BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 12:28 PM

In the link Wolfgang posted, the following appear as quotes from letters received by Salmon P. Chase, to encourage the "...recognition of the Almighty God in some form on our coins."

"...This would make a beautiful coin, to which no possible citizen could object. This would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism. This would place us openly under the Divine protection we have personally claimed. From my hearth I have felt our national shame in disowning God as not the least of our present national disasters."

"Dear Sir: No nation can be strong except in the strength of God, or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins."

When the recent commotion occurred in Alabama, Justice Roy Moore continuously used the words " I should be allowed to acknowledge Almighty God" in his defense for having sneaked the monument into the courthouse. Built into that is the presupposition that God needs to be acknowleged!
When I was a child, the Pledge of Allegiance did not have the words "under God" in it...this was inserted after lobbying by Christian groups.

These attitudes do not seem to me to be the nice, friendly statements of universal "... just decent common sense" that Bobert suggests. They seem to me to be attempts to make the religious words, attitudes and formulas of one brand of religion seem natural and universal. I suspect that, if Buddhists, Muslims, Gnostics...etc..were to lobby to have some of their ideas and phrases added to various courthouse walls and lawns, we would see some very interesting debates!

Sure, Ron, you do have to be careful how you choose your battles, and what order and with what weapons you fight them, but some things MUST be faced, and this country MUST follow the difficult path of defending the right to practice any recognized religion, while doing nothing to appear to officially favor any of them.

It's too bad that some zealots feel that they must use the old "you're either for us, or you're against us" line, but if they win by bullying and intimidation, they will get the idea that that is an acceptable technique, and we see far too much of that as it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 12:36 PM

Had I been a Christian, he would never have filed the petition. He stated many times that I shouldn't be allowed to home school my son because my spiritual beliefs were unnaceptible to him. I might have been subjected to less discrimination had I been Jewish, but I don't have any way of knowing that for sure. This attorney even accused me in court of being a Witch (because I once read Roald Dahl's children's book "The Witches" to my son). I am not a Witch, but even if I were, my right to be a Witch is protected by the Constitution.

This was in a small, fairly isolated community where everyone knows everyone else's business, and all of the Christians sure as hell know who isn't a Christian.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 12:40 PM

Carol demonstrates my point....certain people feel that IF they are convinced they are 'right', then everyone else must do it, (whatever the 'it' is) their way.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: GUEST,skeptic
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 12:50 PM

So only Xtians were allowed to homeschool in that community? Did they all go to the same church? How did the lawyer find out that you read the "witches" book to your son?

...and, again, a lawyer petitioned the courts to have you desist from homeschooling because you were not a Xtian?

There was no other reason for the petition than the fact that you are not a Christian?

Did the boy's father have nothing to say in the matter?

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 12:50 PM

And I have no idea why the court accepted the petition. That one puzzles me to this day. I can only guess that the judge who accepted the petition was just trying to go along to get along, and avoid a lot of headaches from the local fundamentalist Christians at some later date.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: GUEST,skeptic
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 12:57 PM

So only Xtians were allowed to homeschool in that community? Did they all go to the same church? How did the lawyer find out that you read the "witches" book to your son?

...and, again, a lawyer petitioned the courts to have you desist from homeschooling because you were not a Xtian?

There was no other reason for the petition than the fact that you are not a Christian?

Did the boy's father have nothing to say in the matter?

And, what headaches could fundamentalists cause for the judge? You mean threats of violence?

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 12:59 PM

I was divorced from my son's father. The attorney who filed the petition had been appointed by the court to represent my son during the custody battle during which I was granted full custody of my son. Two years after the custody battle had been resolved, and after I had been granted full custody by the court, that attorney took it upon himself to petition the court to stop me from home schooling my son.

After nine fairly hellish months for both me and my son, the court ruled against the attorney and ruled that because I had full custody, I had a right to home school my son.

And yes, that attorney had told me many times that had I been a Christian, I would have been treated very differently. He may have been trying to coerce me to become a Christian, but he also completely disaproved of me as a human being because I was not a Christian. During the custody battle, he tried to have my son taken from me because I was not a Christian. He wasn't successful with that agenda either.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:01 PM

You underestimate the amount of power the fundamentalist Christians have in some communities, Skeptic. I still don't know why the judge took the case. But my guess is that it had to do with not wanting to lose political capital in the community.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: GUEST,skeptic
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:09 PM

After all this, it finally comes out that the court ruled in your favor?! And that the lawyer wasn't randomly picking on you for your lack of Xtianity? And yet your whole premise is that you can't get a fair shake from our courts because there's a 10 Commandments display somewhere in Alabama? They ruled in your favor!

Hmm, wonder why I'd be skeptical.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Wesley S
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:18 PM

Carol can speak for herself - but the point is that the case never should have benn in the courts in the first place. And yes - the lawyer was picking on her due to her choice/nonchoice of religious beliefs. And I'll assume Carol that you wern't reimbursed for your court costs ? You should have been.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:23 PM

Beware the Bob Jones University trained lawyer.

The ACLU would have loved to be carol's lawyer if it that cut and dried.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:23 PM

After all this, it finally comes out that the court ruled in your favor?!

So what? It should never have gone to court in the first place. And the fact that it was is discriminatory. Have you ever been dragged through the courts for months on end with all of the attendant financial and personal costs? To do it to one person, specifically because that person is not a Christian, while not doing it to any of the families who were Christian is discrimination as well as an abuse of power.

And that the lawyer wasn't randomly picking on you for your lack of Xtianity?

Yes he was. He would never have done it had I been a Christian. The fact that I wasn't a Christian was the deciding factor in his decision to take me to court for home schooling, and it was his stated reason for his premise that I shouldn't be allowed to home school my son.

And yet your whole premise is that you can't get a fair shake from our courts because there's a 10 Commandments display somewhere in Alabama? They ruled in your favor!

