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.

Arguing about Historical Generalizations and Conclusions

by Gary Berg-Cross

In general most people prefer generalities and general conclusions. It makes life simpler.

We may come to them honestly, naively or via various jumps in reasoning. These may include some mixture of belief and intuition. The honest and scientific way comes by inductive reasoning, or what most of us call logical induction. Formal induction is a kind of constructive reasoning based on evidence from individual instances. These provide the premises of the inductive conclusion. In theory and applied in formal mathematics it is clear and can seem simple.

The idea is to reason logically from factual premises. But in practice, when applied to the human world, it is more typically more complex than that. Any intro course is Social Science suggests this. Just think of the attempts to make historical generalizations. Courses are full of them, but many historical generalizations are suspect as inductive simplifications that leave something out. I got to thinking on this seeing a generalization about Religion and Democracy in a comment from a recent blog discussion on Falwell’s Law. This drifted into discussing the premise that Christianity was anti-democratic. A launching point was Rushdooney's book which is critical of Democracy. Some quotes of his included generalizations that-"the heresy of democracy has since then worked havoc in church and state ... Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies."

Another is the flat out assertion that "Christianity is completely and radically anti-democratic.” A commentator agreed and took a strong position that Christianity (but I imagine he would agree with a broader view of all the religions based on the Book) as necessarily anti-democratic. Two types of historical evidence, edited slightly to illustrate the implied a logical argument, were offered:

• Christianity is everywhere devoted to what he called the “dictatorship” of the clergy, and

• A close reading of the Ten Commandments, one Judeo source of social priorities, reveals that the majority of the commandments support this religio-centric view.

We can argue about this, but agree that these indicate some degree of support (inductive probability) for the conclusion. We might liberally formalize them like this to expose some of the reasoning:

• A close inspection has ~60% of the Judeo 10 commandments dictate religious control.
• Judeo-inspired Religious groups follow the Judeo 10 commandments.
• Therefore, Judeo-inspired Religious (instance) Christianity dictates religious control.
  

Classical induction focus on simple premises and the ones I’ve penned above are getting complex. What do we mean by “close inspection”? I’ve added an arbitrary assertion that 60% of the commandments are categorized that they are about religious control whatever that is. And we might add some supporting facts that are in the mind when understanding such an argument. There is often background knowledge and implied things that might further support this or a more specific conclusion. For example, the more “fundamental” a group is the original religious formulations, the closer they may be to a support religio-centric rather than democratic values and control. In practice the inductive process leading to a conclusion can be pretty messy since evidence, especially historical evidence, may go in several directions. Topics that we argue about, such as the above relation of Religions to Democracy are often not unitary things, but composites and mixtures. The 10 Commandments are mixtures of religious adherence and moral suggestion.

The parts of the Bible or Koran that groups look at and the value they give them can vary. The history and experience of a religious group can be formalized as part of their organization approach. Quakers are not like Falwell’s Christian group. All of these make conclusions more complex and tentative. My mind often travels these reasoning paths when I am confronted with historical assertions.One that bugs the Infidel community is the generalized claim that America was founded as a Christian nation. Religious people may prefer this conclusion.As evidence they point to a selective set of “facts” (historical knowledge) to make the case. So they might use a fact that many founders attended church. But here the fact needs to be understood in social and historical context.Bishop William Meade, explained their behavior this way: "Even Mr. Jefferson, and George Wythe, who did not conceal their disbelief in Christianity, took their parts in the duties of vestrymen, the one at Williamsburg, the other at Albermarle; for they wished to be men of influence."

So from attendance, an historical fact that often can be checked, you cannot conclude that they held a tradition belief. The real historical knowledge seems limited to pretty specific statements about specific actors in concrete local circumstances, but from this people generalize and sometimes wildly about what the behavior "means".

In other cases they have made up facts which support their conclusions.

An infamous example is the set of stories create around George Washington. He may not have had Paine’s Deist convictions, but he was far from a traditional Christian. He, along with other founders, was greatly admired in the mid-19^th century. Having non-traditional heroes was a great problem for Christian preachers during a time when they were pushing a new awakening and revival that would give us fundamentalism. They wanted the much admired Washington to be on their side. Their beliefs may have been so strong that they could convince themselves that it was true. In any event they portrayed him in stories and art as a person on strong Christian beliefs. Think of the made up image of Washington praying in the snow. A key fabricator of these propaganda pieces was Christian preacher Mason Locke Weems. Among other things Preacher Weems crafted a death bed story for Washington’s saying that:

"Washington folded his arms decently on his breast, then breathing out 'Father of mercies, take me to thyself,' - he fell asleep." Like other things that Christian fundamentalists sat about Washington, this seems not to be true. In this case we can look to the account from Tobias Lear, Washington's secretary. Lear was with Washington's when he died and wrote this:

"About ten o'clk he made several attempts to speak to me before he could effect it, at length he said, -'I am just going. Have me decently buried; and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead.' I bowed assent, for I could not speak. He then looked at me again and said, 'Do you understand me?' I replied, 'Yes.' 'Tis well,' said he."About ten minutes before he expired (which was between ten and eleven o'clk) his breathing became easier; he lay quietly….”It is also true that Humanists may subscribe to over generalizations base on their world view, although I don’t find them making up stories so readily. that what we now call the Renaissance encouraged “innovative thinking"? Or maybe it was more of a substitution and elevation of a new form of thinking mixed with some innovation. What evidence could prove this? Perhaps it is very much dependent on what you mean by innovation. It's useful to take a skeptical stance about such things as I wrote in another blog on shallow skepticism and another on conservative quotes. The problem with statements like these is the sweep and unity of their generalization. They imply that some complex phenomena which we call the Renaissance (or American culture) were essentially uniform social realities.
This papers over the forms of variation that certainly existed in the phenomena Renaissance, among American founding and in Christianity. Simple generalizations are useful for everyday discussion, especially to draw up side, but thoughtful discussion tolerates more complexity.