Totalitarian atheism
Barney Zwartz channels Mark Helprin (via an article from an anthology titled New Threats to Freedom. It’s the usual atheist-hating sludge pretending to wit: everything is reversed: it’s not religion that is conformist and coercive, good heavens no, it is that pesky dogmatic militant belligerent ‘my way or the highway atheism.’
Really. Really. I know I’ve said this before, but does Barney Zwartz never go into a bookstore? Does Mark Helprin? I was in the University bookstore here a couple of days ago, and the atheist empire has gotten smaller as well as less visible. It used to take up a good chunk of one shelf, so maybe about 2′, at about chest level, under a sign that said Religious studies and atheism. Now there are no atheist books under that sign, or anywhere else on the adjacent shelves. I looked and looked and finally had to ask, and I was led to a distant shelf where there were a few lonely atheist books at ankle level. There’s hegemony for you! Meanwhile there are many shelves under Christianity, many more under Judaism, many more under Islam, many more under Religious studies, many more under various subject headings – shelf after shelf after shelf after shelf. Yet, somehow, it is atheism that is A New Threat to Freedom.
[Helprin] opens with an anecdote from his youth of trying to philosophise his way out of a fist fight, only to be told by his opponent, “don’t give me none a dat college stuff!” This, Helprin suggests, is exactly the sort of tactic Richard Dawkins employs, confining any discussion to a realm that will give the answer he wants.
Really. Helprin “suggests” that Dawkins employs “exactly” the sort of tactic that says “don’t give me none a dat college stuff!” and then punches you.
If Helprin really “suggests” that, he’s being flagrantly dishonest. If Zwartz got him wrong, then it’s Zwartz who is being flagrantly dishonest. Yet both of them, apparently, think it’s atheists who are coercive.
Since time immemorial, insistence on a sole path to truth has been essential to intolerance. Long the preserve of religion, in the 20th century it went atheistic totalitarian, and has now reached the free West, Helprin says.
Totalitarian; that’s quite a strong charge. Yet it’s atheists who are coercive.
Helprin attacks the atheist bus campaign that began in Britain and has reached Australia. “Signs on buses tell you it’s OK not to believe in God. Admitted, but what of signs that said, ‘it’s OK not to be gay’, ‘it’s OK not to be black’, ‘it’s OK not to be a Jew’? While true, these statements are more than the simple expression of a point of view. Accurately perceived, they are an ugly form of pressure that while necessarily legal is nonetheless indecent.”
No. Being gay or black is not a belief or a not-belief. Being gay or black* is not parallel to not believing in God. Saying it’s OK not to believe something should not be construed as a form of pressure when it is obviously an attempt to counter a form of pressure.
After that there’s a lot of windy stuff conflating aesthetics and emotions with something ineffable, and using that to swear at atheists for being narrow and philistine and boring. It’s stupid, malevolent, pretentious stuff.
And now I really am leaving.
*Being a Jew mixes the two.
Barney Zwartz said:
As one of the comments on that post already said it, but I think it’s worth repeating here: it would be more appropriate to compare the atheist bus campaign to signs saying “it’s OK to not be white”, or “it’s OK to not be straight”.
Ophelia Benson said:
Which they do by comparing atheists to chickens. Because chickens can’t hear in Mozart what humans hear. Similarly, atheists can’t perceive what theists can. Yeah, right.
Oh, I almost forgot:
Enjoy your trip :)
The logic seems to be something like this:
Atheists don’t like religion,
Religion is like art,
Atheist don’t like art.
Barney says: Fair point, but it’s not just the bus ads, is it. There’s a secular party standing in the elections, the Atheist Foundation pumping out press releases and campaigning where it can, atheists in the media, atheists on forums like this (that’s not a complaint, btw, most of them being reasonable and pleasant human beings, and even the ones that aren’t are allowed their views) exerting pressure. Some of them do attack religion and the religious as mental and moral pygmies who must be restrained.
Barney Zwartz – August 18, 2010, 8:49AM
What a delightfully odius toad this man is. Okay, looking at Australian political parties according to Wikipedia the following minor party representation comes out to…
Australian Greens: 27 (Federal 5, Tasmania 5, Western Australia 4, ACT 4, NSW 4, Victoria 3, South Australia 2)
Family First Party: 4 (Federal 1, South Australia 2, NSW 1)
Shooters and Fishers Party: 2 (NSW)
Christian Democratic Party: 1 (NSW)
Democratic Labor Party: 1 (Victoria)
Dignity for Disability: 1 (South Australia)
The Queensland Party: 1 (Queensland)
Wait, what’s that? The Christian Democratic Party? Family First? Real hegonamy there!