I did most certainly not get a fair shake. A fair shake would have been not being subjected to the personal and financial costs of being dragged through the courts for months on end, and all of the other bullshit that comes with being taken to court, including the trauma to my son during that whole process. And the 10 commandments being displayed in courts is just one example of the kinds of discrimination that people experience because of fundamentalist Christians. It's a symptom of the mindset that causes discrimination and abuses of power that happen quite often all over this country. Remove any trappings of government favoring one religion over others and it becomes a little less easy for these kinds of things to happen in the first place. And this happened in the state of Maryland.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:24 PM

Wesley, I had to pay the attorney who took me to court for the privelege of being taken to court by him.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: GUEST,skeptic
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:25 PM

Even if that were the case, Carol C's premise was that she could not get a fair hearing in an American court because, at least in part, we have "religious" symbols in our courthouse.

She was demonstrably misleading and non-sequitor in her arguing. She got a fair hearing (unless, or course she thinks she should have lost but did not).

I have two friends who are small town judges. I'll have to ask them, but I think they would be doubtful of the circumstances as well.

I would have to wonder what made this lawyer, appointed for her son, question the home schooling. In my State, the only thing that brings it into question -- brings a case like hers to court -- is a student failing standardized testing.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: GUEST,skeptic
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:27 PM

The ACLU would have loved to be carol's lawyer if it that cut and dried.

yup

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:28 PM

ACLU wouldn't touch it because it had originally been a family court issue (the custody battle).

Ironically, it was a Christian home schooling family who provided me with the most help because they, quite rightly, knew that this attorney was creating a dangerous precedent for the other home schooling families in the area.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:29 PM

Even if that were the case, Carol C's premise was that she could not get a fair hearing in an American court because, at least in part, we have "religious" symbols in our courthouse.

I never said I couldn't get a fair hearing. I said that I had been discriminated against. And I was.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:31 PM

Testing had nothing to do with it. Nobody in that county had to submit their children to any testing whatever. No home schooling families in that county were held accountable to any standards whatever. That was the rule for everybody. My son was not given any standardized tests, and neither were any of the other home schooling families.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:33 PM

Give it a rest, Skeptic. You are being rude. Carol did not lie in this exchange, and if you think it's fair to be taken to court when you're minding your own business, then sure she got a "fair shake." Your skepticism is really just thinly-veiled antagonism. Nothing she said was particularly implausible to me, and I am neither a legal system neophyte nor generally gullible.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Wesley S
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:37 PM

Carol - I'm glad it was a Christian home schooled family that gave you some help. There are people with religious beliefs that live in the 21st century. We just have to learn to be more vocal so that the fundamentalists don't have their way and take over. Being a person of faith doesn't give you the right to cram it down other peoples throats.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: GUEST,skeptic
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:47 PM

Were the Xtians home schoolers who came to your aid "fundamentalist"?

(If so, Wesley's bigotry-laden charge is moot)

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 01:56 PM

See, even though "skeptic"'s questions have all been answered satisfactorily, it's not enough. It's no longer skepticism, just bile.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Amos
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 02:04 PM

Fanatacism is an ugly disease whether East or West, and this lawyer was no exception. To think he charged the interested party for his prosecution? What a load of codwallop. I'd hang the bugger, me.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: GUEST,Casual Observer
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 02:14 PM

I have an observation, and a question.

Homeschooling regulations vary from state to state. It may be possible that in some states, teaching a child outside of a recognized institution may only be allowed on religious grounds, whatever they may be. Carol, were there any such rules in your state?

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: jeffp
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 02:26 PM

Not in Maryland.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 02:56 PM

Just to keep the record straight, I belong to a Lutheran church in my neighborhood, so I am, at least outwardly, a Christian. But as far as my actual religio-philosophical beliefs are concerned, I am still working that out, and I don't intend to go into it here.

I can definitely see Carol's point. The arrogance of some fundamentalist Christians seems to know no bounds. The following is anecdotal, but within my experience (more than just the following incident), typical:—

Some years ago I was working at Boeing as a production illustrator. My work day was frequently interrupted by a fellow named Ivan who belonged to a hard-charging, socially (politically) active fundamentalist church. Sometimes for hours a day, Ivan would stand beside my drawing table and try to engage me in religious discussions. His motivation was obvious. He was hell-bent on saving my soul (whatever that means).

I was not the only one he hit on, but he seemed to find me particularly fascinating (a challenge, perhaps) because I was able to argue Bible verse for Bible verse with him. I must admit that I took a measure of delight in the many times I was able to call him on verses that he quoted out of context and point out to him that he was misinterpreting them, and then tell him what—in context—they really referred to. He assumed I was an avid Bible scholar (and if so, how come I didn't believe as he did?). I told him (perhaps a mistake) that when I was at the University of Washington, I had taken a course called "The Bible as Literature." This course was taught by Dr. David C. Fowler, the same professor who taught "The Popular Ballad," covering many of the Child ballads.

Now Dr. Fowler made it abundantly clear that we would be reading the Bible as literature—as short stories, novellas, essays (e.g., Paul's Epistles), poetry, etc.. Our religious beliefs were our own, and there would be no class discussion of personal beliefs or interpretations. And he enforced this quite strictly. Whenever a student would wander off into a religious interpretation, as a few frequently tried to do, he firmly steered the discussion back to the literary aspects of what we were discussing. The result was that we were not reading the Bible verse by separate verse, but in long sections, straight through, like a short story or a novel, as written, the whole picture as the authors wanted their stories, essays, and poetry presented.

So when Ivan (or anyone else) starts quoting disconnected verses, I can usually recognize them and recall the context—which, more often than not, yanks the rug out from under the Bible-thumper who's trying to sell me a bill-of-goods.

Okay, how is this an example of fundamentalist Christian arrogance? It was shortly after Ivan learned about the existence of the U. of W.'s "Bible as Literature" course (I should have kept my mouth shut!) that his church, and a coalition of other fundamentalist churches in his area, filed suit against the University of Washington and Dr. Fowler, to have the course removed from the catalog on the basis that a state-funded university was allowing one of their professors to "teach religion."

