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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (41719)	6/24/1999 12:45:00 PM
From: jbe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Christopher, I think that the "no religious test" provision was meant to protect everyone, atheists included. Its clear meaning, in my view, is that religious conviction (or lack of it) is irrelevant. Here is an excerpt from an editorial by James H. Wood (Director of Baylor University's Institute of Church-State Relations) on that constitutional innovation: Article VI not only removed the basis for any preferential treatment of one religion over another for holding public office, but also denied the right of any preferential status of religion over nonreligion in matters of one's political participation in the life of the Republic. William Lee Miller appropriately noted in his recent historical review of religion and the Constitution, The First Liberty: Religion and the American Republic, that "in the framing of Article VI ...the new nation was electing to be nonreligious in its civil life." On the subject of religion, Miller finds "more striking than what the Federal Constitution did include is what it did not." Unlike other legal documents of the period and throughout history, there art no references in the Constitution to the Deity, to God, to "Providence." or even to the Creator, as in the case of the Declaration of Independence, which, unlike the Constitution, was not a formal legal document... ....The secular state, by its very nature, is a limited state in which the people have denied the jurisdiction of civil authority over religious affairs. The secular state is not born out of hostility to religion, any more than Article VI, as noted earlier, is to be viewed as adverse to religion. In the words of America's most distinguished church historian of the nineteenth century, Philip Schaff, the Constitution is neither hostile nor friendly to any religion; it is simply silent on the subject, as lying beyond the jurisdiction of the general government. members.tripod.com And so forth and so on. Of course, I would agree that the Constitution extends no special protection to atheists, as against believers. Everyone is in the same boat. As you must have known in advance <g>, I can't resist making a counter-comment to your comment: "you obviously have more time to pursue your non-work interests than I do." Alas, that is the problem -- I am a writer and a historian, with a special interest in intellectual history. In that area, there is no such thing as "non-work interests," because everything is related to everything else! I will tell a story on myself. When I was writing my doctoral dissertation about a Russian writer and kulturtrager, I found myself pursuing his interests down all the highways and byways of the world. From reading about apocalypticism throughout the world, I moved on to mysticism, to Freemasonry, to God knows what else...Years went by....Realizing I would never finish the research for my dissertation, I went into Columbia's History Department and scheduled my defense. Now that I had a defense date, I had to actually write the damn thing. (Did it in three months!) Joan P.S. Besides, I don't post as much as you do. Check it out! :-)