In order to find the “secular party” you have to look in the unelected bin – which includes the Australian Sex Party, and the Climate Sceptics. One could equally well say that because of the proliferation of books by porn stars, and the fact that there is sex party in Australia, that suddenly there is a Pornographic Hegenomy!
Which would explain why Barney reads like a wanker.
This is without even getting into the fact that secular and atheist do not mean the same damn thing.
Yes, Michael, it’s just that stupid! This is really astonishing stuff! Just think about it in relation to what Ophelia has just said about the ‘atheism’ section of her University bookstore — UNIVERSITY bookstore! A few atheists claim that religion is false and even dangerous. They may express the view, as, for example, Dawkins does, that they wouldn’t miss religion if it should simply disappear, but they don’t think its disappearance very likely. And Hitchens says that he would regret the passing of religion. However, every one of them is politically liberal, and they go out of their way to stress that they do not think that religion should be suppressed, or that the freedoms of religious people should be abridged. (I’m rather more ready to deny religious parents the sole right of indoctrinating children, but I’m not one of the atheists that Zwartz or Helprin could have in mind.) Yet they are accused of espousing a totalitarian ideology! What madness is this? Exception is taken to atheist advertisements and atheist publications, or atheists participating in politics. It is suggested that if any policy would be consonant with a religious point of view, such as the prohibition of murder, it should not be part of the criminal or civil law! Where does this nonsense come from? As Ophelia says, someone is being flagrantly dishonest. And both Zwartz and Helprin are, one assumes, religious. So either of two religious people is being dishonest and deliberately misrepresenting well-known atheists, whose books are available and easily consulted. What’s wrong with this picture?
As for the argument about ‘spiritual’ or ‘transcendent’ or ‘artistic’ experience, even Zwartz and Helprin must know that the atheists they are speaking about make a special effort to stress the importance of art, and the acheivements of religious art and music. Not only that, but Sam Harris, one of the main vectors of 21st century atheism is a serious proponent of meditation and the transcendent experiences derivable therefrom. It is simply bizarre that people can be quite as blinkered as Zwartz shows himself to be. Since I haven’t read Halprin, I can’t speak about him. But Zwartz has shown himself to be colossally stupid. (I tried to sign up to comment at his newspaper, but my registration was not accepted, apparently because it could not recognise Canadian postal codes, otherwise I’d have written something similar over there too.)
And yes, Ophelia, have a great trip…. Sweden, was it? Good luck!
Dreadful. There is one thing I liked about this piece, though. The author did us the courtesy of defining what he means by “militant atheist”:
I get tired of trying to determine from context exactly how meaningless this term is. In this case we can see it’s quite meaningless.
First of all I am not sure that only a small minority feel that their position on god is the only valid one. It seems that you either do or you don’t or you are an agnostic.
Overall, though, I take issue with that as the definition of militant. If we say someone is a Christian militant, we do not mean that they feel their position on the divinity of Christ is the only valid one. Obviously, they do, but that’s not militant. When we say militant Christians or Muslims, we mean violent.
It seems to me what the author, and most other people who use the term “militant antheist”, means is uncompromising and obnoxious. Obviously, for them, atheism is something that should be done quietly behind closed doors, where it won’t frighten the horses.
As to whether this “militancy” rises to the level of totalitarianism, I’ll just have to ask if there is any law, or any atheist proposing a law, that makes atheism a condition for voting, office-holding, or receiving public services?
@DrBrydon: yes, it’s not like many people will tell you they don’t think their position is valid. And this invariably means that they must think that all contradicting positions are invalid – otherwise, they would have changed their position.. But when an atheist thinks their position is valid, and therefore contradicting positions aren’t, they are suddenly “militant”. As you say, a label most other groups only get after they start using armed violence. There’s a clear double standard there.
And about agnostics, well, they too appear to be rather sure that agnosticism is the only valid position to have ;)
They are truly afraid; the only justification for their view is tradition. If you call them on their misrepresentations, you only get repetition and goalpost shifting as replies.
