Just saw an interesting question on Gerv’s blog. Where exactly did the phrase “Seperation of Church and State” come from? And why is it being thrown around to ban anything that may have to do with religion? All throughout the country there are cases where judges are being ordered not to display the ten commandments, schools are being ordered to teach evolution as fact without presenting alternative ideas (no, I’m not kidding), and countless other acts where a seemingly vocal minority is forcing atheism (the opposit of ‘God exisits’ is ‘God doesn’t exist’) upon the masses. All this on seems to be based on the phrase “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” from the First Ammendment. Where in there does it saw that the Ten Commandments are illegal or that evolution is a fact?
29 Replies to “Seperation of Church and State?”
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The reason is simple:
– The commandments show the views of only one religious group (christians). In a state where every religion is granted equal rights, if you display the views of one religion, you will also have to display the views of all other religions.
– There are different levels of theories. Evolution is a theory, which can be proved by millions of different examples everyday. What it precludes from being a fact is, that the overall connecting prove has not been found. Creationism instead can not be proved at all or only if you think that looking into the bible is a proof.
– Please take a look around you, especially at Europe or the Middle East. Europeans learned it the hard way over the course of 1800 years that church and state should be separated. There were countless wars in Europe, because the church meddled in the affairs of the state and the other way around. Think of the great crusades or google for the “Thirty years war”. Also take a look at states like Iran or Afghanistan under the Taliban to get a impression on what this implies.
And don’t think that this is a purely muslim issue. This could also happen in Europe or in the States if Church and State were no longer separated by law or constitution.
You’re free to spread your believes as much as you want. But not in school and not with taxpayers money. The separation of church and state actually protects your religious freedoms. You wouldn’t want *my* 10 commandments in school books.
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.”
– Thomas Jefferson
Um, If you don’t think a school posting the Ten Commandments, and no other religions documents, constitues an official endorsement of Judeo-Christian beliefs, exactly what would?
I mean, the very first one runs along the lines of “You shall have no other gods before me.” That’s not even very subtle. 🙂
If you’re questioning why the first amendment “establishment clause” applies to all goverment institutions and not just congress, I think that’s a matter of legal history, not exactly a subject I have a deep knowledge of.
BTW, there is no particular reason to think that a lack of religious documents in a school building is a direct promotion of atheism; the goal is that goverment institutions shouldn’t officially endorse either side. If there were “GOD IS DEAD!” signs being posted in the hallways by teachers, that might be a differant matter. 😉
The Commandments are actually accepted by many religions to include Roman Cathlics, Christans, and Islam. The last 6 of them are also the basis for the vast majority of our laws (murder == Though shalt not kill).
As far as evolutionary theory goes (yes, I do understand the difference between a scientific theory and the common use of the word theory), I do beg to differ. While there is no doubt that adaptation occurs which is technically evolution, I find it hard to believe that a one celled amoeba formed itself into a human being. Millions of years or not, you’ve got to be kidding me. Sure there are similarites between many creatures and plants, but that is just as easily explained by all being from the same designer (eg, God). Besides that, I’ve yet to see an explination from evolutionary theory which explains where that amoebia came from. Heck, Darwin himself didn’t even really believe the fullness of what we now call evolutionary theory, or Darwinism.
I’m in the Middle East right now, you don’t have to lecture me about what happens when the Church as too much involvement in the State, but I’ve also been to America and seen what happens when there is so much seperation that “Though shalt not kill” is considered taboo on a courtroom wall.
And, no, there is nothing about seperation of Church and State in the constition: http://www.noapathy.org/tracts/mythofseparation.html
You could argue against the separation of church and State, as long as the church involved is yours. I’m sure you wouldn’t hesitate to object, however, if the government attempted to force upon you a religion in which you did not believe.
“Besides that, I’ve yet to see an explination [sic] from evolutionary theory which explains where that amoebia [sic] came from.” OK, let’s see. Since evolutionary theory holds that the first organisms arose from chemical compounds already present on earth, it makes sense that they didn’t suddenly assemble themselves into multicellular animals. So what were the first life forms? Single-celled organisms, an example of which is the amoeba you triumphantly proclaim has never had a reason to exist. Organisms do not necessarily evolve to become more complex; any mutations which convey a survival advantage are passed on to the offspring, thus the robustness of the amoeba.
No, the United States was not founded upon the Declaration of Independence.
No, the United States government is not based upon majority rule.
QED
“Heck, Darwin himself didn’t even really believe the fullness of what we now call evolutionary theory, or Darwinism.”
