When Ellery Schempp was 16, he led a student protest against his High Schools requirement that every student read ten chapters from the Bible every day during Homeroom. His protest entailed reading from the Qur-an instead. The resulting discipline led to a law suit that resulted in a 1963 SCOTUS decision which banned mandatory Bible reading and Prayer as unconstitutional. Here are recent thoughts from Prof. Schempp on the relationaip of religion and the constituion: Many people assume there is some connection between the Bible and the Constitution. But our Constitution never once mentions God or Christianity or any Commandments. It is a purely humanistic document. The preamble begins, “We the people do ordain and establish… It mentions religion just twice, and both times the word “no” is attached. The first mention is in Art. VI “no religious test shall ever be required…” The second time is in the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The Constitution is a purely humanistic, religiously neutral, secular, and political document. No delegate thought the idea of free voting by common people came from divine revelation. It is significant that the Constitution does not call for any worship or ask for any divine blessing. The Constitution’s oath for taking office does NOT contain the phrase “so help me God”. That has been appended by various oath-takers, probably for political “spin”. The writers of the Constitution were very careful to distinguish between an oath vs affirmation, or, “I do swear or affirm” swearing to an oath, because oath/swearing had religious connotations. Affirm was to assure freedom from religion. And the Bible never once mentions democracy. The Bible never once mentions freedom of speech or freedom of religion. It does not mention checks and balances and limitations on the power of the executive; nor an independent judicial branch; it does not mention elections or voting; The Bible does not even mention tolerance for other believers, much less non-believers. There are more than 200 denominations in the US alone, and each claims to have the one true faith. The sheer number of claims makes it difficult to believe any one of them. The Bible provides no model for ‘good’ government or for personal freedoms. The Bible is a purely religious/theological document for some believers. The Commandments—10 or all 613 of them—do not represent American society. And if you read it, it is a book unfit for children. We are not a Christian nation, nor a Judeo-Christian nation. We are a Constitutional nation. Let me insert here about the Declaration of Independence. It is a poetic document, intended to stir emotions and to override the prevalent notion of the “divine right of kings”. The DOI is equally for religious independence as for political independence. But the main point is that the DOI is not any part of the Constitution; and no part of our laws. Not a single legal decision by SCOTUS is based on the DOI. Our rights from our Creator is Humanistic in its intent, and if religious, Deistic. It was to emphasize the rights of the common man/woman over the kingshipclass.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 20:32:26 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015