Every so often, I have to visit Biologos just to see where they are heading and I always come away laughing or just shaking my head. In a post last week entitled Biblical and Scientific Shortcomings of Flood Geology, the commenters keep trying to cram 100s of years of science into the Genesis account when the only sensible strategy is to ignore the Biblical account and move on. They just can’t accept the shortcomings of their texts and so they lash out at atheist scientists instead.
Then there is Darrel Falk’s reply to Jerry Coyne “I am the lord of the Dance” said He where a commenter tries to “other” Jerry:
Can he back this up when challenged? No, he just resorts to repeating his initial claims that Coyne is different because he is a New Atheist and we know New Atheists are bad.
Say what? Ah, maybe he’s talking about the decalogue. Come to think of it, I remember reading that my ancestors, before being exposed to it, thought that murder, theft, adultery and perjury were perfectly acceptable behaviors.
And they treated their parents like shit.
Their argument seems to be:
If you criticize my religious beliefs, then you are inhibiting my free exercise of those religious beliefs.
Who knew the critiques were so powerful?
Well Zwartz is Australian, and the Australians have not settled the boundary of “church” and “state” in any robust way, its all been by half measures and custom – they have no principle upon which to rely, and so its all very contestable. They have interpreted their constitution very narrowly to mean that the state can’t “establish a religion” … but the state can and does “fund” religion.
That is why Zwarts has a dog in this hunt. This is about the quest for money, and the need for the church to position itself as a service provider to the state.
There is a battle in Australia for the “implications” of Secularism. Zwartz is a partisan in that fight. The Church is aligned against secularism, because it needs the funding from the state.
Australia is currently involved in the “rise of the para church movement” … it is a unique model, based on a long standing failure to settle the question of what secularism means in Australia.
some of the implications of this issue here:
http://statereligionvic.posterous.com/
I used to comment on Zwartz’ blog. I got so pissed off with his lies and misrepresentations of Dawkins and Myers that I had to stop or I would’ve torn my hair out. He’s such a smug arse about it all too.
Regarding the chicken thing, I didn’t have enough space to spell out my whole counterargument in the comment box there. Basically, chickens have four color receptors to our three; their color data is so much more complex than ours it has to be graphed in three dimensions rather than the two for ours. Chickens can see colors that we can’t.
Basically, I wanted to make the case that even if he’s correct that we can safely say chickens can’t appreciate Mozart, that doesn’t mean that chickens aren’t capable of appreciating things we can’t. One can even pose a thought experiment in which the chicken was capable of appreciating the nuance of the music, but could see written on the wall (in a color humans can’t see) source code, and that the chicken could see that the source code would generate the very music attributed to Mozart. In this counterfactual world, Mozart is actually a computer program, and the only reason the chicken doesn’t see the same genius the human does is because the chicken knows better.
All of which amounts to what I actually said: there’s no more reason to believe theists have access to a faculty or faculties that atheists don’t than to believe that atheists have faculties that are inaccessible to believers. The argument is a non-starter. A theist can make it, but any atheist is just as much logically entitled to make the same argument right back. Of course, theists commonly make this argument and atheists never do. That makes it look like a case for God when it’s really more of a case for intellectual integrity on the part of atheists.
Same problem with the militancy claim. Christians buy more transit ads than atheists, and those ads are more offensive. And they’ve been doing it for decades. Christians are often smug or arrogant, they often try to shut down debate using nothing more than anti-intellectual bluster. Essentially, any claim of atheists being illiberal can be matched with a far more compelling example of theists being illiberal.
Helprin’s real problem is the plank in his eye.
Scott, I have no idea why you brought Zwartz’s nationality into this. I am Australian, Russell Blackford is Australian, and we belong to the Western democracy that has installed the greatest number of openly atheist/agnostic political leaders (with Gillard we’ve had three, the other two being Hawke and Whitlam; the next best is the UK with Clement Attlee and James Callaghan and they were more quasi-atheist than actual non-believers). Australia is probably the most secular society on the planet.
That has not stopped the religious right from trying to undermine secularism — I’ve written about the disgraceful way John Howard’s lunatic fringe installed religion in state schools — but it is always done by stealth rather than by an open admission of pushing religion into schools. Your “long-standing failure” to settle issues of secularism applies to *every* country, including the US which has a clear constitutional caveat against establishing religion and yet its constitution has only been helpful in preventing the most egregious examples of creeping religion (and didn’t stop a recent sitting president from claiming atheists should not be considered citizens).
