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I don't object to public prayer, in the sense of someone praying in public. I do object to the idea that you can genericize a prayer enough to not be religion-specific and still have anything worth calling prayer. Which is why I, as a Christian, am against prayer in public schools, at government events, etc. That and the fact that I support the disestablishment clause. But even if I didn't, I'd disagree with the idea that you can have an "all-religions" prayer.
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quote:Chaplains are there to faciliate the service members right to free exercise of religion
Yeah, right. Chaplains are there because the American army, like most armies, dates from a time when the nation was a lot more monolithic, and having the regiments pray every Sunday was the Done Thing. They are government-sponsored religion and should be removed; the argument "We've got chaplains, so we can do religious thing X as well" gets things exactly backwards.
False, as decided in Marsh v. Chambers, 1983.
quote: On September 25, 1789, three days after Congress authorized the appointment of paid chaplains, final agreement was reached on the language of the Bill of Rights., Clearly the men who wrote the First Amendment Religion Clauses did not view paid legislative chaplains and opening prayers as a violation of that Amendment, for the practice of opening sessions with prayer has continued without interruption ever since that early session of Congress.
Standing alone, historical patterns cannot justify contemporary violations of constitutional guarantees, but there is far more here than simply historical patterns. In this context, historical evidence sheds light not only on what the draftsmen intended the Establishment Clause to mean, but also on how they thought that Clause applied to the practice authorized by the First Congress - their actions reveal their intent. An Act "passed by the first Congress assembled under the Constitution, many of whose members had taken part in framing that instrument, . . . is contemporaneous and weighty evidence of its true meaning."
It can hardly be thought that in the same week Members of the First Congress voted to appoint and to pay a chaplain for each House and also voted to approve the draft of the First Amendment for submission to the states, they intended the Establishment Clause of the Amendment to forbid what they had just declared acceptable. In applying the First Amendment to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, it would be incongruous to interpret that Clause as imposing more stringent First Amendment limits on the states than the draftsmen imposed on the Federal Government.
This unique history leads us to accept the interpretation of the First Amendment draftsmen who saw no real threat to the Establishment Clause arising from a practice of prayer similar to that now challenged. We conclude that legislative prayer presents no more potential for establishment than the provision of school transportation, beneficial grants for higher education, or tax exemptions for religious organizations.
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Orinoco, as I thought I made clear in my post to Strider and subsequent posts, I am not talking about the revolution. I am talking about much earlier when Englishmen first came to this continent. When the pilgrims and other settlers were reality. American history didn't start in 1776.
You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. You were talking about what the country was founded for, and by. I say it wasn't religion. If you're talking about some other country, in the more distant past, which is not the one we live in, then why is that important?
Anyway, I still think you're wrong. Religion is the narrative for colonization, not the reality.
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quote:False, as decided in Marsh v. Chambers, 1983.
Yeah, what Tom said. The court decision you cite should have taken the bull by the horns and declared that that early Congress was being inconsistent for bad reasons.
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My comments on the previous page should not be taken to apply to congressional chaplains, only military chaplains.
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Consider this phrase: "Clearly the men who wrote the First Amendment Religion Clauses did not view paid legislative chaplains and opening prayers as a violation of that Amendment..."
Note that the court should have ended that sentence with "...but they should have."
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Why not? That the Founding Fathers were not able to perceive that their own religious biases infected their rituals is not a reason to justify keeping those rituals around. The court is being intellectually dishonest when it suggests otherwise.
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"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ."
I think that a National day of prayer does not fall under respecting an establishment of religion because it favors no particular establishment. If anything it could easily be amended to be the national day of prayer, meditation, and reflection, to satisfy all those uppity 'you can't recognize that faith and good will exist in terms of recognizing a power higher than yourself' folks.
The separation of church and state amendment was established to keep the Government from being intrinsically tied to one or more specific religions, not to force the official policy of the United States to be 'there is no force, or God, or other power that cannot be officially observed through the scientific method'. I would go further and say that an officially atheist stance by the U.S. government would effectively respect the establishment of humanism, which is a particular establishment who's stance of exclusive non-religion makes it a religious group by excluding those who are religious as heretics of their dogma.