Have you heard of a man by the name of Albert Einstein? When he discovered that, acccording to his theories, the universe would collapse, he invented, for no reason other than that it made his equations work, a force that opposed gravity, called the cosmological constant. He himself did not believe in this, and later called its invention the greatest blunder of his career. However, scientists are now finding that he may have been right in the first place. Now they call this force “dark energy”.
Anyway, to make a long story short, just because Darwin did not believe his own theory does not mean that it is incorrect.
P.S. Scientists have found a model to explain the evolution of single-celled organisms into multicellular organisms; science is one area where one’s intuition is usually wrong.
> The Commandments are actually accepted by many religions to include Roman Cathlics, Christans, and Islam.
So what? You are still ignoring many other widely-practiced religions, such as hinduism, buddhism, shintoism, taoism, …
> The last 6 of them are also the basis for the vast majority of our laws (murder == Though shalt not kill).
No. The basis for the vast majority of our laws (at least in Europe, and therefore the US, which historically speaking split off from Europe relatively recently) is in Roman law, which is probably derived from Greek society and which definitely does not originate from the old testament.
> I find it hard to believe that a one celled amoeba formed itself into a human being.
Well, I find it hard to believe that something or someone called God stepped in at some point (or existed for all time, or whatever), and created humans. The amoeba theory seems much more likely to me. But that’s just an opinion, just as yours is.
“Millions of years or not” yes ! you’re absolutly right !
In fact it’s billions of years, not millions.
>I find it hard to believe that a one celled amoeba formed itself into >a human being. Millions of years or not, you’ve got to be kidding me. >Sure there are similarites between many creatures and plants, but that >is just as easily explained by all being from the same designer (eg, >God).
From the Bible
Gen.2
1. [7] And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
From the Quran
The Light
And Allah (God) has created from water every living creature: so of them is that which walks upon its belly, and of them is that which walks upon two feet, and of them is that which walks upon four; Allah (God) creates what He pleases; surely Allah has power over all things.
The Pilgrimage
1. [22.5] O people! if you are in doubt about the raising, then surely We created you from dust, then from a small seed, then from a clot,
I think “separation of church and state” is the only practical way of ensuring that the the Congress isn’t involved with setting up an “established” church. Otherwise how do you draw the line? That laws may be passed which are used to help promote one particular variation of religion a little bit? When does a little bit become a lot? And when does that a lot become a (de facto) establishment of a religion? The intent of the ammendment is clear, that religion is a matter of personal conscience and the state should not be interfering with that.
The removal of the Ten Commandments is not promoting Atheism (the addition of a sign saying “God does not exist would be).
You might not be “kidding” about schools being forced to teach evolution as fact but you are wrong. It can taught appropriatly by the teachers. The sticker was ruled unconstitutional not because of what it literally said but because of how it would be interpretted by a reasonable person in knowledge of the stickers (if you’ll pardon the phrase) evolution.
I’ll agree that evolution is a theory since it hasn’t been proven, but so is creation.
This isn’t the only case in science where there are multiple competing theories, so what usually happens in these cases? People perform experiments to see which theory the results support, or look for evidence of one theory or the other. If there is overwhelming evidence for one theory, then scientists will support that theory (of course, they may change their mind given new evidence of the competing theory).
Now there is a lot of evidence to support evolution. Where is the evidence that supports creation?
The more posts I read by seemingly intelligent people who — in 2005! — doubt that evolution is the scientific explanation for our origins, the more thankful I am for separation of church and state.
It just doesn’t “seem like” humans can come from amoebas? Are you kidding me? This kind of thing is supposed to be definitively answered for you in middle school. As our educational system continues to decline, the separation of church and state becomes more and more vital.
“I find it hard to believe that a one celled amoeba formed itself into a human being.”
Don’t scoff at something just because you can’t understand how it could happen; if it were easy to comprehend people wouldn’t have devoted their lives to studying it. There are many things I’ve learned as a physics student which seem unintuitive and unlikely; yet all of these have been proven to a pretty high degree of certainty.
Please reconsider the rationality of this argument. I realise you’re unlikely to be convinced to change your mind by a bunch of blog comments, but at least set aside arguments like that! It doesn’t do much to encourage real discussion of the issues…
You might also consider that, regardless of your belief in God, divine intervention doesn’t fit into scientific method. As soon as you accept that some phenominon was simply willed into existence by God, you’ve reached a dead end as far as trying to learn more about the topic.
Say, for example, that medical researchers had accepted the idea that the black plague was punishment from God, and therefore beyond rational enquiry? It would have been the end of research into this very important topic. Instead, scientists reject the idea that anything is the result of divine intervention and keep digging for other explanations. Its not a rejection of God per se, but rather a desire to keep looking no matter what.