Finally, Zwartz is a journalist, not a priest. As such, his extensive dissembling, misconstruing, and betrayal of professional standards have nothing to do with church income streams and everything to do with his own personal struggle against truth and responsible reporting. Just because he supports conservative religious agendas does not make him part of a conspiracy to increase church wealth.
Chris Lawson:
everything to do with his own personal struggle against truth and responsible reporting
That’s gold!
@Deen
Good point. ;-)
Chris Lawson: I, too, am from the land of Oz. I didn’t read Scott’s comment as being any kind of attack on Australian culture – more a comment on political structures. You’re both right, IMHO. The US has formal constitutional limits on church and state, but it seems that it’s impossible to get elected as village janitor if you don’t espouse conventional religious beliefs. In Australia, on the other hand, there is no official freedom of or from religion, but it seems there’s much less discrimination against free-thinking politicians.
My extended comments on Helprin’s essay are at http://thebentangle.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/uks-pro-atheist-bus-ads-as-pressure-relief/
Zwartz talk about chickens not feeling Mozart brought this to mind
The light dove cleaving in free flight the thin air, whose resistance it feels, might imagine that her movements would be far more free and rapid in airless space. Just in the same way did Plato, abandoning the world of sense because of the narrow limits it sets to the understanding, venture upon the wings of ideas beyond it, into the void space of pure intellect. He did not reflect that he made no real progress by all his efforts; for he met with no resistance which might serve him for a support, as it were, whereon to rest, and on which he might apply his powers, in order to let the intellect acquire momentum for its progress. It is, indeed, the common fate of human reason in speculation, to finish the imposing edifice of thought as rapidly as possible, and then for the first time to begin to examine whether the foundation is a solid one or no.
But the dove would be Zwartz et al. Thinking that their feelings are an insight to some noumenal realm instead of just mundane in origin.
@Deen
Im going to ignore the smiley, but does an atheist believe any other positions are valid? (and if so then why is he only an atheist? )
@Deepak Shetty: like I said, just like everybody else, atheists think their position is the only valid one, or at least the most valid one. Otherwise, why not adopt the other position? In no way are atheists unique in this respect.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. Is it the atheism vs agnosticism debate again? If so, atheists tend to have a slightly different view on what “agnostic” and “atheist” means than agnostics do. Most atheists in fact consider themselves agnostic atheists (as oppose to gnostic atheists or agnostic theists): they don’t claim to possess absolute knowledge that god exists, but simply don’t believe that he does.
Gordon, we do have a constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion in Australia.
116. The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.
From http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/general/constitution/chapter5.htm
This is not perfect protection as it does not constrain States’ powers and it does not specifically prohibit supporting religious enterprises and there are ways around it (thanks largely to a decision made during Garfield Barwick’s last year on the High Court). But still, it is a powerful and unambiguous protection of freedom of religion at the federal level.
Of course I feel I’ve come to the correct conclusion on some of these things. But one of the things I feel I have come to the correct conclusion on is the necessity to let people make stupid mistakes … and come to reason things through themselves, eventually. (Or, their children, etc.)
Do they mention the communist religion?Because that is the usual “atheists-are-dangerous-unbelievers” trope, and ignoring that neither communism is not atheism, nor atheism communism.
Greg
Predictable aren’t they? Someone pointed out that the “militant atheists” all went to Russia and China (Which oddly enough, actually legally allow/ed religion. Free association, not so much.)
So somebody else pointed out that they were militant communists, rather than militant atheists, to which our intellectually bankrupt little troll replied…
It is OK to be Australian. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.
It is OK to be Australian. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.
Phew, what a relief. There I was wondering if it was OK to be enjoying my life down under.
Could they put that on the side of a bus, just in case I forget and get anxious again?
Eric, I used your post as in a reply to Zwartz on PZ’s blog. I hope that’s OK?
@Chris Lawson. Quite right. I stand corrected. (Insert embarrassed emoticon here)
Going back to the pure crystal headwaters of this piece, by which of course I mean the wisdom of Barney Zwartz, we read: “The anti-religious employ reason unreasonably, apply moral pressure immorally, deny the shortcomings of their own ideology, misunderstand separation of church and state, offer no satisfactory replacement for religion, and are simply blind and deaf to the most transcendent longings.”
