Posted by The Natural Philosopher on 09/19/07 11:48

Jerry Stuckle wrote:

> I'm not trying to ram my religion down your throat. But you are trying
> to stop me from practicing my religion. It's zealots like you that the
> Bill of Rights was designed to protect us against. Unfortunately, that
> original intent has been lost over the years.
>

Wrong: all that is being said is that religion, is - like homosexuality
- something that is a private and individual matter. Its support
opposition is simply not a function of the government, and indeed to use
the government to do either is unconstitutional and probably against
some statute somewhere.

And intensely and deeply unwise. A lesson learnt by many societies over
history, and one the Muslim theocracies will also learn to their cost.

Good governance should be on deliberately atheistic lines, in the sense
that *nothing* it does, should be done, for reasons of religious belief.

Because once you start, then every religion in the book and a good many
that aren't, is going to be lobbying the government for 'tax relief on
sacrificial chickens' 'a right to have Voudoun taught in our public
schools' and so on.

Its very simple. From Monday to Friday the schools teach everything
*except* religion. Discussions about religion are confined to
anthropology, or dismissed with 'that's something to ask your
Pastor/shaman/high priest/bishop/guru/ about'. It isn't the schools job
to go there, period.

If you want to declare 'god hours' where people can flop down in a
meccawards direction, or bugger off to a chapel, or simply score some
crack on the street corner, that's up to you and your politicians.

On Sundays and Saturdays the churches, chapels sects and whatever are
free to teach anything they like that is not subversive to the State, or
criminal, to anyone who wants to listen.

But that is EXPLICITLY and COMPLETELY outside what the State provides.

In short the State must never ever, despite the dictates of its
officials, ever meddle or be seen to meddle in affairs of a spiritual
nature: It is there to reflect the center of gravity of public opinion
in the most tolerant way possible, into the statute books, with the aim
of providing the highest common factor of law abiding citizens, and a
force to restrain those that choose not to abide. It does this ot from
principle, but from pragmatism. Its primary aim is to provide a stable
society in which people themselves can make choices. Not dictate any
morality to them.

In short its best hope is to act as if it were completely a-theistic.
Not to deny or affirm God, but simply to keep its mucky paws out of that
area altogether. Almost any other course is a recipe for dissent and
ultimately revolution.

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