him with rotten eggs, tore down his podium, and tried to hurl him into a pond.

The following spring Reynolds appeared in Morristown, where he was jailed on charges of blasphemy based on his remarks in Boonton. Reynolds was found guilty by a local jury and fined $25, but he was defended ably by the spirited Robert Green Ingersoll who in his famous address to the jury in the New Jersey blasphemy trial of 1897, described the wretched nature of the concept of blasphemy as well as the unconstitutional nature of the New Jersey law under which his client was being prosecuted.

“Now, gentlemen, what is blasphemy? Of course nobody knows what it is, unless he takes into consideration where he is. What is blasphemy in one country would be a religious exhortation in another. It is owing to where you are and who is in authority. And let me call your attention to the impudence and bigotry of the American Christians, We send missionaries to other countries. What for? To tell them that their religion is false, that their gods are myths and monsters, that their saviors and apostles were impostors, and that our religion is true. You send a man from Morristown -- a Presbyterian, over to Turkey. He goes there, and he tells the Mohammedans -- and he has it in a pamphlet and he distributes it -- that the Koran is a lie, that Mohammed was not a prophet of God, that the angel Gabriel is not so large that it is four hundred leagues between his eyes -- that it is all a mistake -- there never was an angel so large as that. Then what would the Turks do? Suppose the Turks had a law like this statute in New Jersey. They would put the Morristown missionary in jail, and he would send home word, and then what would the people of Morristown say? Honestly -- what do you think they would say? They would say, "Why, look at those poor, heathen wretches. We sent a man over there armed with the truth, and yet they were so blinded by their idolatrous religion, so steeped in superstition, that they actually put that man in prison." Gentlemen, does not that show the need of more missionaries? I would say, yes.

Now, let us turn the tables. A gentleman comes from Turkey to Morristown. He has got a pamphlet. He says, "The Koran is the inspired book, Mohammed is the real prophet, your Bible is false and your Savior simply a myth." Thereupon the Morristown people put him in jail. Then what would the Turks say? They would say, Morristown needs more missionaries," and I would agree with them.

In other words, what we want is intellectual hospitality. Let the world talk. And see how foolish this trial is. I have no doubt that the prosecuting attorney agrees with me today, that whether this law is good or bad, this trial should not have taken place. And let me tell you why. Here comes a man into your town and circulates a pamphlet. Now, if they had just kept still, very few would ever have heard of it. That would have been the end. The diameter of the echo would have been a few thousand feet. But in order to stop the discussion of that question, they indicted this man, and that question has been more discussed in this country since this indictment than all the discussions put together since New Jersey was first granted to Charles II.'s dearest brother James, the Duke of York. And what else? A trial here that is to be reported and published all over the United States, a trial that will give Mr. Reynolds a congregation of fifty millions of people. And yet this was done for the purpose of stopping a discussion of this subject. I want to show you that the thing is in itself almost idiotic -- that it defeats itself, and that you cannot crush out these things by force. Not only so, but Mr. Reynolds has the right to be defended, and his counsel has the right to give his opinions on this subject.”

….the late-nineteenth-century, post-Civil War period is probably the time the United States came the closest to being a "Christian nation," an ideal looked upon with great fondness by today's Religious Right. Indeed, if America ever was "Christian," the late nineteenth century--when courts boldly declared the country a "Christian nation" and the tenets of Protestantism received government favor--was the time.

5. The United States military chaplaincy traces its origins to the French and Indian War.

In a letter dated September 1756, Colonel George Washington noted that, "the want of a chaplain does, I humbly conceive, reflect dishonor upon the regiment."

But George Washington’s appointing of chaplains later in the revolution was a bit of reflection of his ideas about social utilitarianism. He wanted no looting after battles and thought chaplains useful in this way. This evolved a bit as there was more of a need for chaplains if soldiers were far from home.


6. Fights we might be able to win: Religion and Holding Public Office
In the early 1960s, the Governor of Maryland appointed Roy Torcaso to be a Notary Public. As reported Atheism.About.com:

"When the time came for him to actually assume his duties, he was denied his commission and had his appointment rescinded because he refused to declare his belief in God."

"Article 37 of Maryland's Declaration of Rights stated: '[N]o religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God'."

Torcaso filed suit in state court because he felt the test unfairly penalized him for his lack of belief in God. He argued that the religious test had violated his rights under U.S. Constitution.

