Create a New Forum Admin Login Member Login Contribute to Voyager Search VoyForums Help Desk VoyForums Exchange VoyForums Directory/Categories VoyForums Homepage VoyForums News FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, [7], 8, 9, 10 ]

Subject: Religious State and the Law Author: Mark7 [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] Date Posted: 22:07:59 08/08/01 Wed This would have been an interestiong discussion for IS, but since I cannot post in such places, I will open this tread, and see if anybody has any comments. Many Americans feel the secular state is somewhat of a threat to their lifestyle and values. They feel they cannot shut themselves and their children from the mores of a secular world. You hear cries to get the Bible in school, the 10 Commandments in the courthouse (the same commandments that gave six months of probation in Israel to the settler who killed a 12 year old Palestinian with repeated hits to the face with the butt of his US paid rifle). Atheists have taken the scapegoat place Jews used to have as the menance and root of all evil in society. New Age groups are viewed as the new Satan. I have to give it to Old G. Bush. At least he made no attempts at sugarcoating the pill. In his warmongering mind, atheists and those not conforming to a monotheistic Biblical God have no place in America. Other countries follow. Iran is an Islamic state, so is Afganistan. We like to blast them, and their morals from God. We never blast Israel, a Zionist state, nor do we blast the mores of any of the many Christian nations around the world (if I am correct, Germany is a Christian nation by its constitution). So is Grece I think, and other European countries have such provisions. We do blast Russia for the special priviledges it offers to the Orthodox Russian Christian Church. (they are bad because they are Russians). Morality for God is tricky. You love your morality from God, and hate thy neighbor's morality from God. This is my question: Could a non-secular state (Christian, Islamic, Zionist) claim it offers equal protection under law to ALL it's citizens? Or is that an oximoron? (excuse my spelling). [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[> Subject: Interesting question Author: JeffF [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 07:03:37 08/09/01 Thu This one is thought provoking, Mark, and not easy to answer, but I'll try. "Many Americans feel the secular state is somewhat of a threat to their lifestyle and values." True, but there are things they can do without taking anybody else's rights away. Every major religion in this country has parochial schools available. Ultrareligious parents who feel the public schools don't reflect their values are free to send their kids to private schools within their religion rather than trying to force a religious agenda on the Public schools. "You hear cries to get the Bible in school, the 10 commandments in the Courthouse" The problem with putting the Bible or the 10 commandments in school is that it's a slippery slope. If religious activists win here,they'll push for more- the return of prayer in school for example. Posting the 10 commandments may not be dangerous in itself, but it starts a worrisome trend. Besides that, what if somebody mentions that they have a different religion or no religion. The chances are that this student will be persecuted or shunned by their fellow students if the majority all have the same religion. "Atheists have taken the scapegoat place Jews used to have as the menace and root of all evil in society." Sadly, I think immigrants have done this. Most of the prejudicial comments you hear today are usually directed against immigrants, who tend to be made the scapegoat for all of America's problems. As for Atheists, there has always been a lot of discrimination against anybody who claims not to believe in God. It would be interesting to speculate on what would happen if an incoming President refused to say "So help Me God" by claiming that it violated the seperation of church and state. I think I know where you're going, though. I too have sometimes heard that Atheism is responsible for the lack of school discipline or the rise of drug use. There is one poster on IS who seriously suggests that all moral problems in this country are the result of the Supreme Court decision that outlawed prayer in the schools. I am obviously not an atheist but this is all very silly. I think some of it started with a confusion of atheist with communist. Back in the cold war days, too many people thought all Atheists were communists and confused the two terms and I'm not sure we've ever recovered from that. "Could a non-secular state claim it offers equal protection under law to all it's citizens?" This one is such a good question that I've changed my mind several times in attempting to answer it. First of all, a nation can make any claim it wants, but that doesn't make it true. For example, Iran says that the Moslem laws in the country only apply to Moslems, but that doesn't mean that in reality, Jews, Christian, Atheists, Bahais and others aren't viewed with suspicion and kept from some jobs. I think a lot of constitutions with state religions guarantee protection of minority citizens in the constitution, but this doesn't mean it happens in reality. One of the problems in a country where the whole leadership is the same religion and the constitution is religious based is that leadership changes may effect how much rights minorities have. One King may be benevolent, but the next may be intolerant of those who don't have the same religion as him. Even in countries claiming to be democracies, if the people elected have to be from a majority religion, the rights of the minority are not well protected. There are countries where parlaiments have to have a certain amount of Christians or where only candidates who subscribe to a certain religion are even allowed to run. In some places, loyalty to a particular religion is a condition for holding office. Here, in the US, in the early 1800s, there were states where only Protestants were allowed to hold office. Even being a Christain wasn't good enough, since Catholics were excluded. By the same token, in public schools in the US in the 1800s where there were Bible readings, Catholic versions of the Bible were forbidden. I would say the answer to your question is that it would be very difficult to offer truly equal protection to all of a countries citizens in any country where one religion is considered automatically superior to others, because even if you as the leader wanted to, the citizens might have been trained to be automatically suspicious of other people. So, a country can claim to offer equal protection, it can even write it into the law, but if the Constitution and particularly in places where there is state controlled media, the press favors one religion over another or over those with none, it is very hard to get truly equal rights.

