The Supreme Court: Safe For A While
By Eddie Tabash
The difference between Barack Obama and John McCain is exceedingly stark when it comes to the types of justices each one would appoint to the Supreme Court. There is no question that McCain was seeking those potential nominees who could be relied upon by the Religious Right to nullify the separation church and state--meaning the type of jurist who would vote to overturn all the precedents of the Court, dating back to 1947, which require all branches of government to treat the believer and nonbeliever equally.
President-elect Obama talked about the type of Supreme Court appointees who could be expected to vote to preserve the separation of church and state, that is, to preserve government neutrality in matters of religion. However, now that the election is over, we are not out of the woods. Even if President Obama is in office for eight years, we will likely emerge with no greater a majority on the Supreme Court, in favor of church/state separation, than we have today. We currently have a five-to-four majority in our favor. Even if the new president is able to replace Stevens, Ginsburg, and Souter, we will still have only a five to four majority. In order to expand our margin of safety on the Court, a president would have to replace at least one of the following four antiseparationist justices: Scalia, who is 72; Thomas, who is 60; Alito, who is 58; and Roberts, who is 53. It is doubtful that President Obama, even after eight years, will have the opportunity to replace any of them. Surely, he will not have any chance, in all likelihood, to replace one of these four during his first term in office. Considering that one of the finest church/state separationist justices, John Paul Stevens, is still on the Court at the age of 88, we could have a long wait before any of the four who currently support the views of the Religious Right will retire.
This is not meant to douse the enthusiasm that many feel about the new president’s commitment to the separation of church and state. It is only a sober reminder that even at the end of eight years, our margin of safety may not be increased in terms of how the numbers line up on the Court. We have four, possibly eight, years in which to attempt to educate the nation about the importance of keeping God and government separate. Secular humanists must join with fair-minded religious believers in a joint effort to preserve government neutrality in matters of religion so that both believers and nonbelievers can flourish in a climate of legal equality.
So, while we can rejoice in the reprieve that we have been given, for at least four years, from an otherwise bleak virtual certainty of a reconstituted Supreme Court that would have nullified church/state separation, we cannot be lulled into a false sense of security. I understand how hard it is for many people to grasp that a bare majority of five justices on the Court can completely revise our legal landscape and overturn precedents that have provided us with comforting protection for our civil liberties, yet this is the reality of how our system works.
The breathing space that we have just achieved must be used to educate and to organize. An America in which five justices on the Court hold that government bodies, at all levels, may now favor belief over nonbelief would be a drastic departure from the country in which we live today. Our nation was not founded to be a pure democracy. It is a constitutional democracy in which the Constitution’s Bill of Rights prevents the majority from imposing tyranny on the minority, particularly when it comes to matters of religion.
Edward Tabash is a lawyer in the Los Angeles area and a member of the Board of Directors of the Council for Secular Humanism and chair of the Council’s First Amendment Task Force.
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Religious Fundamentalism Runs Amok in Texas as it Holds Science Curricula and Textbooks Hostage
By Sheldon F. Gottlieb
The time has come to reverse the words of “The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You” to reflect a coming reality: “The Eyes of The World are Upon Texas,” as Texas strives to become the new Kansas. Once again, Texas’ education system is undergoing a religiously inspired civil war concerning the wording of its science standards. Those standards influence the presentation of evolution in the new science textbooks for its 4.5 million students and the questions that are asked on standardized tests. Once the standards are approved by the State Board of Education (SBOE), they remain in place for a decade. Texas greatly influences what textbooks are purchased by smaller school districts throughout the country since it is one of about twenty-two states that has a textbook approval process and is the second largest purchaser of textbooks in the United States. Publishers prefer to publish only one version of a textbook, not fifty, and are primarily interested in what sells; only peripherally are they interested in scientific validity and accuracy.
On November 19, 2008, the Texas SBOE—whose chairman and some board members are supporters of Creationism—began hearings on the wording of its science standards. One would have thought that the legal decisions rendered by various courts in the United States, including the Supreme Court and the latest devastating, no holds barred, decision of Judge John Jones III in the Dover case, would have put an end to any attempts of fundamental religionists to sneak Creationism into public-school science curricula. But such enlightenment in Texas, as in other states, is only a dream. Texas was the home of the late Mel and Norma Gabler, who for years held Texas’ science and other textbooks hostage, and by extension the texts of the rest of the country, to their Christian religious fundamentalism.
Once again Texans are being inundated with nonscientific religious arguments that tend to foster ignorance and misunderstanding on part of the public. The SBOE is not involved in a scientific controversy over evolution. It is involved in a religiously inspired controversy based on belief and not empirical evidence. It is a controversy in which religionists are in essence claiming that any scientific evidence that contradicts the Bible is in error.
The current science standards theoretically require students to learn both the strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories. In September, those working on the new guidelines removed that requirement. It reappeared in November along with suggestions that it be replaced by watered-down statements such as “strengths and limitations” and for students to “discuss possible alternative explanations” for scientific concepts. Removing the word weaknesses along with other potential wording changes provides opportunities for sneaking in supernatural explanations such as Creationism in textbooks and classrooms. The arguments against Creationism and the supernatural have been dealt with by the courts and are too well known to be reviewed here.