He lost but e appealed to the State Court of Appeals where he lost again. Finally, he won before the U.S. Supreme Court… The question of whether the no religious test clause binds the states remains unresolved. Given the Court's First Amendment holding, that issue is largely academic….. But the MD law is still on the books and we might get it changed..Not too many ballots are needed to make amendments in MD.

Rob’s parting advice:

Some people believe that if you have no religion you have no morals. Just live your life to disprove that notion and show your humanistic values.

Some Highlights of Rob Boston’s Talk on “The Christian Nation Myth”

By Gary Berg-Cross

In January Rob Boston, the Senior Policy Analyst, Americans United (AU) for Separation of Church and State, was the featured speaker at the MDC chapter of WASH. Rob spoke on the very timely topic of “The Christian Nation Myth” and one of the follow on discussion topics was covered in an earlier blog. The MDC March speaker, Edd Doerr, is likely to add to this discussion so people interested in the topic should come March to hear Edd. As a precursor to this and because some may have missed Rob’s talk, I’ve provided some abbreviated notes on the 4 main arguments from Rob’s talk with a few supplements from other sources.

1. Back to Constitution.

As noted on the AU site:

Religious Right groups and their allies insist that the United States was designed to be officially Christian and that our laws should enforce the doctrines of (their version of) Christianity. Is this viewpoint accurate? Is there anything in the Constitution that gives special treatment or preference to Christianity? Did the founders of our government believe this or intend to create a government that gave special recognition to Christianity?

We can start with the Constitution and ask what it says about religion?
First there are no references to Christianity or God in the Constitution. Indeed the words "Jesus Christ, Christianity, Bible, Creator, Divine, and God" are never mentioned in the Constitution-- not even once.

The word "God" does not appear within the text of the Constitution of the United States. After spending three-and-a-half months debating and negotiating about what should go into the document that would govern the land, the framers drafted a constitution that is secular. The U.S. Constitution is often confused with the Declaration of Independence, and it's important to understand the difference. theocracywatch.org

There are 2 special clauses in Amendments but they show no preference for religion. The 1^st Amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Through ratification of the First Amendment, observed Jefferson, the American people built a "wall of separation between church and state."

The 2^nd came from Charles Pinckney of South Carolina who put a prohibit against a religious test as a qualification for federal officeholders office in Article Six since some states required officeholders be of a particular religion. Article VI, which allows persons of all religious viewpoints to hold public office, was adopted by a unanimous vote. (Note - Some have a different view of what the founders intended by these amendments. Supporters of the role of religion in revolutionary times argue they intended only to defuse controversy by disarming potential critics who might claim religious discrimination in eligibility for public office.

We know something of the founders feelings about religion from Luther Martin of Maryland who gave said that:

a handful of delegates to the Constitutional Convention argued for formal recognition of Christianity in the Constitution, insisting that such language was necessary in order to "hold out some distinction between the professors of Christianity and downright infidelity or paganism." But that view was not adopted, and the Constitution gave government no authority over religion.

Luther as actually a fierce opponent of ratification, and reported that the "no religious test" clause easily had passed at Philadelphia, noting sarcastically:

However, there were some members so unfashionable as to think that a belief of the existence of a Deity, and of a state of future rewards and punishments would be some security for the good conduct of our rulers, and that in a Christian country it would be at least decent to hold out some distinction between the professors of Christianity and downright infidelity or paganism.

2 The American Experience and What the Founders thought

We should understand the American experience around the revolutionary time and their sense of its European history. The revolution was about breaking away from Europe, but also reforming the American approach. Americans (e.g. Franklyn and Adams) had already experienced harsh legacies of the Pilgrims and in Jefferson’s VA their was a too cozy combination of church and state.
Letters show that Madison and Jefferson’s views on the VA statute (1786) for religious liberty was not limited to Christians and included Moslems and infidels.

our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than [on] our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing [of] any citizen as unworthy [of] the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow citizens he has a natural right

It was clear, and the Founders wrote, that the new role of President would be only political an not religious.

3 The Founder's Religion

Were the core Founder’s Christians? There is a big effort by Christian Revisionists to rewrite history about the Founder’s religion. But this argument has been knocked down in blogs such as Rob’s Alternet.org’s article on five Founding Fathers Skepticism_about_Christianity

Washington, for example, didn’t talk about Christ but was a Deist and left the church. He had a social utilitarian belief of religion – It’s good for morals. And we have Washington's Promises Jewish Congregation that US Will Practice Religious Tolerance as well as this quote:

"As the government of the United States is not in any sense
founded on the Christian religion..."-- George Washington

Adams was Unitarian with a belief that Christ was not God. He believed, however that reason and faith could be combined.

