2008 Woodie Awards
The View From Here
In America, there is no room for absolute values...absolutely none.
Neill Herbert
Date created: 11/9/04 Section: OPINION
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What a discombobulating time we live in, full of contradictions. As a matter of fact, no one really seems to put a whole lot of trust in facts anymore, so you are just going to have to take me on my word for this one:
Our nation's constitution requires freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.
I know that statement is pretty straightforward, and maybe even easy to understand and believe, but recent events have me wondering what happened to the oh-so-obvious religious history of this country that many Americans are treating like an elephant in their living room.
For example, this year, an atheist appealed his case to the Supreme Court to censor "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance.
Everyone is free to refuse to recite the pledge, and everyone is free to refuse to pledge their allegiance to God. That is exercising freedom of religion.
However, expunging God from the pledge is freedom from religion. And it makes just about as much sense as ignoring how deep the roots of faith go in this nation.
Devastating tragedies have been committed in the name of God, but on what do we base our opinions that those tragedies were tragic in the first place? Labeling things as "tragic" sounds like a moral judgment to me. Where do we get the ideas to make moral judgments? Possibly, from moral user manuals, like the book I like to call "Life for Dummies (and Those Not Willing to Call Themselves Dummies)," a.k.a., the Bible, the text from which so many people worldwide claim some religious heritage.
Another case soon to come before the Supreme Court illustrates this all too ironically. The nation's highest court recently agreed to hear arguments for a case in which the plaintiff wants the Ten Commandments (in the Bible, see Exodus, chapter 20 and Deuteronomy, chapter five) to be taken out of public places. Cases like this seem to be all the rage these days, and the Supreme Court agreed to decide the fate of public displays of the commandments.
Our nation's constitution requires freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.
I know that statement is pretty straightforward, and maybe even easy to understand and believe, but recent events have me wondering what happened to the oh-so-obvious religious history of this country that many Americans are treating like an elephant in their living room.
For example, this year, an atheist appealed his case to the Supreme Court to censor "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance.
Everyone is free to refuse to recite the pledge, and everyone is free to refuse to pledge their allegiance to God. That is exercising freedom of religion.
However, expunging God from the pledge is freedom from religion. And it makes just about as much sense as ignoring how deep the roots of faith go in this nation.
Devastating tragedies have been committed in the name of God, but on what do we base our opinions that those tragedies were tragic in the first place? Labeling things as "tragic" sounds like a moral judgment to me. Where do we get the ideas to make moral judgments? Possibly, from moral user manuals, like the book I like to call "Life for Dummies (and Those Not Willing to Call Themselves Dummies)," a.k.a., the Bible, the text from which so many people worldwide claim some religious heritage.
Another case soon to come before the Supreme Court illustrates this all too ironically. The nation's highest court recently agreed to hear arguments for a case in which the plaintiff wants the Ten Commandments (in the Bible, see Exodus, chapter 20 and Deuteronomy, chapter five) to be taken out of public places. Cases like this seem to be all the rage these days, and the Supreme Court agreed to decide the fate of public displays of the commandments.