Of course, if they'd had their druthers, they (one of the same outfits that tries to get selected books yanked from school and public libraries) would have been teaching their particular brand of religion in every grade school, high school, and university in the state. But their primary bitch (unstated, of course) with the university and Dr. Fowler was that those who took the course knew the Bible too well, and their proselytizers such as Ivan were stumped by people who could blow them out of the water by quoting the Bible right back at them!

But it doesn't end there. Eventually Boeing fired Ivan. He wasn't doing his own work, and he was forever interrupting his co-workers and not allowing them to do theirs either. When reprimanded, he replied haughtily that he had "more important work to do. God's work!" They put up with it for months, and then finally canned him.

Then he sued Boeing for firing him because of religious discrimination in the work place.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 05:14 PM

Wesley, they were fundamentalists, but much more moderate ones than that attorney. I had been casually acquatinted with them for a few years prior to being taken to court for home schooling my son. But I harbour no illusions about the reason they helped me to the extent they did. They knew that my case had the potential to set a dangerous precedent for all home schoolers.

Having said that, they were/are lovely people, for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect.

Casual Observer, jeffp is correct. There were no rules in that county at the time that specified who could home school and who could not. It was legal for anyone who wanted to, to home school their children.

Here's a rough timeline of how it happened...

I decided to home school my son.

Within a week or two of starting to home school my son, I got a letter from that attorney telling me that I had better put my son back in school by a certain date (about a week or two later) or he would take me to court.

Shortly after the date passed for his ultimatum, I received a copy of his petition to the judge, along with a date by which I had to file a response.

I submitted my response to the petition myself because I didn't have an attorney at the time.

Shortly after that, the judge decided to take the case.

In the meantime, I had sent letters out to all of the home schooling families in the county, letting them know what was going on, and inviting them to attend the hearings so they could see for themselves.

The father in the home schooling family that was so helpful to me was a tax attorney. He decided to take my case, even though he had no courtroom experience.

There were several hearings held over a period of about nine months.

At the second to last hearing, the attorney who had filed the petition asked me, "What do you know about Wicca?"

My attorney objected, and the judge told the other attorney to explain why he had asked that question.

The other attorney said that he was going to prove that I was engaging in evil practices and he was going to show that this made me unsuitable for home schooling my son.

The judge instructed me to answer the question.

I said that I knew that Wicca was a nature-based religion, somewhat like the religions of the Native Americans, and that was about all I knew about it.

The attorney said, "What about that book you read to your son? The one about the Witches?"

I said, "That book, written by the same man who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, is available in childrens libraries and the children's book sections of book stores. It is about a bunch of witches who turn children into mice."

By this point, everybody in the courtroom had their mouths hanging open in disbelief that that attorney had just done what he did.

Anybody who doesn't believe what I have just written can go listen to the tape of the hearing in the Garrett County Courthouse in Oakland, Maryland.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 05:15 PM

LOL, acquatinted...

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: jeffp
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 05:22 PM

So, you painted yourselves blue together?

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Amos
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 05:27 PM

My God, Carol...what a misadventure, and what a whoreson to visit it on you!! It shows plainly that the world is full of heros manning the ramparts in acts of heroism of every scale; you should get a medal for rebutting that butthole!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 05:32 PM

Looks like it, jeffp ;-)

Thanks Amos.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 05:34 PM

When I was in 7th grade (1st year of what was then called 'intermediate' school) in Wichita, Kansas, my science teacher, Mr. Williams, whom I greatly respected, informed our class that we were to do the reading in the Christmas pagent. This meant memorizing the passages which included "and it came to pass that in those days there were shepherds, keeping watch..." etc...and the rest of the basic bible story of the birth of Jesus. All very traditional and King James format

At that time, I was still technically a Methodist, and didn't really dispute the theology, but I already wondered why we were taking time from science class to do this. I really doubt that there were any kids in that class who were NOT Christian...(this WAS Wichita!) I do know that as I went on through school and began to look at the issue, this incident loomed larger & larger in my mind. NO ONE was asked if they were Jewish or Pagan, or if they had a problem with participating....we were TOLD.

For many years after, even as I wondered about the basic theology and learned about alternatives, I felt awkward and uncomfortable about not seeming to think the same way as most of my peers and didn't feel I dared even bring up some topics. It wasn't until my senior year in high school that I really discovered Philosophy and that some people actually could explain WHY we didn't all have to believe the same way.

There have been times I wanted to go back and look up Mr. Williams and ask him why it had been done that way.....but I'm sure it's best that I never did.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: GUEST,Casual Observer
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 05:41 PM

Okay, so the lawyer was a first-rate idiot who had no business getting into your business. Just think of it this way - one day he'll be dead, if he isn't already.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 05:45 PM

He's hardly the only one like that out there, Casual Observer. That's why we need the protections that are provided us by the separation of church and state.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 06:15 PM

CarolC, Unfortunately you were the victim of an interefering vindictive asshole of the first order. He is a disgrace to his profession. I allowed my children to read The Golden Bough, The Lancashire Witches, and several other books on cults and religions, perhaps he would like to take me to court too...

Yours, Aye. Dave (who would have thrown it out of court first day had he been the judge)

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 06:31 PM

GregF, Sorry I failed to respond to your question. Perhaps this will help. Based on 1990 statistics and I checked with 2001 stats and its about 76.5% now; but I cannot find a link to use and i'm in a hurry to go out.....
Christianity 151,225,000 86.2%
Nonreligious 13,116,000 7.5%
Judaism 3,137,000 1.8%
Agnostic 1,186,000 0.7%
Islam 527,000 * 0.5%
Unitarian Universalist 502,000 0.3%
Buddhism 401,000 * 0.4%
Hinduism 227,000 * 0.2%
Native American Religion 47,000 --
Scientologist 45,000

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 06:44 PM

Thanks Dave.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 07:13 PM

Appreciate it, Dave, but whould still like to know WHOSE stats & just how the poll question was phrased- I sure as hell don't know what "identify with" means in this context.

