Posted on 11/24/2005 1:47:03 PM PST by Nasty McPhilthy
On August 19th, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a prison violated an inmate's religion by not allowing him to form a prayer group. According to the court, "Atheism is [the inmate's] religion, and the group that he wanted to start was religious in nature even though it expressly rejects a belief in a supreme being."
It's not the first time a court has ruled in such a way. In 1961, the Supreme Court defined "secular humanism" as a religion in Torcaso v. Watkins. In the 1965 case United States v. Seeger, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a conscientious objector who claimed that his "skepticism or disbelief in the existence of God" did "not necessarily mean lack of faith in anything whatsoever."
Nonetheless, conservatives seem to have fallen in lockstep on the latest case. A senior trial attorney from the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy said, "Up is down, and atheism, the antithesis of religion, is religion." Shortly after, conservative pundits began to rally in decrying the Circuit's ruling.
Such commentators have unfortunately missed the point. This is not, as one article argued, an issue of whether our founders were Christian men. This is an issue of reality — of what atheism really is. It is a matter of faith. It's an unproven hypothesis that its adherents want to propagate and convince others of.
As such, they have no right to talk about it in government schools. Because the thought of teaching creationism in schools usually causes liberals to hyperventilate, the thought of teaching evolution or atheism should now have the same effect. What's the real problem that liberals have with teaching creationism in schools? Do they oppose it because it's a matter of faith, and not of science? Or do they oppose it because it isn't their faith? We should know soon, since the predominantly atheist belief in evolution has now been defined as a religious matter.
Because non-religion is now a religion, the Establishment Clause of the Constitution now requires all court houses in the United States to publicly display a copy of the Ten Commandments. When religion was defined simply as a belief in God, it was unconstitutional to display religious monuments anywhere near court houses. However, the absence of God has also become a religion. At best, the amount of space in court houses filled by religious paraphernalia will have to be equal to the amount of space without any religious things.
Best of all, public schools are now unconstitutional. Vouchers, they told us, were wrong because, even though they worked, the government wasn't allowed to pay Christians for educating anyone. The government could only support liberal atheists. But because liberal atheism is now a religious establishment, their government-enforced monopoly over the nation's children can no longer be defined as Constitutional. (That's the fifth or sixth reason public education is unconstitutional, anyway. Maybe when we get to ten, it'll be enough to do something about it.)
Instead of rejecting atheists from the club of the abused, spat upon and persecuted, we should welcome them with open arms. While this may enable them to form special cliques called "prayer groups" when they're in prison, it will prevent them from receiving special privileges from the government. They will no longer be able to oppress everyone who professes to be religious, simply on account of their faith.
If atheism is a religion, then we truly have attained religious equality in America. The only question left is when we're going to appoint a judge who will enact that equality.
Sounds like that guy has waaay too much time on his hands....oh wait, he's a prisoner.
So the 7th Circuit Court decision will mean that places where atheists gather will be tax exempt, because it is "a religion"? That will be the next step.
Stupidity has no bounds!
Geee, you can take one's life, property or liberty but you can't prevent them from forming a prayer group? Something awfully screwy about this line of logic.
And that's correct. Atheism is the absence in a belief in a supreme being.
But you don't need a supreme being to have a group that is religious in nature.
Why do you think you need a supreme being to have a religion?
That's oK. It doesn't matter because Evolution is only a Theory, it's not a Law.
I should post this outstanding treatise on the Fourteenth Amendment to FR. It is a real eye opener and full of valuable facts most do not know.
Evolution is un-constitutional? What's next? Newton's laws? Gravity? Thermodynamics? I think the "secular humanists" believe in those also...
It takes an Atheist to build a prison population.
Now there is an opportunity for a best seller.
Go figure.
I think we're missing his point:
"Because non-religion is now a religion, the Establishment Clause of the Constitution now requires all court houses in the United States to publicly display a copy of the Ten Commandments. When religion was defined simply as a belief in God, it was unconstitutional to display religious monuments anywhere near court houses. However, the absence of God has also become a religion. At best, the amount of space in court houses filled by religious paraphernalia will have to be equal to the amount of space without any religious things."
Evolution must be a religion because I see those fish with feet and Darwin written inside the fish on cars all the time.
I do not believe eating unbleached peanut husks will grant eternal life. According to this reasoning, that's a religion?
"Best of all, public schools are now unconstitutional. Vouchers, they told us, were wrong because, even though they worked, the government wasn't allowed to pay Christians for educating anyone. The government could only support liberal atheists. But because liberal atheism is now a religious establishment, their government-enforced monopoly over the nation's children can no longer be defined as Constitutional. (That's the fifth or sixth reason public education is unconstitutional, anyway. Maybe when we get to ten, it'll be enough to do something about it.)"
Wouldn't you agree?
First, religious believers would try to say the atheism was a belief system itself and atheists would say, no it's not, it's the ABSENCE of belief. But here, thanks to these, courts ruling, everyone's arguing visa versa! So which is it, everybody?? Stop basing your reasoning happens to support your contention at this particular moment. Is atheism a belief or the absence of belief? Both sides should pick one and stick to it.
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