So God simply isn’t part of science. Science is about what can be learned through observation and experimentation, not faith. If there’s a place for God in schools it’s as part of philosophy class, not science class.
“In a state where every religion is granted equal rights, if you display the views of one religion, you will also have to display the views of all other religions.”
Leave it up to the judges themselves, who will naturally divide into the religions they represent. If someone complains, use them as parts of general displays by including other “symbols of justice” along side them. This has been done before with Christmas displays, and there’s no reason it can’t happen now.
“Evolution is a theory, which can be proved by millions of different examples everyday.”
Evolution has not been proven. Adaptation (small changes that may trend in a certain direction) has been demonstrated, but the changing of one species into another through many, many generations of reproduction has not been demonstrated. (Experiments to attempt to replicate it with simple organisms, like fruit flies, have failed. However, this may be more the fault of the particulars of the experiment than with what it attempts to test.)
“Creationism instead can not be proved at all or only if you think that looking into the bible is a proof.”
Because evolution and other ideas have not been proven, creation has not been disproven. I think textbooks should feel free to not teach it, but I think they should mention evolution has not been proven and that “other theories” exist (but may not be examined in the book). Why is this compromise so horrible?
“Please take a look around you, especially at Europe or the Middle East. Europeans learned it the hard way over the course of 1800 years that church and state should be separated. There were countless wars in Europe, because the church meddled in the affairs of the state and the other way around. Think of the great crusades or google for the ‘Thirty years war’. Also take a look at states like Iran or Afghanistan under the Taliban to get a impression on what this implies.”
There’s a great distance between placing stickers that at most imply support of a religion on textbooks and fighting holy wars. I believe “some” religion in government is healthy, and I don’t believe allowing individual judges to act as they see fit or allowing the placement of stickers that promote critical thinking on controversial textbooks to be unhealthy (or unconstitutional). More colloquially, I think far too many people make mountains out of non-problematic anthills. (I didn’t use molehills because they can be problematic.)
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Off-topic comment: the “security code” I’m required to post is inaccessible. One of the most elegant solutions to this I’ve seen is to ask an arbitrary, extremely simple question (for example, “What is Jake’s first name?”, as seen on Jeremy Zawodny’s blog) and require it to be answered during posts.
> I think textbooks should feel free to not teach it, but I think they should mention evolution has not been proven
No scientific theory has ever been proved true. The nature of scientific method is such that scientific theories may only be disproved, not proved. Popper is the relevant thinker here.
Therefore, if you write this about evolution, you should write it about everything else. The law of gravity, Newton’s laws, and indeed all of science is a theory. And the fact that a scientific theory may be false is true of all scientific theories: if an experiment turns up that contradicts the theory, and the experiment can be verified and repeated, then the theory are wrong.
But the fact that it is a scientific theory does not in itself mean that it is not true. For example, you don’t often see engineers questioning the law of gravity…
“I find it hard to believe that a one celled amoeba formed itself into a human being.”
I find it hard to believe that a super duper “being” in outerspace (or a different dimension?, where is heaven anyways?) just got bored one day and created all this stuff out of thin air. Or a little point floating in a big white . And if that’s the case, why did he create all this stuff? Fret not my fearless comment reading brethren, I have the answer:
This is one big ass experiment that has long since been abandoned in a cosmic cvs repository. If there is a god, he’s probably working on Universezilla 4.0 right now, and he’s left this flawed trunk of code on a server that he merciliessly leaves plugged in. Will the code destroy itself, or will he need the rack space? What will be the end of this crazy system we call life? One thing for sure: just as likely as it is that we are cherished children of an all powerful onlooker, is that we are all just bits in a cosmic ram disk, remaning resident thanks to a zombie process that has gone unnoticed for all this time by an overworked and underpaid system administrator.
“I find it hard to believe that a one celled amoeba formed itself into a human being”
It didn’t (directly). One-celled organisms evolved into more complex multi-celled organisms, and then into very simple animals, and then complex animals, and then humans – over billions of steps and billions of years. Most people fail to comprehend that these small “adaptations” and mutations add up over billions of years. Are you saying they don’t add up? I’m certainly willing to accept human evolution even if Darwin didn’t (though I don’t know exactly what you refer to). Is it natural for science to improve over time.
“there is nothing about separation of Church and State in the constitution”
US law is guided more by precedent and convention than by the constitution. That is why lawyers in training spend much more time looking at cases than laws. To expect to get a clear picture of law from a few pages (despite how nice that might be) is absolutely impossible. Not only that, but some individual states also have similar but more restrictive laws and precedents concerning the promotion of religion.