If you have time at some point.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: GUEST,Dave's son Andrew
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 07:27 PM

GregF. This is for my dad. I looked up his search history and found several sites he used, but this is the only one I could find that had the 2001 stats.


http://www.teachingaboutreligion.org/Demographics/map_demographics.htm#The%20Big%20Picture

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: frogprince
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 07:45 PM

I think that "identify with" is an extremely broad catch-all, including everyone from staunch church members through those who would look up a Christian clergyman to perform a wedding or funeral, and on down to those who don't consider themselves atheists and who just kinda think that, as to religion, they guess they must be whatever most Americans are.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 09:26 PM

GregF, I just happened to hear on CSPAN today that many of these statistics can be obtained from the CIA Factbook. here.

For the United States it says: Protestant 52%, Roman Catholic 24%, Mormon 2%, Jewish 1%, Muslim 1%, other 10%, none 10% (2002 est.)

On this site it says:
Religion: This entry is an ordered listing of religions by adherents starting with the largest group and sometimes includes the percent of total population.

But I don't see the answer to your question, how is religion defined, or what questions were used in determining the facts quoted. There is a statement on the contact page that they will respond to email questions that are not answered in the FAQS. Might be worth a try if you really want to know.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: John Hardly
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 10:02 PM

Don,

You know I love you, man, but every time you describe your experiences with "fundamentalists", though I've met people of the ilk you describe, I never concluded -- probably because I lived among them -- that those you described were the rule and not the exception.

And fundamentalists are divided, NOT monolithic -- even (especially?) over issues like the subject of this thread. I mean, fergoshsakes, robomatic started the damn thread with a quote from one of 'em.

This constant mudcat drumbeat of the redneck, sheepfucking, green-toothed, undereducated, mean-spirited, brutal fundamentalist is just not the description of the people that I grew up with. Did I mention "undereducated"? Don, it sounded to me like you are the one who came out of the situation you described in such detail with the elevated hubris to think that you started a whole Christian movement in response to your brilliant Bible knowledge! ...and yet, somehow you came away with the impression that it was the Christian who lacked the humility. The fundamentalists I know who do like to have a good discussion don't shrink at another's Bible knowledge. But then I guess I haven't met as many from the sheep-fucking side of the "family" of god. :^)

Even the ones I know that may bristle at the notion of "Bible as Literature" would not be doing so because of the possibility that you were going to outwit them -- though many, many I know would be the first to admit to being susceptible to the outwitting.

I know arrogant ThMs and ThDs and I know humble ones.

I also know that those same fundamentalists that you all are saying are running the world sounded exactly like you in the 80s and 90's. MUCH ink was spent describing the government's intervention in the rights of Christian parents to homeschool. The liberal juggernaut with it's Christian hating agenda was just as feared as you fear this notion of a fundamentalist government taking over.

It's a good time to be alive in that regard -- if, after living these last 20 years, you can't see the hypocricy on both sides of an issue then you probably are an extremist.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: robomatic
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 10:11 PM

Carol:

That experience you relate sounds like a nightmare and a half.

While not departing from my original position, there are some good secular points to be made by the Ten Commandments, no matter what religion one aspires to, whether they are posted in public or not:

That in worshipping God we avoid worshipping humans.

That the law isn't (or shouldn't be) so far removed from us as to become too complicated or require an intermediary.

That we should realize these fundamental truths on a regular basis.

And a big implication:

If we behave properly to each other, we'll stay out of court (although not always).

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 10:30 PM

If you search the link a bit you would have found this, plus several diagrams and graphs explaining the denominations and methodology. there are other sites I suggest you look and read if you dont believe these stats.
Yours, Aye. Dave
. Religious Identification Among American Adults

The first area of inquiry in ARIS 2001 concerns the response of American adults to the question: "What is your religion, if any?" This question generated more than a hundred different categories of response, which we classified into the sixty-five categories shown in Exhibit 1 below.

In 1990, ninety percent of the adult population identified with one or another religion group. In 2001, such identification has dropped to eighty-one percent.

Where possible, every effort was made to re-create the categories respondents offered to the nearly identical question as in the NSRI 1990 survey.

As is readily apparent from the first Exhibit below, the major changes between the results of the 1990 survey and the current survey are:

a. the proportion of the population that can be classified as Christian has declined from eighty-six in 1990 to seventy-seven percent in 2001;
b. although the number of adults who classify themselves in non-Christian religious groups has increased from about 5.8 million to about 7.7 million, the proportion of non-Christians has increased only by a very small amount - from 3.3 % to about 3.7 %;
c. the greatest increase in absolute as well as in percentage terms has been among those adults who do not subscribe to any religious identification; their number has more than doubled from 14.3 million in 1990 to 29.4 million in 2001; their proportion has grown from just eight percent of the total in 1990 to over fourteen percent in 2001 [note 5];
d. there has also been a substantial increase in the number of adults who refused to reply to the question about their religious preference, from about four million or two percent in 1990 to more than eleven million or over five percent in 2001.

Exhibit 1 provides the most comprehensive profile of religious identification among the U.S. adult population today and compares the current pattern of identification with what the pattern was in 1990 [note 6].







NOTE: All figures in Exhibit 1 are rounded.

As is evident from Exhibit 1, with respect to religious self-identification, approximately ninety percent of America's adults are clustered in twenty-two groups. Therefore, the remainder of the analysis in this report focuses on the distribution of adults across these twenty-two groups

2. Religious Institutional Membership in Selected Major Religious Groups

Closely akin to religions group identification in the minds of most people is membership in or affiliation with a place of worship. Indeed, in his classic definition of religion, the nineteenth century sociologist Emile Durkheim characterized religions as systems of belief that unite a group of adherents into common modes of worship, which in turn are organize adherents into churches (or synagogues, temples, mosques or whatever else a group may chose to call the place in which a group of kindred spirits come together to celebrate, worship and recognize the commonality of their beliefs) [note 7].

More than half (54%) of the adult population in America reside in a household where either they themselves or someone else belongs to a church, or temple, synagogue or mosque or some other type of place of worship. To be sure, the significance of membership (its importance, its criteria, and even its definition) varies greatly from one denomination or faith to another. This study is not in position to evaluate the meaning or importance of religious institutional membership for particular groups.