Also King of Men, Jesus didn't mean that praying publicly or advocating prayer was something one should not do, he was simply making an example of a man who was praying in the middle of the street to appear pious. He was saying, go pray in private where your piousness can be more genuine, because the motivation would be more pure. He in fact objected many times to people being ashamed of him or God, by keeping their faith a secret out of fear or shame. That was a particularly pundit like attempt to impart an opinion onto somebody with clever phrasing, while skipping the part where they come to the opinion logically. You must be tired today?
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There's an important distinction between atheist and secular.
Just as there is an important distinction between the government saying "today is a day when we should all pray" and "no comment."
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Modern definitions are not, by their very nature, the same definitions used when the Constitution was written. As long as we don;t advocate a specific religion and enshrine it as a an official religion, I say the intent has been met.
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quote:Originally posted by Kwea: In this context, historical evidence sheds light not only on what the draftsmen intended the Establishment Clause to mean, but also on how they thought that Clause applied to the practice authorized by the First Congress - their actions reveal their intent.
This calls to question whether the original intent trumps later wisdom. I believe that the original framers were largely trying to keep any particular Christian sect from gaining power...that was the fear they were trying to allay. I doubt anyone at the time gave serious thought to the rights of atheists or Buddhist or witches. Yet they wrote the establishment clause in a manner non-specific enough to allow this new understanding to fall neatly within its mandate.
When a person's religious system is such an overwhelming majority, it is easy to make God into a sort of truth and to make "religion" mean the various ways Christians choose to worship Him.
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quote:At what point does does something go from bring an aspect of a specific religion to being an aspect of religiousness in general? Does being "widespread across most religions" mean something is shared by a majority of religions, or a majority of religious people?
I think that if several different major religions, independent of one another, come to accept the same concept or practice then it can probably be considered not specific to one religion. Judeo-christianity did not invent prayer; other religions prayed in their own ways in other parts of the world independently from the religions of the Middle East.
Spirituality and religiousness is a feature of humanity - it exists nearly universally across different cultures, and usually as a very important part of those cultures. I don't think we get much benefit from making the government act as if it doesn't exist for the sake of not offending some people. If we were talking about something that's going to put significant pressure on people to change their religious beliefs/practices then that would be different. But in this case, I have a very hard time believing anyone is going to care much about a National Day of Prayer other than people who already pray or who are open to praying - in the same way that I don't think declaring a National Chipotle Day would put any significant pressure on people who dislike burritos to go buy one.
Hmmm... I think my analogies are telling me I'm hungry...
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quote: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ."
I think that a National day of prayer does not fall under respecting an establishment of religion because it favors no particular establishment
String, the clause you quote does not say: "Congress shall make n law respecting any particular establishment of religion." It says quite clearly that it shall make no laws of this kind, at all.
quote: The separation of church and state amendment was established to keep the Government from being intrinsically tied to one or more specific religions, not to force the official policy of the United States to be 'there is no force, or God, or other power that cannot be officially observed through the scientific method'. I would go further and say that an officially atheist stance by the U.S. government would effectively respect the establishment of humanism, which is a particular establishment who's stance of exclusive non-religion makes it a religious group by excluding those who are religious as heretics of their dogma.
And this is a strawman argument. The establishment clause does not allow the government to take an "officially atheist stance," nor does it allow the government to place any burden of proof upon any religious beliefs. The establishment clause prevents the government from holding an official religious stance. What's more, it prevents the government from encouraging or discouraging any practice of religion, whatever. That does not an "officially atheist stance" make.
Approaching the issue from the position that the government not endorsing religion is the government by necessity *denying* religion is simply incorrect. The government is not, perforce, responsible for the support of any religious belief, and its non-involvement in religious matters does not constitute hostility towards religion.
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quote:Judeo-christianity did not invent prayer; other religions prayed in their own ways in other parts of the world independently from the religions of the Middle East.
Have we ever sacrificed a goat in the Capitol to start a session of Congress? Because that would be awesome.
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I find it weird that there would be a National Day of Prayer. I mean, it's not like whatever day or days people worship on aren't already days of prayer, or that every day is a day or prayer, or that Christmas and Easter aren't days of prayer that are (inter)national holidays.
I'm not exactly sure what a day of prayer hopes to accomplish, except to remind people that religion exists. Perhaps when religion is more rare in the future we will need a "National Day of Religion" to remind people of this important part of human history, but at the moment, it seems somewhat superfluous in America, like a National Day of the Hamburger.
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quote:Have we ever sacrificed a goat in the Capitol to start a session of Congress?