[> [> Subject: Re: Interesting question Author: Dana [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 09:15:10 08/09/01 Thu Could a non-secular state claim it offers equal protection under law to all it's citizens? I'd have to say no to this question for the same reasons that Jeff gave above. I'm a firm believer that we should have a total separation between church and state. Since total inclussion on an equitable basis has not worked, total exclussion appears to be the best solution we have at this time. Our school district ran into a problem with this a few years ago. Traditionally, the major school holidays have coincided with the Christian calendar. The district's students are 50% Christian, 40% Jewish, and 10% "Other". Christmas break changed to Winter Break, even though it occurs at the same time each year. Spring Break is a flexibly scheduled holiday and is carefully planned to not coincide with Easter. Good Friday was still a holiday, but it was called Spring Vacation Day. These name changes appeased people for a few years, but then people started questioning the intent. Since Good Friday was a holiday, it was requested that Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur also become school holidays. Our district reviews absenteeism records, and can add a school holiday for any day in which the absenteeism rate is over 15% every year. Both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur were well over the 15% rate, so both were added as school holidays. Then things got really messy. The Islamic community approached the school board and requested that they receive 2 Religious school holidays. The request was turned down, and the school used the absenteeism rates on those dates as the reason. The ACLU was hired, and they sued the school district for failure to separate church and state. The school district capitulated, and removed Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Good Friday as scheduled school holidays. As a result, each child is allowed an excused absence for "personal days of religious importance". It seems like the best solution for now. While it isn't a total separation of chuch and state, it does allow for a measure of equality. ~Dana

[> [> [> Subject: I like your post Author: Mark7 [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 00:57:10 08/11/01 Sat I'm impressed by your school district. Here is an article for you from abcnews.com: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ucrr/20010809/cm/american_babel_it_works_fine_1.html Thursday August 09 08:13 PM EDT AMERICAN BABEL: IT WORKS FINE By Richard Reeves LOS ANGELES -- Census figures released this week indicate that a language other than English is spoken by families in 40 percent of the homes in this sprawling county on the Pacific Ocean. Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian, Armenian, dozens more -- all spoken here. In Chicago last Monday, the first of a series of editorials in the Chicago Tribune on immigration reform began: "Stop by one of the houses going up all over Chicago and listen to the work crews. ... When the foundation is being dug you might hear Russian. That might become Polish when it's time for the bricklaying. The carpenters might speak English -- but with a singsong Irish brogue. When the Mexican drywall crews arrive, the language might change to Spanish. Finally, a SWAT team of Guatemalan, or perhaps Honduran, landscapers will zoom by to plant the sod. ... Chicago will have another house built in good measure by illegal immigrant labor." In New York, in the cabs, candy stores and little markets where you once heard Yiddish or Italian, now it is Urdu and Korean. More and more on the streets you hear the clicking sounds of African languages. American Babel. And it is not only in big cities. I came to Chicago and Los Angeles from Sag Harbor, N.Y., a village of little more than 2,000 people on the far eastern edge of the country, and you can hear most of the same languages as the construction crews, gardeners, maids, dishwashers and waiters arrive each day. There are believed to be 6 million to 7 million illegal immigrants in the United States now, 60 percent of them from Mexico. Whatever that number, there are more legal immigrants speaking those languages, particularly Mexican-accented Spanish. Nothing indicates how fast the United States is changing than the panic of the Republican Party and its leader on immigration issues. It was only a few years ago that Republicans, at least in California, believed that immigrant-bashing was the path to power. Gov. Pete Wilson was the driving force behind Proposition 187, an initiative designed to mobilize both white power and black power against Mexican immigrants -- cutting off welfare help, medical care and education to illegals. Voters went for it, but the courts did not. Perhaps more important, the people who actually mobilized were legal Hispanic and Asian families, registering and voting Democratic in numbers that turned California into a more Democratic state than Massachusetts. Now Republicans, led by President Bush (news - web sites), have tried to compensate for that blunder by going as far the other way, granting amnesty (and eventually citizenship) to resident Mexicans, however they got here. Forget that one. What makes Mexicans better than Canadians, Ethiopians or Pakistanis? Bush's panic is shared by politicians of both parties, though they tend to favor whichever immigrant group has the most voting power in their own precincts. In fact, the only thing they agree on often seems to be that it is better to do something than do nothing. Why? It seems to me that U.S. immigration policy has worked well and served national imperatives over the past 30 years or so. To be crude about it, what that policy has done is make it difficult but not impossible for the most determined and craftiest of foreigners to sneak into the United States when their own countries seem incapable of utilizing their energy and ambitions. The best and the brightest find a way. They may not have documents, but somehow they seem to have whatever our country needs at a given moment: the mathematical skills of the Russians and the Indians; the work ethic of the Mexicans and their willingness to do what Americans no longer are willing to do; the entrepreneurship and family values of South and East Asians -- and, most of all, the young people the United States needs to support our aging population. Besides, many of these immigrants contribute to global stability by sending money back to their home countries, which kind of makes up for American stinginess when it comes to foreign aid. So, whatever our policy actually is, it seems to working very well -- at least to me. Why fix it if it's not broken?