On the other hand, given that about eighty percent of adults identify with some religious group, there appears to be a considerable gap between "identification" with a religion and reported "membership" or "belonging" to a an institutional embodiment of that faith community. That difference between religious identification and belonging could well contain the seeds of a potent cultural shift in which religion means something quite different to those who adhere to one from those who see themselves as the institutional custodians of one.

More than thirty years ago, the sociologist Thomas Luckmann anticipated the emergence of an increasingly de-institutionalized form of religious identification in an incisive analysis of modern religious life, The Invisible Religion. In that work he concluded: "The modern sacred cosmos legitimates the retreat of the individual into the 'private sphere' and sanctifies his (or her) subjective autonomy." [note 8]

Luckmann's analysis notwithstanding, aggregated survey data from the General Social Survey 1972-1994 showed a persistence of church membership among a somewhat larger percentage of U.S. adults than found in the current study. Among a nationally representative sample of 1,481 American adults surveyed in by GSS between the early 1970s and the early 1990s, 61% had indicated membership in a church.

The decade of the nineties appears to have been a period in which religious institutional membership slid, underscoring what Luckmann described as the rise of "invisible religion."

Exhibit 2 below describes the varied pattern of religious institutional membership among the twenty-two largest religious groups - including "no religion," which is the choice made by a very large number. Except where otherwise noted, we have limited our analyses to these twenty-two groups, which encompass nearly 190 million adults or nearly 92% of the adult population.




As Exhibit 2 illustrates, there are notable differences between various religious groups with respect to the relationship between identification and affiliation. For example, 68% of those identifying themselves as Lutheran report church membership, while only 45% of those who describe themselves as Protestant (without a specific denominational identification) report church membership. Nearly 68% of those identifying with the Assemblies of God report church membership. Church membership is reported by 59% of Catholic adults. About 53% of adults who identify their religion as Jewish or Judaism report temple or synagogue membership. Among those calling themselves Muslim or Islamic, 62% report membership in a mosque.

Perhaps, it will come as no surprise to religious leaders, but nearly 20% of adults who describe themselves as atheist or agnostic also report that either they themselves or someone else in their household is a member of a church, temple, synagogue, mosque or some other religious institution. On the other hand, nearly 40% of respondents who identified with a religion indicated that neither they themselves nor anyone else in their household belongs to a church or some other similar institution. It is this group in particular that best exemplifies the notion of "invisible religion" first proposed by Luckmann.

The obvious difference between the percentage of the total adult population that identifies with one or another religion and the percentage that report living in a household where either they themselves or someone else is a member of an organized religious body draws attention to the difference between identification as a state of heart and mind and affiliation as a social condition.

The difference in the proportions between identification and affiliation in each group draws attention to the possible differences in the value and meaning attached to affiliation within various religious movements. For example, it is instructive to note that among adults identifying themselves as Buddhist, just 28% report affiliation with a temple. Among adults identifying themselves with "native American religion," affiliation with a church or temple or some other religious institution is just 16%.

Differences between the percentages of identification and affiliation also draw attention to differences in meaning associated with religion itself. For some, religious identification may well be a social marker as much as a marker designating a specific set of beliefs. For others, it may be a reflection of a community or family anchor point to one's sense of self. For other still, it may simply be the "gut response" evoked by the question, "What is your religion, if any?" without any wider emotional, social or philosophical ramifications.

This survey made no attempt to define for people what the meaning of any religious identification might be. Rather, it sought to detect what those identifications might mean for those who claim them. The survey went beyond the simple questions of self-labeling and institutional membership to inquire about a number of key questions such as general outlook (weltanschauung) and beliefs with respect to God.

3. Religious or Secular Outlook Among American Adults

Apart from identification with one or another of a wide range of religions, ARIS 2001 sought to determine whether and to what extent American adults consider their outlook on life to be essentially religious or secular.

Detecting people's worldview or outlook with respect to religion is potentially very challenging. Some would argue that it cannot be done at all with the tools of survey research. Yet, much can be gained by asking rather simple questions of a broad and representative spectrum of people. While not much will be learned about any one individual or even a single group, great insights can be gleaned about the mindscape of diversity in the American population as a whole.

To that end, this survey asked respondents the following: "When it comes to your outlook, do you regard yours as Š (1) Secular, (2) Somewhat Secular, (3) Somewhat Religious or (4) Religious?" Respondents were also permitted to indicate they were unsure or a little of both.

Ninety-three percent of survey respondents were able to reply to this question without much difficulty. In all, sixteen percent (16%) described their outlook as secular or somewhat secular, while seventy-five percent (75%) described their outlook as religious or somewhat religious. Just one percent said they were "a little of both" and two percent said they were unsure. Five percent declined to answer the question.

The question yielded the distribution shown below in Exhibit 3, which indicates that at least ten percent of the population clearly and unambiguously considers itself "secular" rather than "religious." Another six percent regard themselves as "somewhat secular."





Our interviews on the question of outlook, as our questions on other matters of belief, generated a fair amount of ambivalence, which is reflected in the high proportion of respondents who fall into the category of "somewhat," that is "somewhat secular" and "somewhat religious." Certainty apparently is the possession of only a minority - though, to be sure, a larger minority among the religious than among the secular.

More interesting still are some of the demographic characteristics of the adult population, which seem to be associated with the disposition to be more or less secular, or more or less religious in one's outlook. Exhibits 4, 5 and 6 provide a glimpse at some of those associations.

- Women are more likely than men to describe their outlook as "religious."
- Older Americans are more likely than younger to describe their outlook as "religious."
- Black Americans are least likely to describe themselves as secular, Asian Americans are most likely to do so.












4. Religious Switching Among Selected Religious Groups

More than thirty-three million American adults, about 16% of the total U.S. adult population report that they have changed their religious preference or identification. Perhaps, this phenomenon of "religion switching" is a reflection of a deeper cultural phenomenon in contemporary America. In the early 1990s, the sociologist Wade Clark Roof described the increasingly middle-aged baby boomers as a "generation of seekers." [note 9] However, the 1990s were also a period of great immigration and great economic boom. Therefore, the religious life of the nation has been influenced by social forces that are wider and more varied than simply the aging of the 'boomers.'

