OK, I'm a little conflicted about this story. I totally support the separation of church and state (no such thing as a Christian nation, Jesus said he's kingdom isn't of this world, can't impose Christian morality on unbeliever, blah, blah, blah) but I have to say that I think what this state representative did was pretty cool:
An atheists-rights group is suing the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security because state law requires the agency to stress "dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth."Funny that it was Democrat who did it! I cause you guys have theocrats too, huh? :-)[...]
The requirement to credit God for Kentucky's protection was tucked into 2006 homeland security legislation by state Rep. Tom Riner, D-Louisville, a Southern Baptist minister.
"This is recognition that government alone cannot guarantee the perfect safety of the people of Kentucky," Riner said last week.
Riner said he expects Homeland Security to include language recognizing God's benevolent protection in its official reports and other materials -- sometimes the agency does, and sometimes it doesn't -- and to maintain a plaque with that message at the state's Emergency Operations Center in Frankfort.
And the atheists are suing for pain and suffering knowing that a religious kook is crafting laws regarding the safety of the public:
"Plaintiffs also suffer anxiety from the belief that the existence of these unconstitutional laws suggest that their very safety as residents of Kentucky may be in the hands of fanatics, traitors or fools," according to the suit.Calm down, atheists. The Lord's protected you thus far, hasn't he?
BTW, if we remove the mention of God from all aspects of public life, isn't that just promoting atheism? I doubt the founding fathers would have been too supportive of removing God from all aspects of public life because his name is all over the place (documents, prayers, monuments, buildings, etc.)
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First, I think it is more natural for some than others. But, I think it is (oddly) a sort of byproduct of our pattern seeking tendencies that also led to development of science. Its just.. associating the wrong things.
To touch a hot stove and get a blister, and realize that hot stoves can injure you is not a bad conclusion. To wear a pair of red socks and win the ball game and assume that red socks are 'lucky'... well, it comes from a similar basis. Just different process and conclusions.
I don't even think it is necessarily due to being supercilious toward the different. It is.. wanting to have some control over things that happen to you. It is nicer to be able to scapegoat a different group, but that's just frosting. People are perfectly willing to blame themselves when the alternative is 'sometimes stuff happens, and it really didn't have anything to do with what you did. Which means.. it is possible that nothing you do in the future will prevent it from happening again.'
And that.. REALLY scares people.
Karen Brown, I think your argument is a good one. I'd like to add that
we call Earth's natural satellite the Moon and then refer to the natural satellites of other planets as moons. The case makes a difference since one refers to the concept and the other a particular instance. His usage of the term "Almighty God" pretty much clinches which one he's talking about and would seem to violate the establishment clause.
Also, I agree that humans see agency in events that are likely the result of impersonal forces. If a meteorite falls on Earth the events which lead to its impact are fairly deterministic and largely set in stone eons before any of us walked the Earth. Some people might try to draw some sort of moral meaning from where it lands and who it kills (if anyone). Others (like me) would simply conclude that things like that are bound to happen and there is no meaning to them.
ZZ, I'm not sure if you're still reading this thread, but I'd like to ask a question. Is your point that intelligent people can believe in God, or that since past intelligent people believed in God that it is unreasonable not to do so?
If it is the former than I won't argue with you. If it is the later I'd like to make a counter argument.
Newton and Pascal lived before modern science pushed back the age of the universe, increased its size dramatically, and demonstrated how evolution lead to man's existence. So their experience isn't relevant to mine since I have different information available to me. Given the additional information they might have reached different conclusions as well, but we'll never know.
You also touched on the "friendly" versus "hostile" separations of church and state. Friendly separation seeks to limit interference of one in the other to the benefit of both. While hostile separation seeks to banish religion entirely and can be seen to be promoting atheism by default.
I'm for friendly separation since I think non-believers benefit in an environment promoting tolerance, and I also respect other people's freedom of conscience.
MH, it's the former. Like nearly every other arena of human life, reasonable people can disagree.
You need to understand our legal system:
It is impossible for an individual to sue over the constitutionality of a law unless he or she can show damages.
It is impossible for the courts to strike a law unless somebody brings it to suit.
The secular group had to show damages (the pain and suffering), in order to bring it to suit so that the unconstitutional law (and it IS unconstitutional) may be struck down by the courts.
They don't care about receiving money for their pain and suffering- they care about striking the unconstitutional law down. Unfortunately, one can not sue for "unconstitutionality"- if they could have, they would have.
Do you understand now why they're suing for their pain and suffering? It's the only way citizens can enforce the constitution.
This is an important case- not just for secular citizens, but for the right of all citizens to serve as watch dogs to protect the constitution. If this goes through, we'll probably see more unconstitutional and oppressive laws struck down through the same process (and not just religious ones).
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