I don't think there'd be anything unconstitutional about a National Day of Animal Sacrifice either - and I say that as someone who does not support animal sacrifice as a religious practice. Declaring such a day would not pressure me to sacrifice a goat or reject my religious beliefs in any significant way, nor would it establish any religion as the official US religion given many different religions have a history of sacrificing animals independent from one another.
PETA would probably get mad though....
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Well, there's also an Escargot Day and a Quiche Day. So really, it's just somebody has decided that certain days will have foods associated.
Also, there's a lot of confusion about which day is Hamburger Day on the internet. It's the 28th of SOMETHING.
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quote: The separation of church and state amendment was established to keep the Government from being intrinsically tied to one or more specific religions, not to force the official policy of the United States to be 'there is no force, or God, or other power that cannot be officially observed through the scientific method'. I would go further and say that an officially atheist stance by the U.S. government would effectively respect the establishment of humanism, which is a particular establishment who's stance of exclusive non-religion makes it a religious group by excluding those who are religious as heretics of their dogma.
And this is a strawman argument. The establishment clause does not allow the government to take an "officially atheist stance," nor does it allow the government to place any burden of proof upon any religious beliefs. The establishment clause prevents the government from holding an official religious stance. What's more, it prevents the government from encouraging or discouraging any practice of religion, whatever. That does not an "officially atheist stance" make.
It's also worth noting String, that atheism does not equal humanism. First, are you talking about the philosophy or the organization? And regardless of which, the vast majority of atheists are not humanists. Atheism is just a lack of belief in a deity, while humanism brings along with it a whole host of criteria that not all atheists agree with. And further, not all humanists are atheists. Humanism talks about leading a meaningful and ethical life without recourse to a deity, but in no way bars individuals from having religious beliefs, as long as they agree with the basic humanist principles.
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quote:I don't think there'd be anything unconstitutional about a National Day of Animal Sacrifice either...
No, no. I mean sacrificing an animal as part of prayer. No need to separate the two practices, after all.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Anyway, I still think you're wrong. Religion is the narrative for colonization, not the reality.
Could you please explain what that means? Ar you saying that the historical record is not what it seems to be or that the people involved didn't really mean what they wrote or something else? Thanks.
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When's the last time you read a high school history textbook? Despite the pilgrims and other religious zealots being the minority in population, and certainly not a politically influential group by the time of the revolution, they get a hugely disproportionate level of coverage because they are oft considered "the first" and because 19th century fairy tales about them became popular consumption for American history students. It's all rubbish. We are still taught to believe that the American colonies were founded for freedom of religion, when they clearly were not, given that they were, relatively peacefully, ruled by England for nearly two centuries. It was the extremism of the colonists themselves that made them separatists, not persecution from the church of England. They exiled themselves to America, they were not forced to leave England.
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Nothing in that contradicts what I wrote which was that, in the earlist European settlements in what is now the US, religion was very much a reason for their coming here and tightly bound to civil government. Which was reality.
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"We were founded, in the most part, by and for religion," is what you wrote.
That is, at best, only somewhat true. It depends rather heavily on the "we" having a very broad meaning- encompassing everything from tiny colonies four centuries ago, to the modern American political state. That's not useful for a lot of reasons, not least of which being that the "we" that founded the American nation did *not* do it for religion, even if the "we" that founded *some,* not even *most,* of the colonies did it for religion... which is also mostly not the case. And in addition, the colonies founded for religious purposes were not independent. Furthermore, it was not for the purpose of religious freedom that the US rebelled against the already nominal leadership of the crown. There were, in fact, not that many good reasons for revolution, and freedom of religion was not on anyone's short list.
As for religion being bound to civil government? When? In the colonies? Sure. In the nation formed under the articles and later the constitution? No, not so much. Superficially, yes, religion has been a part of civil government. But for the most part emphatically no, religion did not play a key role in civil government, even in the earliest days of the American nation.
The constitution divorces religion from civil government- how do you find that not to be true? I remind you that association is not causation, and the fact that members of the government are religious does not "tightly bind" religion to government. Nor does the fact of America being a largely religious country make its civil government religious in nature. It does not. As institutions, most especially, government and religion in the states are not mixed. Intercessions of the two are entirely superficial. We have no expressly religious political parties, do not allow religious legislation, have no national church, etc.