As will be seen in the Exhibit below, switching has involved not only the shift of people's spiritual loyalties from one religion to another -- which could reflect some kind of spiritual seeking -- but also, and perhaps more importantly, a dropping out of religion altogether. To be sure, there is no indication in the current data whether the "religious switching" actually occurred in the 1990s or earlier. Surely, for our older respondents the switching very likely had occurred earlier.

Exhibit 7 below describes the patterns of "religion switching" among the twenty-two largest aggregates. As was indicated earlier, taken together these groups constitute about ninety percent of the entire adult population residing in the U.S. currently.


Click here for Exhibit 7

The top three "gainers" in America's vast religious market place appear to be Evangelical Christians, those describing themselves as Non-Denominational Christians and those who profess no religion. Looking at patterns of religious change from this perspective, the evidence points as much to the rejection of faith as to the seeking of faith among American adults. Indeed, among those who previously had no religion, just 5% report current identification with one or another of the major religions.

Some groups such as Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses appear to attract a large number of converts ("in-switchers"), but also nearly as large a number of apostates ("out-switchers"). It is also interesting to note that Buddhists also fall into this category of what one might call high-turnover religious groups.

5. Marital Status Among Selected Religious Groups

In most people's minds there is a close association between religious belonging and family values, though to be sure that latter concept is often quite vague as to its meaning. For both demographic and sociological reasons, the present study also focused on household structure, marital status and the religious composition of households.

As context for a discussion of the marital status patterns of different religious groups, it should be noted that the U.S. Census reports the following distribution for the marital status of Americans aged fifteen or older.



US CENSUS FACT BOX I

Married 115,580,691 54%
Single, never married 58,049,225 27%
Separated 4,795,275 2%
Divorced 21,365,741 10%
Widowed 13,887,524 7%
TOTAL 213,678,456 100%
Source: USCensus QT-02 Profile of Selected Social Characteristics: 2000 (American Fact Finder)




Because ARIS 2001 has defined its survey population as "adults 18 or over" its distribution varies slightly from that of the US Census, which recorded marital status information for all people aged fifteen or older. In addition, as the fact box below shows, ARIS also included an additional category for "single, living with partner." It also recorded those who refused to supply marital status information.



ARIS 2001 FACT BOX 2 (Weighted Estimate)

Married 122,053,785 59%
Single, never married 40,914,395 20%
Single, living with partner 11,101,951 5%
Separated 3,431,149 2%
Divorced 15,005,207 7%
Widowed 12,502,674 6%
Refused info 2,959,032 1%
   TOTAL 207,968,192 100%




Exhibit 8 below draws attention to the variations among the different religious groups with regard to household structure.


Click here for Exhibit 8


The data in Exhibit 8 underscore the accuracy of conventional wisdom in the main: those who identify with one or another of the main religious groups are considerably more likely to be married than those who have no religion. Particularly the "no religion" group was far more likely to be either single, never married or single, living with a partner than any other group. Indeed, the "no religion" group shows the lowest incidence of marriage (just 19%) of all twenty-two groups. In sharp contrast, those identifying with the Assemblies of God or Evangelical/Born Again Christians show the highest proportions married, 73% and 74% respectively.

The percent currently divorced or separated varies considerably less, from a low of six percent (Jehovah's Witnesses) to a high of fourteen percent (Pentecostals).

In Exhibit 9 the study looks at the patterns of divorce and separation between 1990-2001 across the twenty-two religious self-identification groups. While this comparison offers no dramatic changes over the past eleven years, it does underscore the constancy of most of the patterns.


Click here for Exhibit 9


6. Mixed Religion Families Among Selected Religious Groups

Much as normative marriage patterns serve as a sociological buttress to traditional religious identification and belonging, they may also mask underlying change. As we noted earlier, ARIS2001 shows substantial shifts toward secularism among a large number of American adults.

Therefore in this section of the report we look at the incidence of marriage across religious lines. We should add that ARIS2001 is the first national survey that has looked at the religious composition of marriage and domestic partners in large enough numbers to be able to make generalizations among different groups. Because of the size of our sample and the nature of our questions, this survey has generated a wealth of data that will require much further mining with regard to issues pertaining to interfaith households.

ARIS2001 found that of all households that contained either a married or domestic partner couple, 22% reported a mixture of religious identification amongst the couple. At the low end there are the Mormon adults who are found in mixed religion families at 12% and such other groups as Baptists, those adhering to the Churches of Christ, Assemblies of God, the Evangelicals and those adhering to the Church of God (all at about 18%). At the high end we find the Episcopalians at 42% and Buddhists at 39% living in mixed religion families. In all, about 28 million American married or otherwise "coupled" adults live in a mixed religion household.


Click here for Exhibit 10

7. Age and Gender Patterns Among Selected Religious Groups

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of age and sex either in the life of the individual or in the life of any group. Personal outlook is often deeply influenced by these two rather obvious personal attributes. The future of a group is also often shaped by the relative distribution of the old and the young and the relative proportions of males and females. Therefore Exhibits 11 and 12 explore these demographic patterns in the current survey, and for comparison purposes in NSRI 1990.








As in 1990 so too in the current study, the Buddhist and Muslim population appears to have the highest proportion of young adults under age thirty, and the lowest percentage of females. A number of the major Christian groups have aged since 1990, most notably the Catholics, Methodists, and Lutherans. Congregationalist/United Church of Christ and Presbyterian adherents show an older age structure with three times as many over age 65 as under age 35. Baptists also have fewer young adults than they had in 1990. Among Jews the ratio of the over-65 to those under-thirty has shifted from nearly even in 1990 to about 2:1 in the current study. It should be noted, again, that this survey has focused only upon adult adherents. The observations about age structure do not include the children who may be present in the household of adult adherents.


