First Amendment and WE
Sune argues that the U.S.
Constitution requires total neutrality about religion and cannot,
therefore, endorse atheism or the idea that science supports
atheism. Michael Kopp reacts.
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From: Sune Nordwall
Subject: First Amendment and WE (Was: Re: What
is ...)
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 20:11:19 +0200
To
Stephen´s question:
Please give an inclusive/exclusive definition
of "religion", i.e. one which will include all things
which are religion and will exclude all those which aren't.
John & Wendy Morehead answered in two
parts, the first
on Thursday, 8 April, the
second on Friday, 9 April.
For other Europeans, that like me maybe aren´t
very well aquainted with the specific problems relating to the
First Amendment of the Constitution of the US and the support,
non support or prohibition of religious elements and teaching
in public schools, a not bad overview of the problem seems to
be one at http://thomasash.hypermart.net/bnet/items/00022.html.
On Thursday John Morehead answered in terms
of how it was understood in one case, in 1977, specifically concerning
the teaching of Transcendental meditation in a public school(s?)
in New Jersey:
As was pointed out in the Malnak v. Yogi
case,
(http://www.trancenet.org/law/nj/nj4.html,
the end:)
"the subjective characterizations
by individuals of teachings as religious or not religious in
their systems of categorization cannot be determinative of whether
or not the teachings are religious within the meaning of the
first amendment" (Malnak v. Yogi, 440 F. Supp. 1284 [1977]).
So regardless of whether the case can be
made from a religious studies perspective that Anthroposophy
meets a religious definition, subjective definitions of such
are not necessarily determinative in a court of law. The court
went on to state that it
(http://www.trancenet.org/law/nj/nj9.html,
Summary judgement, middle of page:)
"is interested in the term religion
as it is used in the Constitution and has no interest in attempting
to decide an academic dispute among theologians as to the best
approach to defining religion for their professional purposes...None
of these [religiously defining] elements need be present, however,
for a court to determine that a practice or belief is religious
within the meaning of the first amendment."
The note to the last sentence unexpectedly
however refers, not to Transcendental Meditation, but to _atheism_
as something that "may be a religion under the establishment
clause in that the government cannot aid the propagation of a
belief in the nonexistence of a supreme being. See Abington School
District v. Schempp. supra, at 225; Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S.
306, 314(1952).
Judging from the case, it seems that teaching
in public schools that "science is an argument for the nonexistence
of a supreme being", a position probably held by a number
of the WC on this list is a violation of the First Amendment
of the Constitution.
Also, if it does, where does that put the
majority of the schools in US? Not an easy situation, it seems.
"While expert opinion is invaluable
in certain cases, a court, in dealing with a constitutional term,
must be governed more by prior judicial findings than by the
opinions of experts."
It would seem that expert testimony in defining religion and
Anthroposophy will be reviewed by the court, prior judicial findings
may be the deciding factor in this case.
How complicated the problem of defining "religion"
is in terms of of how it is understood by the first amendment
is described by an article at http://harvardhope.simplenet.com/law/1stAmdtLRArticle.htm
[obsolete url] on THE SUPREME COURT'S PROBLEMATIC ACT OF DEFINING
CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED RELIGION ´A PRECIS OF HER PAST
DEFINITIONS.
According to the paper, "The intention
of the First Amendment religion clauses was not to prevent governmental
aid to religion but to assure governmental neutrality toward
different sects." (1 Annals of Congress 434, 731 (J. Gales
ed. 1789).).
If this becomes the central understanding
of the First Amendment, I see few other better ways of doing
justice to the intention than the way it is handled in waldorf
schools, trying to create the basis for relating to the whole
range of religious experiences in a general ordered way out of
the developing inner relation to the world of the growing child,
from the maybe more pantheistic stage in early childhood to the
secular humanist stage developing out of the more rationally
dominated thinking in adolescence.
To _my_ understanding, few other pedagogies
do better justice to the possibility of a real freedom in relation
to the total range of religious experience, that seems to be
the intention of the First Amendment, than WE.
Sincerely,
Sune Nordwall
Stockholm, Sweden
http://hem.passagen.se/thebee/indexeng.htm
- a site on science, homeopathy, cosmological cell biology and
EU as a mechanical esoteric temple and threefolding of society
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From: Sune Nordwall
Subject: Re: First Amendment and WE (Was: Re: What
is ...)
Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 20:30:59 +0200
P.S
According to http://thomasash.hypermart.net/bnet/items/00022.html,
the position taken in my posting as the - to me - most reasonable
one seems to correspond to the position of a non-preferentialist.
Sune Nordwall
Stockholm, Sweden
http://hem.passagen.se/thebee/indexeng.htm
- a site on science, homeopathy, cosmological cell biology and
EU as a mechanical esoteric temple and threefolding of society
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Michael Kopp
Subject: Re: First Amendment and WE (Was: Re: What
is ...)
Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 11:25:24 +1200
Sune Nordwall on science as religion:
[snip]
Regarding a court judgement:
The note to the last sentence unexpectedly
however refers, not to Transcendental Meditation, but to _atheism_
as something that "may be a religion under the establishment
clause in that the government cannot aid the propagation of a
belief in the nonexistence of a supreme being. See Abington School
District v. Schempp. supra, at 225; Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S.
306, 314(1952).
Judging from the case, it seems that teaching in public schools
that "science is an argument for the nonexistence of a supreme
being", a position probably held by a number of the WC on
this list is a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Also, if it does, where does that put the majority of the schools
in US? Not an easy situation, it seems.
Michael KOPP says:
Sune, you have already admitted to ignorance
of the U.S. Constitution, legal and cultural framework. Perhaps
you are also ignorant of what goes on in U.S. public schools,
particularly in regard to the teaching of "science".
To my knowledge (it was certainly never true
for my own education there from 1955 to 1975) the teaching of
science does not include "the propagation of a belief in
the nonexistence of a supreme being".
You are taking the court's words about atheism
-- a true rejection of the supernatural -- and applying it to
science, which *says nothing about the existence or otherwise
of the supernatural*.
I have seen nothing in anything I have ever
read about science that supports your contention. Science is
neutral on supernature, because science is based on emperical
evidence, and there is no evidence of anything supernatural.
Perhaps you are confusing -- intentionally
or not -- science's neutral statement that there is no evidence
of anything supernatural with atheism's absolute statement (based
on belief, not evidence) that there is no supernatural realm.
The proper teaching of science (and I might
agree that science is often poorly taught, or taught more with
a bias towards theism than towards atheism, in the U.S.) is that
is evidence based, and therefore has nothing to do with belief
or non-belief in things supernatural.
Cheers from Godzone,
Michael Kopp
Wellington, New Zealand
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