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Again, history didn't start in 1776. If you want to understand it, you have to know what came before. You need to put it into some context.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Again, history didn't start in 1776. If you want to understand it, you have to know what came before. You need to put it into some context.
I believe I *do* understand it. I believe it is not as you portray it... lets stop treating each other like idiots.
ETA: in fact I'm a bit put off that you said that. Most of my post had to do with pre-revolutionary America. Clearly I know it existed. I find the relevant points of history, particularly those driving the colonization of America, not to be centered on religion. But then, I don't believe that religion is generally much of a prime mover in any long term historical trend. It's an avatar for more basic sociological and economic trends. Perhaps that's where our view begins to differ.
I am not sure how, given the historical record that you come to that conclusion. Civil government met out civil punishment for having - and propagating the "wrong" religious ideas. Even what many would call esoteric differences of opinion could get one into trouble. The whole "city on a hill", we must spread our brand of Christianity, stuff was very much present in the early documents - speeches, sermons, charters, diaries.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: But for the most part emphatically no, religion did not play a key role in civil government, even in the earliest days of the American nation.
I would love to see analysis of this that moves deeper that the atheist/theist/deist question. For example -- the difference between the calvinism of John Adams and the deistic humanism of Jefferson shows up in the difference between assumptions about equality in the Massachusettes constitution vs the Declaration of Independence. And the model of our three branches of government is the presbyterian form of church polity. What would the constitution have looked like if James Madison hadn't been presbyterian?
But we never look at that level of detail -- the influence of religion alwasys seems to get reduced to "God -- yes or no?"
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: MightyCow, I would.
I believe that we should assume, for the purpose of most religious discussions, that your views are not representative of a majority of self-identified Christians
I attended a highschool youth group where they explicitly told us that any and all "magic" was of the devil. I would also poi t you to the anti-Harry Potter, anti-D&D, anti-Ouija board, etc. groups.
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At the Parliament of World Religions in 1993 the Wicca contribution to the Festival of Religions Art was way cool. And well-received.
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I disagree. I believe that the MAJORITY of Christians don't have an aissue wiht most of that. The extreme religious groups possibly do...some most definatly do...but hardly all or even a mojority of CHristan's do.
I was raised Catholic, and I had a couple of religion teachers who were nuts about that stuff. But they were hardly the majority even in RC CCD classes.
Most of the people teaching that were very aware of the difference between reality and fiction, and had no issue at all about what we chose to read, or if we played DnD.
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National Magic Day is a celebration of stage magic in honor of Harry Houdini. It's not quite the same thing. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:We just need to add a "National Day of Magic" where everyone is encouraged to cast beneficial magic spells for the betterment of America.
Christians would all be cool with that, right?
It really doesn't matter if Christians are or aren't cool with it. What matters is: it wouldn't violate our freedom of religion in any way.
Magic, like prayer, is a concept shared across many religious groups and recognizing it would not imply an establishment of any national religion. And I would not feel significant pressure to reject my Christianity just because the government declared a National Day of Magic.
On a similar note, some Christians already are not cool with Halloween, which does include references to demons, ghosts, etc. But if they were to sue some government agency under the First Amendment for doing something to recognize Halloween, I'd hope the legal system would reject that lawsuit firmly.
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Do you feel significant pressure to reject atheism because of a Day of Prayer? I mean, I don't. What I DO feel is annoyed that my government is giving official support to something that amounts to a placebo effect at best.
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quote:Do you feel significant pressure to reject atheism because of a Day of Prayer?
Absolutely. That I don't find it overwhelmingly oppressive does not mean that I am not aware that my government would prefer that I pray, and has officially endorsed that action.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: It really doesn't matter if Christians are or aren't cool with it. What matters is: it wouldn't violate our freedom of religion in any way.
My point wasn't that it mattered if Christians were cool with it, but that some people are saying, "What's the big deal with a national day of prayer? Nobody is making you pray."
Nobody would be making Christians practice magic if there were a nationally sanctioned Day of Magic, but you wouldn't hear the end of it about how the government was trying to corrupt the youth of the country or encourage anti-Christian sentiments from many Christian groups.
Just trying to offer the Christians some way to empathize, since many don't seem to get what the "big deal" is with this.
Of course Christians don't see what the problem is, any more than many white people don't see why minorities are bothred by a lot of things. They've never been in a minority group.
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