8. Race and Ethnicity Among Selected Religious Groups

Although the ideals faith are supposed unite people across the great chasms carved by race and ethnicity, social scientists have long noted the in a manner of speaking "Sunday morning service is the most segregated hour in America." ARIS2001 addressed the interplay between faith, ethnicity and race by inquiring into each component of those who were surveyed.


Click here for Exhibit 13


Exhibit 13 describes the make-up of each of the twenty-two major religious groups in terms of proportion non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, Asian or Hispanic or something else. It should be noted that these characterizations were provided by respondents as answers to fairly straight forward objective questions.

- "Would you consider yourself to be White, Black, or of some other race?"
- "Are you of Hispanic origin or background?"

9. Political Party Preference Among Selected Religious Groups

Given the current debates over a wide variety of public policy issues in which religious convictions and principles are thought to be of some consequence, this study sought to determine with generally broad brushstrokes to what extent religious groups might differ with respect to the political party preferences of their adherents. Exhibit 14 below describes that pattern.


Click here for Exhibit 14


To be sure, political party preferences probably fluctuate more than do religious preferences. It is especially difficult to determine from survey data the extent to which political party preferences are influenced by the heat of the most recent elections. Those caveats aside, the data in Exhibit 14 point to some important continuities as well as shifts.

Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and those with no religion continue to have a greater preference for the Democratic party over the Republican - much as they did in 1990. Evangelical or Born Again Christians and Mormons are the most apt to identify as Republicans. Buddhists and those with no religion are most likely to be political independents. In keeping with their theology, Jehovah's Witnesses disavow political involvement.


10. State and Faith

The final section of this report pays due recognition to the fact that America is also the United States - a name which often masks as much diversity as it portrays unity. With respect to religion in particular, states differ considerably in the religious make-up of their populace. That diversity is likely to contribute as much as any other source of social variation to differences in their cultural and political climate.



















Despite the growing diversity nationally, some religious groups clearly occupy a dominant demographic position in particular states. For instance, Catholics are the majority of the population in Massachusetts and Maine as are Mormons in Utah and Baptists in Mississippi. Catholics comprise over 40% of Vermont, New Mexico, New York and New Jersey, while Baptists are over 40% in a number of southern states such as South Carolina, Tennessee, North Carolina, Alabama and Georgia.

Historical traces of the Bible belt in the South and an irreligious West are still evident. Those with "no religion" constitute the largest group in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Wyoming. In contrast, the percentage of adults who adhere to "no religion" is below 10 % in North and South Dakota, the Carolinas, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.

Such religious concentrations might well have significant impact on host of public policy issues as well as on such matters as religious-based philanthropy.

It remains the challenge of further explorations of these and related data to discover the complex ways in which the religious identification patterns of the American populace shapes the culture and fate of the United States.


Notes:

5 The growth in the "no religion" population appears to be reflecting a patterns that has also been noted widely in England.

6 Barry A. Kosmin & Seymour P. Lachman, One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary America (New York: Harmony Books, 1993)

7 Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (New York: Free Press, 1955).

8 Thomas Luckmann, The Invisible Religion (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1967).

9 Wade Clark Roof, A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journeys of the Baby Boom Generation (San Francisco: Harper, 1993)

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Ron Davies
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 11:20 PM

Bill--

1) If posting the 10 Commandments officially favors a religion, it's Judaism. But I don't think that's what's being alleged here.

2) Re: your 12:40 PM post: Carol's experience does not in fact prove your point. The question is whether the 10 Commandments should be posted in a courtroom. Carol's point had to do with home schooling. Nobody should be allowed to require anybody to be of a certain religion in order to home-school. Nobody in the 10 Commandments case is requiring anybody to do anything except exist with the 10 Commandments prominently featured in the courtroom.

Demonstrable harm was done to Carol. (In fact, if there are states which will not allow home schooling unless the parents are Christian--not Maryland, we've established--that would be a good campaign for anybody who feels the First Amendment is threatened.

No demonstrable harm is done to anybody forced to sit in a room with the 10 Commandments. (Do you think a plaque of the Commandments is equivalent to a swastika?) Nobody is forced to recite or hear anything.

Harm will definitely be done if attacks on the 10 Commandments plaques energize the religious Right.

Listen to what Dave (ancient mariner) said earlier "To erase something decades old...serves no purpose other than to insult people of faith."

Mudcatters (with one obvious glaring exception) are reasonable and tolerant people.
Dave is very calm and logical, and obviously no member of the rabid Right. Do you think the Jerry Falwell, etc. disciples will be calm and logical?

And remember, they do vote, sometimes in even greater numbers than Mudcatters do.




Greg--

I would be sorry to see you waste your talents and energies on the 10 Commandments issue when many others more crucial need addressing.

RE: protest songs--you may like them, but how many people do you think they really change? They're great at rallying the faithful---hymns for secularists-- but beyond that, the burden is on you to prove they do anything but make you feel good.

Your Chamberlain analogy is strained, and, through overuse, this metaphor has lost its punch. Not every compromise is a Munich Agreement.

By all means, do whatever you want-- somehow I suspect you will anyway. But I'm telling you that if you require of your presidential candidate in the primaries-- if this is still an issue then-- that he or she commit to removing the 10 Commandments from all courtrooms, you will live to regret it.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: GUEST,CarolC
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 10:06 AM

Thanks robomatic.

While not departing from my original position, there are some good secular points to be made by the Ten Commandments, no matter what religion one aspires to, whether they are posted in public or not:

That in worshipping God we avoid worshipping humans.

I disagree with the idea that this one fits the criteria of a secular point. For one thing, there may be religions that involve worshiping people. But also, using myself as an example, I don't have a concept of "worship" in my spiritual belief system. That word has no meaning to me. Same with any attempt to define divinity. According to my own spiritual beliefs, to define divinity is to limit it. And in my belief system, divinity is not something that can be limited. Worshipping something requires some degree of definition of what is being worshipped. Also, according to the what I believe, to worship something is to create a separation between the self and the thing being worshipped. In my spiritual beliefs, there is no separation between the self and divinity. So the use of the word "worship" violates my spiritual beliefs.

