While wandering around the web late last night, I found myself at The Left Shue (self-described as ‘An outlet for Progressives who are working for change’). As is my habit, I started reading this newly-encountered blog from its beginnings, back in December 2004. I ran into an entry from January 2005 that cried out for response.
Separation of Church and State – I believe America is drifting inexorably towards a plutocratic theocracy, with only a hint of democracy standing in the way. (Anything we can do to reinforce the integrity of our electoral process will help with this.) My greatest concern is with the extent to which religion is being injected into politics. God is on our money and in our Pledge of Allegiance. The 10 Commandments are on huge monuments and small plaques at courthouses and civic buildings. At every “swearing in,” whether of a witness at trial or of an elected official, we hear the words “…so help me God.” And religious beliefs are being used more and more in determining who should receive political appointments. In some parts of the country “creation science” is part of the public school curriculum. Most of this came about during the 20th century. There is every reason to believe it is contrary to the wishes of the Founding Fathers (or as one author has it, the Founding Brothers), and is absolutely contrary to the best interests of a democratic republic such as ours! I believe all good Americans of whatever political or religious affiliation have an obligation to discuss this matter openly, despite the fact that it makes some folks uncomfortable. Let us keep religion in places of worship, in homes and in the hearts of men and women of good will. Likewise, let all matters pertaining to government and politics be separate from religion as much as possible. Indeed, it may be time to discuss a constitutional amendment to affirm the separation of church and state.
Here’s the comment I left:
Regarding separation of church and state.
I must disagree with you on this. I think you’re mistaken about a few things, and I think you miss the point on a few things.
I don’t believe you’re using the term “theocracy” in a meaningful way. In a theocracy, there is no distinction between church leaders and political leaders. But no one seriously proposes that any religious leader should take the helm of state. The closest we’ve come to that is when Pat Robertson flirted with running for President, and that went nowhere.
Now you’re concerned about the presence of the word God on our currency and in the Pledge of Allegiance. But really, which God is it? The money doesn’t say, “In Christ We Trust,” so it’s not necessarily the Christian God. Neither does it say, “In Allah We Trust,” “In Shiva We Trust,” etc. In other words, the God referred to in these cases is the God of each individual’s belief system. The only people out in the cold are, sadly, atheists, of which there seem to be very few. According to the Wikipedia’s article on Atheism, at most there are about 10% of Americans who don’t believe in God, and there may be as few as 0.4%. You may be one of them. I don’t know.
I think it’s an important point to make that when you’re a minority, you may have to accept that a lot of people are different from you. For example, if I went to China, where dogs are considered a delicacy, it would be inappropriate for me to insist that they stop eating dogs just because I happen to like them as pets.
On the other hand, our Western belief in the rights of minorities hold that it would be equally wrong for my Chinese hosts to insist that I eat dog, because they think it’s an appropriate food. Similarly, we hold that it would be wrong for us to insist that atheists believe in God, just because 90 - 99.6% of the rest of us do.
The reason that people say “so help me God” when taking the oath of office or being sworn in for testimony is that this reflects a high degree of commitment. We do not take testimony or elective service lightly. And generally speaking, we allow nonbelievers to affirm, rather than swear, their honesty and integrity.
But, to the larger point, it is unreasonable for us to keep religion solely “in houses of worship, in homes, and in the hearts of good men and women.” Our religions reflect our values. (Perhaps it’s the other way around.) And our values will inform our decisions about all of the topics that come up in our lives. You have a value system that says, “It is immoral to pre-emptively invade Iraq.” Whether that’s a value you learned in church or not is beside the point. Other people have value systems that say, “It is immoral to kill a child before it’s born just because having a child is inconvenient.”
Another point made about atheism in the Wikipedia is that “Some atheists sum up the legal situation with the phrase: ‘Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion.’” But if you live in a society in which most members are believers of one sort or another, the best you can hope for is that no one tries to make you believe a certain way.
(As an aside: I fully agree with your stated sentiment that “Anything we can do to reinforce the integrity of our electoral process will help with this.” That’s why I support Stefan Sharkansky’s efforts to make sure that we only have people voting who are legally entitled to vote. And that votes are counted only as they are actually cast, not as the King County Elections Board guesses that they were intended to be cast.)