That is Zwartz, not Helprin. To engage with any one of those sweeping genaralities would be like trying to row a boat across a swamp filled with submerged logs and debris, not to mention the odd alligator or crocodile. Likewise for any attempt to substantiate them. So needless to add, Zwartz neglects to bother.
What Zwartz is arguing is that only religion can save us all from totalitarianism, while atheism only serves to drive us all into it.
Totalitarianism and liberalism both begin in the individual mind; the same mind which the true sceptic keeps open and the true bigot keeps closed. To prosper under a totalitarian regime, as say Trofim Lysenko did in Stalin’s Russia, the candidate prosperee must never allow that the predominant line of thought could possibly be wrong; ie be of ‘two minds’ (of whatever state of balance) about it.
None of the Abrahamic religions, nor Hinduism, are liberal in the sense of encouraging adherents to accept the possibility that the gods they worship might not actually exist. Firm belief in the whatever is central to the lot of them. Hence the opening statement of the Apostles’ Creed; not much room for admission of other possibilities there.
Yeah, but Zwarts is reacting to this kind of thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFsCS5LPQI4
This kind of speech is genuinely troubling … Zwartz is a partisan, but he’s concerned about people who talk about secularism as a means to suppress religion, in favor of “rationalism” … or something.
S 116 replaced the word “respecting” (from BoRights) with the word “for” … the only thing the Commonwealth can’t do is make a “state church” it can make all the laws it wasn’t about religion … it just can’t make one the official state religion.
Nothing to be terribly proud of.
Oz’s leading clerics commonly decry secularism as an enemy of religion, and their leading secularists commonly paint religion as an enemy of peace …
Aussie Aussie oy.
Chris Lawson, I do take your point that the way I worded the comment could have been interpreted to mean that Australia was struggling, while in the US everything was clear and uncontested. I do see how that would be both wrong and insulting.
The courts in the US have moved toward interpreting the first amendment to mean something much broader than “establishing” … taking the view (not uncontested though) that the state should not “promote” religion or do things that even “favor” it.
Anyway, I take the point that making it sound like these issues were uniquely Australian is totally wrong. You are right, the issues are contested everywhere …
I see Zwartz as this hybrid reporter / commentator who is always spinning the story to push his agenda – which as I see it views atheism as a treat to freedom. I think, as the video above shows that prominent secularists use “secularism” as a pretext to argue that rationalism is better for you and something the state should promote as policy, vs. being “neutral” … the state has moved into the role of grant making body for the church, and there is an argument to be made that the state should promote the church – as a vehicle to advance its own interests. I don’t like it, but its there.
Sure Brian, that’s okay. Is that really Zwartz commenting over there on Pharyngula? Wow. If so, he’s really quite a piece of work! No wonder he sounds so stupid in the newspaper. He is.
Here is Barney replying at Pharyngula:
Here is Barney quoting Helprin in his original article:
If this doesn’t imply atheists don’t appreciate art and that art is tied to religious belief, then maybe I don’t know how to read.
Eric, it is indeed old Barney. Unless someone’s stolen his identity. I expect him to quote some of the vitriol he’s engendered as proof that gnu atheists are evil in the future.
Do you really think a constitution should prevent anyone from speaking out with their opinions? In the US even the President has that freedom. The US Constitution proscribes actions, not words, and it has been essential in preventing much more than what you call “the most egregious examples of creeping religion.” Issues of secularism have been long established and settled in the US.
Tomh, it isn’t totally clear what “creeping religion” means, but I think Chris is right to say that these issues are not settled and are contested.
former prime minister Rudd said this:
A [truly] Christian perspective on contemporary policy debates may not prevail. It must nonetheless be argued. And once heard, it must be weighed, together with other arguments from different philosophical traditions, in a fully contestable secular polity. A Christian perspective, informed by a social gospel or Christian socialist tradition, should not be rejected contemptuously by secular politicians as if these views are an unwelcome intrusion into the political sphere. If the churches are barred from participating in the great debates about the values that ultimately underpin our society, our economy and our polity, then we have reached a very strange place indeed.
This is the same place that Zwartz is coming from
Scott, this seems to be the problem. The Catholic church (and others I’m sure), have tax free status, but still, inspite of the explicit requirement legal requirement (ask the ATO) that they don’t, try to influence policy. It’s not a bunch of inchoate believers. It’s a group that have agreed to a contract who want to argue as if they were free of that contract. If Zwartz is coming from that point, I have no surprise, and no urge to support him.