Ron Davies...

If the posting of the ten commandments is determined, under the establishment clause, to have the effect of promoting the monotheistic religons over others, the demonstrable harm caused to me by the court having taken the case against me by that attorney, could (and should, in my opinion) be used as an example of the negative effects that this promotion of the monotheistic religions has on people who are not of those religions. The posting of the ten commandments is only one example of the ways in which the monotheistic religions are promoted by the US government. But it happens to be the one that we are discussing in this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 12:19 PM

Ron...I carefully did not say 'prove', which implies a strict logical connection. I said 'demonstrates', to suggest that Carol's experience was an example of what happens when a class of beliefs is used to attempt to interpretate and manipulate laws. Fortunately, they did not succeed in the long run, although they caused her much distress in the process.

I submit that it should not be necessary to demonstrate immediate and direct harm to any one person or group in order to show that a particular practice is generally unfair and tends to support one religio/cultural group over others.

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 04:03 PM

John, I'm not saying that all fundamentalists are like my old buddy Ivan.

I was merely describing, realistically, an actual experience. I don't claim that my knowledge of the Bible is superior to, say, the pastors of most churches or to a whole lot of other people. The point I was trying to make was that many fundamentalists, particularly the more aggressive and argumentative sort, set themselves up as authorities on the Will of God, basing it all on their piecemeal, pick-and-chose reading of the Bible, and then, when challenged by someone who is reasonably knowledgeable about the Bible themselves, fold up like a cheap lawn chair and stand there either smoldering or feeling a self-righteous pity for the poor sinner and consigning them to the depths of Hell. As if they truly think they know the Mind of God. Now, that's what I call hubris.

I have known and still know a large number of deeply religious people, some of them fundamentalists, who accept me as I am:   an armchair philosopher, a seeker, a sojourner—a questioner who isn't satisfied with the too-easy answer. Either fully consciously or deep down, they realize that they really don't know any more than I do, and often question the nature of their own faith. The essence of religion is mystery. And to claim that you know for certain eliminates (at least in your own mind) that mystery, and hence, any real possibility of religious experience. I maintain that the opposite of faith is not doubt; the opposite of faith is certainty. If you're certain, you don't need faith. Certainty, provided it is objectively verifiable, is not religion. It's science. (And science itself is not all that certain.)

The ones who get up my nose are people like Ivan, and several others I have run into from time to time, who, not knowing me from Adam's off ox, automatically assume that my soul needs saving, and they're going to get me to "accept Christ as my Savior" if they have to hog-tie me to a chair and beat me with a rubber hose. The incident I described is not the only encounter, by any means, that I've had with aggressively evangelizing fundamentalists.

Now, on a one-to-one level, it's no problem. I can deal with it. But—I especially resent it, on several levels—personally, philosophically, morally, religiously, politically, and patriotically—when people of this ilk arrogate to themselves the right to try to legislate, locally, or especially nationally, their particular idea of religious morality and force everyone to believe as they think they should believe. Or turn them into unwilling hypocrites by forcing them to behave as if they believed. Giving religious dogma the force of secular power leads to things like the Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, and the Taliban. I will fight this sort of attempt to breach the wall between religion and government with every fiber of my being and every resource at my command.

That's my stand. And that, after all, is the basic subject of this thread.

As a liberal (progressive), and as one who attends a Christian church with some regularity, I have no brief against Christians—or anyone—home schooling their children. My only concern would be that the basic "three Rs" and a fairly objective approach to history and civics be taught competently. But testing, such as the GED and SAT, can determine that.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: GUEST,Guy Who Thinks
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 04:17 PM

Don, this old saying is worth remembering. "Religion believes itself to be eternal truth, science knows itself to be the partial truth."

Subject: RE: BS: Ten Commandments on Public Property?
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 06:58 PM

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, "what about all religious Icons being removed"?

A common representation of Justice is a blind-folded woman holding a set of scales. The origin of the Goddess of Justice goes back to antiquity. She was referred to as Ma'at by the ancient Egyptians and was often depicted carrying a sword with an ostrich feather in her hair (but no scales) to symbolize truth and justice. The term magistrate is derived from Ma'at because she assisted Osiris in the judgment of the dead by weighing their hearts. [1]

To the ancient Greeks she was known as Themis, originally the organizer of the "communal affairs of humans, particularly assemblies." [2] Her ability to foresee the future enabled her to become one of the oracles at Delphi, which in turn led to her establishment as the goddess of divine justice. Classical representations of Themis did not show her blindfolded (because of her talent for prophecy, she had no need to be blinded) nor was she holding a sword (because she represented common consent, not coercion). [3]

The Roman goddess of justice was called Justitia and was often portrayed as evenly balancing both scales and a sword and wearing a blindfold. She was sometimes portrayed holding the fasces (a bundle of rods around an ax symbolizing judicial authority) in one hand and a flame in the other (symbolizing truth). [4]


Also The Statue Of Lberty...
In Roman mythology, Liberty is Libertas, the goddess of freedom. Originally a deity of personal freedom, she evolved to become the goddess of the commonwealth. Her temples were found on the Aventine Hill and the Forum. She was depicted on many Roman coins as a female figure wearing a pileus (a felt cap, worn by slaves when they were set free), a wreath of laurels and a spear.

Libertas was presented in 1884 as a gift from the French Grand Orient Temple Masons to the Masons of America in celebration of the centenary of the first Masonic Republic, as much as a gift from France to America. The cornerstone of the statue has an inscription that records that it was laid in a Masonic ceremony. It is believed that Bartholdi conceived the original statue as an effigy of the Egyptian goddess Isis, and only later converted it to a 'Statue of Liberty' for New York Harbor when it was rejected for the Suez Canal. The statue of Isis was to be of "a robed woman holding aloft a torch" (Weisberger, Bernard, Statue of Liberty: 1st Hundred Years, p.30, quoted in Lloyd, James, Beyond Babylon, p.103).


Again, not one Christian is calling for their removal from public view, strange isnt it?

Yours, Aye. Dave