Posted on 07/10/2005 8:24:42 PM PDT by Crackingham
The trouble with the Kentucky display of the Ten Commandments, said the Supreme Court, while approving a similar display in Texas, is that the it was motivated by a "predominantly religious purpose."
The trouble with the court's confusing -- some say absurd -- rulings, says Kevin "Seamus" Hasson of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, is that they proceed from an impossible premise.
"The 'predominantly religious' test suggests that anything not predominantly secular must be religious. It in fact has strong anti -religious overtones."
Hasson, whose organization is devoted to defending the free expression of all religious traditions, believes the court -- and many of America's intellectuals and civil libertarians -- are missing the fact that expunging religion from public life is neither possible nor desirable.
"There's nothing in common sense -- and certainly nothing in the First Amendment -- that requires government hostility to publicly expressed religion, which is where the requirement that government be 'secular' takes you," he says. "I think it's better to say 'temporal' rather than secular. Temporal means the here and now, without reference to the hereafter. Our government was designed to be temporal, but you have only to look at the words and actions of the Founders to understand that they had no interest in the sort of secularity the court now seeks to enforce."
But it's not just in impossibly arcane Supreme Court decisions that "secular" plays us false, says Hasson. "It gets us in needless trouble internationally as well. The Arabic word for secular is almehni , meaning godless. So when Muslim fundamentalists hear us talk about secular government, they think we mean, quite literally, a godless government. Temporal translates into another Arabic word entirely, dunyawi , or worldly.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
BTTT
Arabs are smart. It's only their religion that's stupid.
later pingout.
Freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom FROM religion. People who deny God are, in my book, fair game.They are clearly protected by the First Amendment.
-Eric
Later pingout.
Note to self - stay away while pinging to self.
Note to self - stay away while pinging to self.
I like reading your little notes to yourself sometimes.:)
You should hear me talk to myself. Someone listening would think I had a little tape recorder.
It helps me keep my brain damaged brain cells on track. Sort of.
I must be the most disorganized human on the planet. I would love to be able to live without sleeping - I'll never do everything i want to do!
Sheesh - another note - it was supposed to be "stay AWAKE" while pinging to self.
Note to self - PROOFREAD notes to self.
It is definitely time to do the tooth hygiene thing and put brain cells to bed.
'Night!!
I'm with you on that last part. I don't mind sleeping, but would love to be able to do everything that needs to get done. I've been going on fumes for years. I can't even remember the last time I used an alarm clock. My body wakes up about 5 hours after I go to sleep. It's almost like clockwork. Sometimes some of those people using those cellphones seem like they're talking to themselves.
You and me both. :) Have a good day.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Do you mean to say that atheism is a religion which the first amendment protects the free exercise of?
Do you mean to say that atheism is a religion which the first amendment protects the free exercise of?It's absolutely a religious belief, no more or less entitled to protection, or subject to restriction, than any other set of beliefs.
I'm very much a Separationist but I do believe that the anti-religious often cross the line, using the power of government to suppress protected free expression. The Establishment cause does not mean government can't accomodate religious beliefs, it means it cannot do so on a preferential basis.
-Eric
My ideal is a secular government with a religious culture.As is inevitable in a free society, we have several cultures operating in parallel in this nation. Some are religious, some are secular.
A uniform culture requires government involvement, as only government may enforce rules on the population in general.
There are those who want precisely this to happen. Ironically, one of the largest groups is called the "multiculturalists".
-Eric
So you support faith-based initiatives?
Protected from what?
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