People who think that ‘secularism’ means putting your fingers in your ears and going ‘Lalala I can’t hear you’ when religious people and organisations talk aren’t really getting to the heart of the concept. If atheists are to be allowed to proselytise, theists must be allowed to as well; if atheists are to propose public-policy solutions, theists must be allowed to as well. Atheists won’t like it – because they’re atheists – but they can be assured that their dislike is shared by the theists who would also rather have it all their own way.
All that secularism can require, unless it is to abandon pluralism in favour of something that begins to veer towards a totalitarian ambition, is that the theistic solutions are not privileged for being theistic. Of course, if your vision of secularism is not pluralistic, you can fuck off.
Who says we won’t like it? What I dislike is the fact that the religious believe they’re entitled to everything — complete tax exemption, the right to dictate how their ‘flock’ will vote, and preferential access to tax money. I don’t care if theists want to propose policy solutions, as long as others will be allowed to criticize it mercilessly. I don’t care if theists want to proselytize, as long as others are allowed to mock it mercilessly. Yet, this is not what is desired by believers. They want to be able to shut down those they dislike, and claiming that those they dislike are militant, too aggressive, or fundamentalist is just another way to accomplish that.
tomh,
I don’t think issues of secularism are settled anywhere, not even the US where the legal boundaries of what is permissible in public office have been challenged from both sides, e.g. the recent legal challenge to Obama’s oath of office containing the phrase “so help me God.”
ckitching –
Absolutely the way I see it. When secularists talk about churches staying out of the public square, we don’t mean that the Pope has no right to express an opinion about public policy; we are objecting to the privilege that many (but not all) churches expect (and often receive) when they do so.
Some comments here can’t be left unremarked.
Americans I’ve encountered automatically assume that the US is the democratic exemplar for the world,then compare other societies with the US with little or no understanding of how they function. For example, from the perspective of a citizen of a parliamentary democracy Americans don’t elect governments,they elect a quasi-monarch for 4 years who then forms his own government.Get the point?
“In America,the accused have the right to silence,the presumption of innocence”,this statement is made as if these, and other, rights, are unique to the US or even first exercised in the US and the poor ignorant foreigner has to be informed of these unique American achievements. It certainly is offensive.
You really think the wording of the oath of office is an important issue? The principles of secularism are in the US are settled, enforced by the courts on the bedrock of the Constitution. Of course conflicts arise over issues, in the case you mention from an atheist objecting to wording used in the oath, but usually from religionists trying to distort the Constitution for their own ends. Considering the degree that religion permeates America and Americans, it’s remarkable that the secular Constitution still controls the law.
My main point was how silly your statement was that the Constitution “didn’t stop a recent sitting president from claiming atheists should not be considered citizens.” It’s the Constitution that protects his right to say that.
@ Chris Lawson. Just to briefly say that I read shocking story vis-à-vis Pearls over at your place. The book should be highlighted more, but then again, that would also defeat the object by selling more copies.
The core principles embodied in the “Establishment Clause” and “Free Exercise Clause” of our 1st Amendment are pretty well settled so far as the federal courts are concerned, and have been for at least 50 years. Especially in the Supreme Court of the last 20 years, there have been and still are seriously contested issues at the margins in the Establishment Clause area — what is or is not impermissible state action that improperly favors or advances religion in general or particular religious sects; when does permissible “ceremonial deism” go too far and become unconstitutional; should the Lemon v. Kurtzman test be thrown out.
But as a lawyer living in the American Midwest, I assure you that outside the federal courts, Establishment Clause principles are not well-settled. Certainly not in the general population of U.S. citizens, most of whom would be hard-pressed to define “secularism,” let alone say something coherent about the “principles of secularism.” Yes, there is little chance that the current Supreme Court or a future one would re-define out of existence the “no religious test” clause of the Constitution. But there are many American voters who (1) would be surprised to learn that the clause is there or (2) would be quite happy to see the Constitution amended to require a religious test or oath for public office, or even to establish some bland form of Christianity as the State Religion in America. I have met many of these Americans personally and have listened to them. So long as they are laboring under their own peculiar mixture of ignorance, arrogance, and bruised entitlement, the “principles of secularism” are not entirely secure, not even in America.
