On religion, law and education

I am quite pleased to report I have reestablished contact with Linda Williams, an email acquaintance and former SFN member from several years ago. We had an email exchange right after 9-11 which is included in my book, "Images of Pain." I have found our exchanges stimulating and very enjoyable. You can view her fiction blog -- Reality Skimming -- at http://www.okalrel.org/blog/blogger.html

In her blog she states about me, "I find his advocacy of Biblical values as the only proper moral base for government and education to be plain blood-chilling scary." I really don’t understand how she received that impression. If it was from some of my writing, I’d like to change it. In any event I shall respond with an attempt at clarification:

Biblical law was certainly the overwhelming contributor to our constitution and to our earliest laws, but certainly not the only one. I firmly believe in the first amendment and have two lectures I give on the subject. It is my belief and I so state in my lectures that the present actions by the courts regarding the "separation of church and state" are precisely the opposite of what that amendment states. I reread my lectures to see if that’s where she formed her opinion and have now posted them in their entirety in my blogs. I can understand where she might get that idea and will soon redo both lectures to make my beliefs more clear. Links to current versions of my lectures are at: http://hjbloglist.blogspot.com

I firmly believe that for anyone to impose their belief system on others without their consent is evil. This includes atheism. I also believe that by far the most grievous wrongs going on in the world are because of fundamentalist religious beliefs of all types being forced on even those who do not agree. This includes what I call "fundamentalist atheism." How many wars can you think of where religion is not or was not a major factor? I have spoken to religious and non-religious groups and individuals with my lecture on science and religion for many years. Most listeners, including even fundamentalist Christians, whom I thought would be almost violently against my words entered into constructive discussions after the lecture. Several members of some science and engineering groups were not so open minded. Constructive discourse is always in danger from closed minds with firm beliefs.

I would certainly agree that the advocacy of Biblical values as the only proper moral base for government and education would be "plain blood-chilling scary." This if only because there seems to be an infinite variety of interpretation of Biblical values. I think it equally scary to contemplate removal of all Biblical values from government and education.

When I was in high school I sang in the choir. Our high school was about 50-50 Christians and Jews with a few other belief systems in the mix. The choir was about sixty percent Jewish and we were a fairly close knit group - good friends all. We sang in many different places including, schools, churches and synagogues where we performed both secular and religious music. One of our big events of the year was our "Christmas" concert. I never heard a single complaint from any Jewish member of the choir about singing Christmas music. During the concert we frequently sang Jewish and secular songs along with the carols. I remember two soloists, in particular, who sang "Ave Maria" and "I Wonder as I Wander." Both were Jewish. Our male soloist in several Christian pieces was an atheist. I truly cherished that atmosphere of understanding, acceptance of differences, and indeed, peace. To me, that is the epitome of comradeship, love and humanitarianism.

Most likely, that would never happen today. Instead, the ACLU would be stirring up animosity by suing the school to stop any such concert. I certainly don’t call that progress. I see current political correctness activity inflaming anger and hatred for any possible differences of belief or purpose between people. I see current efforts at "diversity" promoting divisiveness and intolerance. Hate for anyone "different" has become the aleinating driving force in our country as exemplified by those who promote political, religious, racial, cultural and economical differences for their own purposes.

The modern media has become the stage from which hatred - noisy, quiet, clever, infuriating and even almost subliminal hatred - emanates under the name of news, entertainment and commentary. Indeed, so-called "peace marches" orchestrated by those who hate America have become an escalating vehicle for screaming nefarious hate mantras and subsequent incitement to angry actions. I fear serious mob violence lies ready to erupt just beneath the surface. The overpowering motive of those emissaries of hate are all too plain - power - and not for the people!

No, I certainly do not advocate Biblical values as the only proper moral base for government and education. Nor do I accept atheism, or the exclusion of Biblical values in the same role. I do accept that our Constitution was an extraordinary document with far reaching political effects. I just do not see it being corrupted in meaning to further the goals of a single group to the exclusion of all others. I see great harm in replacing human moral values with "political correctness" as seems to be happening.

Yes, the rights of minorities of any kind need to be protected, but to protect feelings and ask government to impose sanctions on any who might injure another’s feelings is a recipe for hatred and violent mob actions. All reasonable concepts, religious or secular, have their place in law and education and should be so considered, but not necessarily adopted. Like language, morality is a constantly evolving, almost nebulous concept that is moved like a straw in the wind by our current beliefs. Even some very basic moral values have been changing, cut loose from religious and even ethical constraints. I get a bit nervous wondering about where all this is headed.

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