[> [> Subject: Re: Interesting question Author: Kevin [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 03:07:53 08/11/01 Sat Ultrareligious parents who feel the public schools don't reflect their values are free to send their kids to private schools [. . .] Of course, I know you know this, but I can't let your post go by without saying it. You say they are free to send their kids to these schools, but don't forget that these schools are not free. They can be quite expensive, especially compared to public schools. I went to a Catholic school and a few of my neighbors wanted their children to go there but couldn't afford it. (Though, looking back, one of them did have a rather nice sports car.) Several of the kids I did go ot school with had siblings in the public school because their family couldn't afford to send all their kids there. Like I said, I know you know this, but I just wanted to remind you that not everyone who has strong religious beliefs is middle class or higher.

[> [> [> Subject: In a way, I'm surprised Author: JeffF [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 08:10:13 08/12/01 Sun Holy Trinity, which was the private Catholic school in the town I grew up gave out a number of scholarships(lower or in some cases free admission) to people who could not afford the cost. I know that the Charles Smith school in Maryland which is the main Jewish day school gives out a lot of lower and free admission, because the main goal is to attract students,who, presumably will be taught values that the school holds with the goal that they will keep them for life. If it was limited to just people who could afford total tuition, I agree it would be high, but the tristate Jewish community(Northern Virginia, Southern MD,and DC) holds a lot of annual fundraising drives specifically to raise money to make sure that kids who can't afford to go to the day school can have their admissions paid for. Maybe, I'm naive, but I had just assumed that most religious communities did something like this to cover the costs for kids who couldn't afford to go there. "Like I said, I know you know this, but I just wanted to remind you that not everyone who has strong religious beliefs is middle class or higher." Yes, I don't know this for sure, but I would think if anything it would be more likely to be the other way around and a higher percentage of poor people would consider themself to be religious than rich people. I could be wrong. That was just a guess off the top of my head.

[> [> [> [> Subject: Re: In a way, I'm surprised Author: Kevin [ Edit | View ] Date Posted: 00:30:53 08/13/01 Mon I've never heard of Catholic (grade) schools giving out scholarships, but in no way should that be taken to mean they don't; the schools I went to might have, but being a child I might not have known, and I've had little involvement with Catholic schools since the 8th grade (not having any kids, younger siblings nor even nieces or nephews). The school I went to for grades one through three, before black people commited the most horrendous crime against my father (move into the neighborhood) may very well have done so. This is a very good community, and as an adult, I went back there even though I didn't live very close. I wouldn't be surprised if they did/do give out scholarships. I would think if anything it would be more likely to be the other way around and a higher percentage of poor people would consider themself to be religious than rich people. You've probably heard the saying by Christ that it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. But the people in the upper-middle class neighborhood where my father and his property vaules felt safe still went to church since that's all they had to do to consider themselves relgious. :-)