Greg's Music And Geek Blog

Wed, 16 Jan 2008

The United States is a SECULAR Nation

I had already planned on writing today’s Reason & Rationality essay explaining how the USA was founded on secular, not religious, fundamentals. And then something amazing happened. Mike Huckabee said something that was so profoundly stupid and dangerous about this very topic that I have to speak out.

The first thing to understand is what the word “secular” means.

Secular

1. of or pertaining to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred.
2. not pertaining to or connected with religion (opposed to sacred): secular music.
3. (of education, a school, etc.) concerned with nonreligious subjects.

It is important to realize that a secular government means that the government does not make laws related to things religious or spiritual. It does not mean that it’s citizens are not allowed to be religious. Let me state this even more clearly:

A secular government takes no stand with respect to religion. However, the citizens of a secular government are allow to worship as they wish without government intervention.

This is called “Freedom”. It means that you are allowed to worship however you want but you can’t force your religious views on others via the force of law. It also protects you because it means that nobody else can force their religious beliefs upon you via the force of law. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it?

Then why is the religious right trying to make us believe their revisionist history by constantly telling us that America was “Founded on Christian Values”? I can tell you in one word: Control.

So let’s examine their claim. Did the founding fathers intend for the United States to be a Christian nation? This should be an easy question to answer. We need only to look at the Constitution.

In the United States Constitution the word “God” is mentioned exactly zero times. The topic of religion comes up only twice. First in Article VI which states:

no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States

Notice that they’re not telling you that you can’t be religious to work with the government. Quite the opposite. They’re telling you that religion doesn’t matter and nobody can make a hiring decision based upon your religious beliefs (or lack of them).

The only other place that religion is mentioned is in the 1st amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

Once again, that’s the very definition of secular. The citizens are allowed to worship as they please, but the government takes no stand in support or prohibition of any religion.

If we need any more proof we need look no further than the Treaty of Tripoli written by John Adams. Tripoli was an area of the Barbary coast which encompassed Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. That area of the world was Muslim, or as it was referred to in 1796, “Musselmen.” Tripoli was concerned that the United States of America would be ruled as a Christian nation and that would cause war between the USA and any Islamic nation. John Adams, the author of the treaty wrote:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Notice that first line:

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;

Can there be any clearer indication of the intentions of the founding fathers? We should also note that John Adams was our 2nd president (Certainly a “founding father”) and that the treaty passed the United States Senate unanimously.

Certainly the concept of embedding religious doctrine into our constitution was discussed. George Washington was a proponent of that idea. But having just left England to gain, among other reasons, the freedom to worship as they wish, not as the government demanded, they realized that a secular nation was the only truly free type of government. The United States of America was the first nation founded as a secular nation and it’s one of the things that makes America truly free.

It’s at this point that the religious will argue “But what about “Under God” in the pledge of allegiance and “In God We Trust” on our money?

The 2 words “Under God” were added to the pledge not by our founding fathers, but by the Knights of Columbus and President Eisenhower in 1954. The phrase “In God We Trust” was first placed on our paper money not by the founding fathers in the 1700s, but in 1957. It was adopted as our national motto in 1956 and approved, once again, by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. There are many who believe that this was in reaction to the Red Scare since many people believed in an “unholy connection” between communism and atheism.

The founding fathers, by the way, said that our national motto was “E pluribus unum” which means “From many, one”. To me, that sounds like “From many cultures, many religions, many races, many peoples, many states, we have become one America.” That is an inclusive motto. In God We Trust is an exclusive motto excluding anyone who is not religious.

There is one more concept which people desperately need to understand. Forcing a religious belief on somebody is never moral even if it’s your brand of religion. You need simply to ask yourself this: What if it wasn’t your particular brand of religion? Or your particular brand of Christianity? The Bible and the Koran certainly forbid the eating of pork and Jews and Muslims take this seriously. Should the federal government ban you from buying or eating pork because is violates somebody else’s dogma? The Bible and the Koran say that a man should not cut his hair. Should we ban haircuts by federal law? How free are you starting to feel under a religious government? Which religion do we pick? Which Christianity do we pick? Catholic? Protestant? Baptist? Mormon? Lutheran? How about the weird space based religions like the Raelians or Scientology? How do you pick which religion gets the preference?

Or is it better to allow each of you, and me, the atheist, to worship or not worship as fits our passion, and not force any religion upon anyone? See? We’re back to a secular government again as the best example of religious freedom.

So what was it that Huckabee said that is so dangerous?

“I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution,” Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. “But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.”

That is just freakin’ scary. He actually wants to change our constitution to make this a Christian nation rather than a free secular nation. Here we have a presidential candidate who thinks that one of the most important freedoms that Americans have is broken, that the founding fathers were wrong, that true freedom of religion is in contrast to his view of “God’s word” and that only by adopting his religious point of view can America be truly great.

If you’re not shaking in your boots at that comment then you’re not paying attention.

This story is from the [/reason] department
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