Well put Jeff I agree
Exactly right. Which is why I said that, given the way religion permeates America and Americans it is amazing that the secular Constitution is still the final word in American law. Which it is, though that can always change.
tomh,
Issues of secularism are not settled in the US. There has been a flurry of recent legal conflict over the scope and interpretation of the Constitution as it applies to religion and politics, and many of the decisions have come down to a one-judge majority (often with strikingly angry judgements from the minority judges complaining about the decision of the court). I chose the particular example of the oath because it is well-known. Even so, the decision was very important in terms of constitutional interpretation. Essentially the court found that it was OK for the Presidential oath to contain openly religious exhortations — in spite of the constitutional ban on such things — because it was “symbolic” and “traditional.” I don’t think it’s silliness to use this as an example. And you might want to watch your tone since you seem quick to descend into insults rather than engage in constructive arguments or useful counter-examples.
tomh,
I’d also like to point out that it is somewhat disingenuous to take a well-argued comment from Jeff D saying the secularism is not settled in the US and taken it to show how right you were all along when you said the matter was settled.
Since I didn’t say this example was silly, it’s somewhat disingenuous for you to claim that I did. I said that your statement that the Constitution “didn’t stop a recent sitting president from claiming atheists should not be considered citizens,” was silly.
Chris and Tom, you seem to be having an emotional discussion – I think we all take the point that Chris made that the US has in no way “settled” these issues in the sense that they are not still subject to discussion and debate. It is however interesting to look at how these issues are discussed in the various parts of the former British Empire, as they all share similar social origins, are made up of immigrant populations that formed in the absence of clear social precedence, and were all faced with the challenge of creating a new society out of the old.
I’m curious whether there examples of the word “secular” occurring in american law? Is the word secular defined anywhere in American law?
The Constitution of the United States does not use the word, nor does the Constitution of Australia (although the word certainly was available and in the vocabulary of the people who wrote the latter.
If I am to believe the wikipedia account, the word itself is credited as first being used in 1851. True?
The word “secular” appears in the Victoria “Education Act of 1872” the first of its kind in colonial Australia, and I am led to believe, the entire commonwelth, and American states as well. In America, Massachusetts first takes explicit control over education away from the clergy and gives it to the “selectmen” of the Colony, but the Colony itself is explicitly religious, and the purpose of passing laws about education in the Colony is explicitly to keep children from being prey to Satan. The law is actually referred to as “the old deluder” law (which sounds like a great label for a whiskey).
I would be curious if anyone knows when or if the word “secular” appears in any education law in the US or Canada.
The word Secular, in education law, has been controversial in Australia, and always, an explicit target of the church. It was removed from the Education Act in QLD in 1910 – and a similar legislative change was discussed as a priority of the church in the 1940’s in Victoria.
The word was never removed from the Education law in Victoria, mainly out of an acceptance that although Australia was “based on Christianity” that out of respect for the Jewish members of society (some of whom were in Parliament) that removing the word “Secular” was not desirable, and that the intention of “Secular” was to express the State’s intention to make the schools “open” to all faiths, or those with none. The decision though was to implement a bias toward the majority religion, and allow people the right of conscientious objection – ie the right to “sit out”.
This practice holds today, and it the basis of a fairly intense lobbying effort by the Church throughout Australia, to keep what amounts to a “state grant” to educate children in religious beliefs in the state schools.
tomh,
You’re quite right. I misread and attached your “silly” phrase to the wrong example. My apologies. I still don’t think it is silly to claim that a sitting President in his official capacity at a public event stating that atheists should not be citizens is a sign that secularism is not well established. He may have had the right to say that, just as he had the right to say that Buddhists are donkeys or Democrats should be sent to concentration camps — but he would never have said those things because they would not have been tolerated. In a society with established secularism, he would have been in deep trouble for saying those words — rather the way Nixon’s “I am not a crook” or Clinton’s “I never had sexual relations with that woman” became millstones for them.
You might want to get your facts straight. The purported remarks by George H. W. Bush, came not when he was a “sitting President in his official capacity at a public event”, but before he was president, when he was campaigning in 1987, at an outdoor news conference at O’Hare airport in Chicago. When asked by journalist Robert Sherman about the equal citizenship and patriotism of atheists, Sherman reported that he replied, “No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots.” Since there was no tape or documentation of the remarks, and no other journalist reported them, the remarks are still in dispute.
