http://alex.halavais.net/news/index.php?p=991
A STAND UP DEIST by Alex Halavais
There are limits to tolerance. Especially when certain archaic beliefs
threaten to darken our society and roll back the enlightenment. I am
talking, of course, about religion.
A recent Cornell survey
[ MSNBC - Dec. 17, 2004
U.S. views on Muslim-Americans:
Nearly half of Americans believe their rights
should be restricted, according to survey
http://www.archives2004.ghazali.net/html/cornell_poll.html
http://www.comm.cornell.edu/msrg/report1a.pdf ]
found that nearly a third of Americans are interested in curtailing the
civil rights of Muslim-Americans. 29% thought that undercover agents should
infiltrate Muslim organizations in the US, and 27% thought that
Muslim-Americans should be required to register their location with
authorities. Excuse me, but what!?.
It turns out that those most interested in curtailing the religious rights
of others are, quelle surprise, religious themselves:
The survey also found respondents who identified themselves as highly
religious supported restrictions on Muslim-Americans more strongly than
those less religious.
I’d rather provide civil liberties for everyone, but who am I to argue?
Religious extremism is a major source of violence and irrational behavior
in the world. It isn’t at all clear why we should limit this to Muslims,
though. I think anyone who engages in organizations based in faith – let’s
call them “mature cults” – should be monitored. Perhaps we have been too
soft on fundamentalism generally, and anyone who wishes to act on articles
of faith rather than reason should be watched more closely.
Such a solution would have been abhorrent to our founding fathers, not
because they were men of faith (in George Washington’s words: “The
government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the
Christian religion"), but because they believed that free exercise of
thought, no matter the brand of thought, was the cornerstone of liberty.
They wrongly believed that over time the mythical nature of religion would
give way to a reasoned view of god in the everyday. Thomas Jefferson:
One day the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in the United States
will tear down the artificial scaffolding of Christianity. 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.
In his autobiography, Jefferson notes that most of the founding fathers
aimed to protect “the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan,
the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”
Somehow, I don’t think the same man would suggest that it was now time to
start paying special attention to groups who are “Mohammedan,” and curtail
their rights to practice their own religion. But then again, times change.
The founding fathers probably would not have included nuclear weapons in
their freedom to bear arms. They probably were likewise unable to predict
that Americans two centuries later would be able to at once embrace the
science to understand the origins of life itself, and the imagination that
allows them to choose a 2000 year-old fable instead.
In any case, it is time for the atheists, and modern deists, to stand up
and be heard. And one of the things we need to say is that not all opinions
are equal. You are welcome, within your respective communities, to tell old
stories and keep your traditions. But our toleration of that sort of
behavior ends when there are attempts to impose it on our government.
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You are invited to check out the following:
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and the discussion group for the above site listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members]
For people in Hampton Roads you are also invited to join
NORFOLK/VA. B. SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE MEETUP GROUP
http://churchandstate.meetup.com/47/
Virginia Chapter Americans United for Separation of Church and State
http://au-va.org/
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.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
"Dedicated to combatting 'history by sound bite'."
Now including a re-publication of Tom Peters
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE HOME PAGE
and
Audio links to Supreme Court oral arguments and
Speech by civil rights/constitutional lawyer and others.
This site is a member of the following web rings:
Freethought Ring--&--Freethought, Religion & Beliefs Ring
The First Amendment Ring--&--The Church-State Ring
American History WebRing--&--The History Ring
Let Freedom Ring--&--Religious Freedom Ring
Law Issues Ring--&--Legal Research Ring
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