“The Commandments are actually accepted by many religions”
This doesn’t matter. The government can’t promote any religion including all of those that accept and do not accept the commandments – even those religions that educated some of the founding fathers (or more correctly the writers of British law, which is the basis for most of our early federal law).
“”Though shalt not kill” is considered taboo on a courtroom wall.”
Those words are not taboo (in fact, myself and most other non-Christians, atheists, and agnostics agree with it fully). But, the promotion religion is taboo for government, so that sentence put into the context of the commandments or with a Christian message in mind is not allowed.
I honestly don’t mind if teachers mention creationism in a general sense in a science class as long as they give is a fair scientific treatment and state there is little scientific evidence supporting it, but it might still be true (as is the same with many other theories).
Attention godless whiners: Sorry to have to point this out, but the First Amendment states that “Congress shall MAKE NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion…” The End. In no way can the hanging of the Ten Commandments in a public building, or the reading of a prayer at a public function be construed as Congress passing a law. Grow up. If you find Chrisian teaching and beliefs to be so offensive, I suggest you avert your tender eyes. Can’t we all just get along? 🙂 God bless you all.
Creation? a theory? I think not. Look around you…sunsets, the beautiful changing color leaves, and the huge ocean shore, and EVERY snowflake being different. How can you say this was all created by and organism??? It has to be the wonderful and loving God. How do you explain women having an extra rib? Coinsidence? I don’t think so. I think it was done by the wonderful Creator. Believe it or not he created you and me and everything on this earth. If you want to believe in evolution then it is just your fault that you are missing out on the great life that God has in store for you. God still loves you though. Does a one cell organism??? No. I guess we will se who is right when the Creator comes back (soon).
While this is horribly astray from the original question, I’d like my fellow Christians to consider this:
Imagine for a second Moses recieving God’s word and finding out that all life came from a one-celled organism that no one in Moses’s time knew existed. People could not understand such a complex concept then, especially considering many cannot understand it now. People would reject the religion and because of this one unimportant detail, the entire moral basis of the Bible would be discarded.
Saying that God simply couldn’t have created us through evoloution seems to be a statement of incredibly miniscule faith. You could also argue that the Bible doesn’t say that God used evoloution, and that therefore he didn’t. However, the Bible also never mentions anything about God creating gravity, and I think we can all agree that that exists.
To say that everything God did must be in the Bible is saying to God “Oh you need to let us know what you did, because we can hold you accountable.” It is outrageous to think that what God did to create the universe is any of our business.
P.S. The actual phrase “seperation of church and state” originally came from a letter Jefferson wrote to a Baptist church who feared that another church was going to become the official church of the state.
I just can’t understand the christian conservatives who loves to force their beliefs upon everyone else. Just because you’re too lazy to investigate and study all the laws of nature, you just want to give all the credit to god. Solution to all questions “God”. So why go to school if god can give you everything you need. God will provide. Religion is good only if its your religion. That is so ignorant.
An earlier poster referred to Europe over the last 500 years, as an example of what can happen NOT seperating church and state… If YOU want to see firsthand the potential negative effect of mixing church and state, I suggest you move to a REAL theocracy, Iran. Good luck. Enjoy. As for me, I like it fine here, and will continue to do what I can to protect the USA from stupid religious zealots. And forgive me the reduncy Oh Lord…
The founding documents are filled with references to God. You folks want to throw all those out as unconstitutional?
When we are taught about evolution in high school it is just as bothersome to those who believe in Christianity as it is for those who don’t to be taught other wise. How is it that it isn’t a problem to make Christians feel uncomfortable and make us learn something that we don’t believe, but when we even try to teach creation along with evolution, everyone makes a big deal about it? I just don’t really understand how it is any different when we talk about God, than it is for athiests or agnostics (which litterally translated means ignoramous) to put Him down and make a big deal about their “rights”. Christians don’t pay taxes to have their children taught incorrect information in science classes just like you don’t want to spend your tax money on what you think to be incorrect teaching.
first of all I’m 15, and I get this seperation of church & state thing. It comes down to this ” who do you want to teach your kid about god?”. You of course want it to be you, But if we didn’t have the seperation of church & state any and all religions would be taught. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my kid being taught about satanism. Since satanism is a religion. So think about that before going for religion in state.
I agree with you 110%. They say that evolution is a fact… well its not… they can’t test it… it would take millions of years… besides, if they mention creationism as an alternative belief, not saying if it is right or wrong, there shouldn’t be a problem
Animals seem to quite well without religion, and, polotics.