In February 1756, Adams wrote in his diary about a discussion he had had with an officer called Major Greene. Greene was a devout Christian who sought to persuade Adams to adopt conservative Christian views. The 2 apparently argued over the divinity of Jesus & the Trinity. Questioned on the matter of Jesus’ divinity, Greene fell back on an old standby of playing the mystery card:

some matters of theology are too complex and mysterious for we puny humans to understand.
Adams wrote that this mystery defense was a convenient cover for “absurdity.”

We have lots of evidence of Jefferson’s religious belief including his famous Bible on display at the Smithsonian and a subject of a previous Blog posting.
There are also pieces from his Letters to Adams (1823):

“And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”

We also have his 1819 letter on what beliefs he doesn't accept including:

· Immaculate Conception

· Divinity and Trinity

· Orders of hierarchy

Madison might be a theist but was probably the strictest church-state separationist among the founders. He took stands more bold than the ACLU:

· He opposed government-paid chaplains in Congress and in the military.

· As president, Madison rejected a proposed census because it involved counting people by profession.

· For the government to count the clergy, Madison said, would violate the First Amendment. (from Alternet)

Tom Paine is a Founder less often mentioned, but a rationalist and enemy of religion.

· He was also a radical Deist whose later work, The Age of Reason, still infuriates fundamentalists. In the tome, Paine attacked institutionalized religion and all of the major tenets of Christianity. (from Alternet)

4. Founding Period Discussion and Later
This period tells us how the constitution and bill of rights documents were attacked by clergy like Millennialist Reverend David Austin (1759-1831). People tried to add Christian amendment to Constitution to rectify the preamble adding key phrases recognizing Lord Christ as ruler. On the other hand there were things written into the Treaty of Tripoli 1796 that points another way:

As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” Ordered by George Washington, Signed by President Adams

One of Rob's key points was that there was more Christian push back after the civil war (1864-1874).

In that period representatives voted the amendments down recognizing the dangers of union of church-state. But there was a national myth generated that was latched onto during the social dislocation of the civil war period. People had a hunger to go back to simpler times. The result is a national myth of a golden age. Many cultures have had such things including the garden of Eden idea and the golden age that Greeks looked back to from the 500 BCE era, which was pretty golden itself.

Among the legacies we have from the 1864-1874 period is the idea of putting “God is our Trust” on to coins. This was defeated then but a variant is of recent vintage, having been slipped in during the cold war. Another legacy is the idea of American exceptionalism as an expression of God's favor and will.

So part of the golden story we get is “Everything fine until .. (add your own disturbance such as Gay marriage, Hispanic immigrants, Secular Humanists…)
It’s a convenient ploy which harnesses a plot of a history suppressed by secular elites. One of its appeals is that in the story Christians appear as the exceptional heroes and defenders of civilization. It all seems right that they, rather than others, are the ones who were originally meant to be in charge of society and the myth is that they were. This is an appealing, old tale as heard in the story of God’s chosen people. The Hebrew version now has evangelical updates and a Mormon corollary that mixes myth and secret knowledge.


Recent efforts to use a religious rules for society (e.g. in PA) ignores what governance were really like in biblical times. It was not a gracious society providing a model on how a society should run (remember slavery?). But earlier efforts have left some remnants such as the legacy of no shopping on Sunday. This was an agenda item of National religious reform effort and got a start along with efforts to allow prayer in school.

Indeed the late 19^th century saw efforts to get secular plays banned and the postal service stopped shipping free thinker publications. There was also a religious move against women's rights.

Rob concluded his talk noting where we stand today including recent efforts to not only rewrite history, but also Science. You can see a list of issues that religious folks have with secular governance on many web sites. He argued strongly that:

1. we have to strongly oppose the Christian establishment myth and its associated principles, which exclude many people who now it can claim, are not true Americans. We are still struggling with our pluralism and the claim that non-believers that don't have America’s best interest at heart.

2. We need to promote the teaching of true History and Science and we have to honor our constitutional values.

3. We need to counter the bad arguments that church-state wall is against religion and imposed by courts.

The follow-on discussion of the talk was of the same high quality and I will perhaps cover some of this in a later Blog post. I’m looking forward to Edd Doerr’s talk on March 3^rd at the Wheaton Library which should be equally stimulating and enlightening.