From: Chad Perrin Date: 2007-07-11T02:57:31+09:00 Subject: Re: Religion (was: god 0.1.0 released) On Wed, Jul 11, 2007 at 01:33:24AM +0900, Todd Burch wrote: > Gregory Brown wrote: > > > > Okay, I have to be honest. What about the non-Judaic practitioners > > in the US? Frankly, I'm glad that "His" commandments are no longer in > > courthouses in a country where free religious exercise is supposed to > > be practiced. > > Ok, I think I understand. The Judeo-Christian group has had their > articles of religious expression removed from public display, and you > are basking in that. Good for you. Free religous exercise does not > mean "free only on the condition that it does not offend some vocal > minority". It means free! Any time tax money is spent to display a set of religious precepts like that, it amounts to official endorsement. Endorsement of one set of religious precepts without endorsing all of them (including precepts of atheism and agnosticism which, for these purposes, might as well be counted as religions) is equivalent to an act establishing a specific relationship between government and a given religion. You may recall that the First Amendment specifically forbids that. There are *actual* Christian nations in the world -- nations where the government's constitution (if it even has a constitution) does not forbid establishing a state religion, and where it is customary for the government to endorse one religion in particular -- just as there are Muslim religions. These nations might be more suitable to display of the Ten Commandments at courthouses. I speak, of course, as one US citizen to another. > > > As far as schools, same things go there. I don't think the state has > > a place in picking the spiritual views for students, that seems to > > really push the envelope if you ask me. > > > > I don't think the state is doing that here in the US. As a matter of > fact, they are doing the opposite. They are squelching religous > expression, because Group "ABC" might offend Group "DEF". I agree with you insofar as schools actually forbid children to form prayer groups and otherwise express themselves. I do not, however, agree with you in cases where teachers lead prayers in class, "intelligent design" is taught in science classes, and the "under God" part of the Pledge of Allegiance is enforced (despite only having been added to the Pledge relatively recently). In fact, I disagree with the enforcement of any recitation of the Pledge in "public" school at all, but it doesn't surprise me that a government-funded institution would enforce recitation of an oath of fealty to the government -- but that's a separate matter. The key here is that habit can lead to belief, and habitual exposure to one particular belief system is tantamount to teaching it as the "right" belief system. This is so far outside the legitimate functions of government in a free nation as to be laughable, if it wasn't so disturbing in its implications. It's also antithetical to the core values of mainstream Christianity, since faith -- the single most important concept in such religious practice -- is entirely dependent upon the exercise of free will. There's nothing free about brainwashing. An intellectually honest and logically consistent Christian philosopher should be more strenuously opposed to any state endorsement of Christianity over other religious belief systems than even a secularist, in my estimation at least. Don't kid yourself -- as long as tax revenue is poured into mandatory education, anything thusly-funded schools do (in line with established policies attached to that funding) to present the precepts of one religious belief system while ignoring another is in effect a form of endorsement, even if it wasn't intended to be. One must be diligent even in avoiding mistakes. One would hope that, as someone who takes offense from the use of the term "god" to name a gem even if it was not intended, you would recognize the similarly detrimental effects of accidental endorsement of religion in government-funded (and -regulated) schools. > > > It seems like you used the name of this library which really is just > > clever and appropriate as a soap stand for your particular religious > > beliefs, and it seems pretty far out of the scope of discussion here. > > I don't agree the name is clever or appropriate. I didn't think it was all that clever, either -- though it does create plenty of opportunity to be clever with method names. Appropriateness is (at least in this case) entirely in the eyes of the beholder. On the other hand, it's also easy (at least in retrospect) to see how it could be seen as inappropriate by many, especially in the relatively Christian-leaning political climate of the US in the last few years. Unless controversy was the intent, I think "deus" would be a much better name than "god", and would probably have been my choice given those options for other reasons as well (such as the fact it's just a cooler-sounding name -- Latin always makes things sound smarter). > > Now, time for me to be perfectly honest. This is the first time in my > life I have ever taken a stand for my beliefs in a public forum. Call > me a slow starter. I typically steer away from these discussions like > the plague. However, I wanted to make a point that Tom could have > picked a better name. I think I've made that point now. I guess that depends on your definition of "better". If the goal is to stir up controversy without unduly offending *too* many people, he could definitely have done worse than to call it "god". Programmers tend to be fairly tolerant of vague references to religious issues in this manner, so the ratio of offended to unoffended parties is probably fairly optimal in this regard, whereas racial slurs would be well past the point of effectiveness -- at least, based on my experience of programmers. If the intent, however, was just to name it something that fits the functionality without offending anyone, then I agree -- it could have been a "better" name. As for my beliefs: there's no reason to specifically identify them here. If you really want to know, you might be able to find out via Google, because I'm not shy about them -- but be aware that making assumptions based on my arguments and common American expectations of what arguments go with what belief systems is prone to failure in my case. Regardless, take what I have to say on its own merits, as I have made a distinct effort to divorce my reasoning in this email from my religious and/or philosophical beliefs. -- CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ] Thomas McCauley: "The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out."