Your original comment was “its constitution has only been helpful in preventing the most egregious examples of creeping religion (and didn’t stop a recent sitting president from claiming atheists should not be considered citizens).” You seem to think the Constitution should prevent remarks like these. Still silly.
About the Constitution and Bush Senior’s remark about atheists and whether the Constitution should discourage a president or even a presidential candidate (who is a sitting vice-president) from saying things like that – well I think it should. It’s true that it protects his formal right to say it, of course, but that’s not the only issue. I don’t think it should be or should have been illegal for Bush to say that, but I emphatically think he shouldn’t have said it and that no responsible adult (which already rules out for instance the former governor of Alaska) who is campaigning for president should say that or something like it. You want a president to have enough understanding of the Constitution to realize that theism or atheism are not, should not be, cannot be grounds to deny people citizenship. You want a president to be aware not only of how the Constitution protects her/him but also how it protects everyone else from her/him. He (Bush Sr and any candidate) has the right to say it, but he is one of the last people who should say it. It’s an appalling and frightening thing for a presidential candidate to say.
Especially one who is a sitting vice-president. The point isn’t his right to say it, the point is that someone in his job should know without even thinking about it that it’s illiberal ignorant nonsense. The point isn’t Bush Sr’s rights, the point is his awareness of everyone else’s rights.
@ #57
Whether Bush spoke those words or not, (and remember, there is but a single source for this quote, with no documentation, and no independent confirmation), whether he did or not, I have no doubt that this is how he truly felt. If we assume the truth of Sherman’s account, this was in answer to a direct question in the context of an election campaign. To me, there is something rare and refreshing in a candidate’s honest answer to a direct question in a campaign. Whether he should feel that way seems a moot point, since we know from his other words and actions that he did feel this way.
And if you think that statement from a presidential candidate is frightening, consider this from Supreme Court Justice, Antonin Scalia, joined by Roberts, Thomas, and in part by Kennedy, dissenting in:
McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky, 2005, (a 10 Commandments case)
“…the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists.”
I didn’t say anything about whether he should feel it. I said he shouldn’t say it. I’m not really very interested in what he felt or feels; the point is what he said (if he said it). I don’t find it the least bit “refreshing” to have a vice president say something idiotically illiberal, unconstitutional, vicious, and stupid. I don’t think vice presidents should say people they dislike aren’t citizens.
I’ve seen the Scalia comment, and I think that’s bad too. So? What Bush 1 said (if he said it) is also bad.
tomh,
I think we’ve been talking at cross-purposes. I mistakenly thought that Bush said those words when he was president — but being vice-president instead does not really change the nature of the problem. And your Scalia example is exactly the sort of thing I meant when I said secular matters are not completely settled in the US.
Scalia is by far and away the worst of the current Supreme Court judges, but he has friends in Brown and Alito as well. The reason Scalia makes my skin crawl is that he’s a fake originalist. He believes the Constitution should be interpreted the way it reads in plain English and the way the Framers intended it to be used — until originalism runs up against his personal religious and political views in which case he discovers stunning new interpretations to apply to well-trodden words.
The best example is his bending over backwards in DC v Heller to support gun rights by insisting that “a well regulated militia” was intended to mean “the body of all citizens” — which is such bullshit it’s amazing his fellow judges didn’t laugh him off the bench. This was a case that even the NRA did not support because it thought it was likely to lose. It even called it “sham litigation” and argued that the Supreme Court should not hear the case. (Eventually the NRA submitted an amicus curiae brief when it became clear the hearing was going ahead anyway.) This case is not specifically about secularism, but it shows how much damage a partisan hypocrite can do to the law even on matters that were once considered settled.
On matters of secularism, though, you ought to read the findings on the oath of presidency. (http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/opinions/201005/09-5126-1243573.pdf) If you look at how the opinions came out, this little bit of administrative trivia has opened a massive door for the religious right to undermine secularism in government. The extraordinary contortions Brown in particular went to are a sight to behold. He argues — quite seriously — that it doesn’t matter if the President breached the Constitution because the oath has already been said and therefore can’t be undone. He then argues that the court cannot rule on future presidents because they have not been elected yet and so cannot be held to personal account. In other words, you can’t challenge past oaths because they are in the past and you can’t challenge future oaths because they are in the future. A perfect Morton’s Fork.