The seemingly new twist in this year’s arguments supporting change in the wording of the science standards is not really new: it is academic freedom. One board member, Ken Mercer from San Antonio, is reported to have said: “We’re not putting religion in books; we’re talking about academic freedom,” whereas Terri Leo, from Houston, reportedly claimed that part of scientific learning should involve critical analysis of various theories. It appears that academic terminology is being bandied about without the individuals being aware of the deeper meaning of those terms. Philosophically, what do academic freedom and critical analysis really mean? And, for whom were they meant?
The American Association of University Professors’s 1940 Statement of Principles of Academic Freedom and Tenure (1) and the 1970 Interpretive Comments (2) state: (1) “Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject” (emphasis mine). (2) “The intent of this statement is not to discourage what is ‘controversial.’ Controversy is at the heart of the free academic inquiry which the entire statement is designed to foster. The passage serves to underscore the need for teachers to avoid persistently intruding material which has no relation to their subject” (emphasis mine).
Critical analysis, especially in the sciences, presupposes a certain degree of scientific knowledge and sophistication; a state of knowledge which elementary, middle, and high school students are striving for but have not yet attained.
Academic freedom—which is closely tied to tenure—is a highly specialized form of freedom of speech which is limited primarily to scholars. It promotes the public good by protecting scholars in their teaching and research and students in their learning from political blackmail and recrimination. Academic freedom is associated with duties and responsibilities that protect scholars while they are speaking in their area(s) of expertise and not on any subject they decide to promote. Academic freedom was originally intended for college and university faculty but was expanded, rightfully, to include all members of the teaching profession irrespective of the level they teach, even if they are not engaged in research. Introducing Creationism or any other aspect of religious dogma into a science class that would meet with the approval of Creationists and religious proponents inevitably puts teachers in untenable situations: teachers would be required to include in formal classroom presentations an array of unverified and unverifiable claims as coequal to empirically derived information.
Should claims that cannot be subjected to critical testing and independent verification be introduced into the classroom, teachers, according to the dictates of critical thinking, would be obligated to point out to students that such religious claims do not even meet the elementary standards required by science and therefore cannot be considered as valid evidence. Therefore, that would be the extent of the critical thinking devoted to those subjects and there could be no further scientific discussion. Should such a situation arise, the fundamentalist religionists would immediately object and claim that religion is being disrespected. Therefore, the common good demands that religion and the wide area of pseudoscience be kept out public-school science classes. The courts have ruled that Creationism in all of its forms is religion. The Texas SBOE is expected to take their first vote on the new standards in January. Once again, Texas and the citizens of the U.S. are going to be embarrassed by religiously based foolishness and become the objects of world-wide derision because some members of the Texas SBOE are trying to force antiscientific and anti-evolution language into the science standards.
In an age in which science and technology are the basis of economic and political survival, the citizens of Texas and the United States are being held hostage to the deadly influence of religious ideology as the religionists unpatriotically attempt to weaken the United States against the best interests of the country and transport the country back to the pre-scientific age. Welcome to the Land of Oz.
Sheldon F. Gottlieb, PhD is the author of The Naked Mind. He can be e-mailed at
shellyeda@gmail.com.
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October Barnstorming
Toni Van Pelt, the government director of the Center for Inquiry’s Office of Public Policy spent three weeks in October touring the state of Florida with stops in Pittsburgh, PA, and Cleveland, and Youngstown, Ohio. Van Pelt offered a selection of two talks: “The Dangers of Free Thinking Women” and “How do we do it? Promoting Science and Reason in Public Policy Today.”
In “Free Thinking Women,” Van Pelt discussed the history of one of the most blood-soaked publications of the Catholic Inquisition—the Malleus Maleficarum, or “Witches' Hammer.” Written in 1486, it laid the groundwork and dictum for the persecution of women and the men that supported them. It was used by the clergy to identify, sentence, torture, and kill thousands of women as “witches.” Those deemed witches by the Church, including all female scholars, priestesses, gypsies, mystics, nature lovers, herb gatherers, midwives, and any women “suspiciously attuned to the natural world,” were killed along with those who supported and defended them. Van Pelt’s focus then moved to the free-thinking feminist women from the mid 1800s in Europe and the U.S. who found each other through writing and publishing. They formed the core of the first Western world women’s movement, or the first wave of feminism. The discussion led to the struggle for suffrage for women in the U.S. to the call for equal rights in the U.S. Constitution to the present-day urgency of enshrining women’s autonomy in our nation’s premier document.
“How do we do it? Promoting Science and Reason in Public Policy today” explored the first two years of the Office of Public Policy’s work. With the important help of CFI members, the OPP established the necessary credentials to earn a seat at the table of conversation and action in our government’s halls. OPP’s important work includes opposing charitable choice and faith-based initiatives and programs meant to render holes in the wall of state-church separation; working to restore integrity of science in public policy and law; advocating for funding for scientific research and for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) in secondary schools and undergraduate and graduate studies; remaining at the forefront of women’s reproductive health care both at home and abroad; standing for human rights worldwide; and working hand-in-hand with CFI’s United Nations Mission. Van Pelt’s audiences learned first hand the ways the Center is standing up, speaking out, and demonstrating the responsibility and privilege necessary to urge and maintain a civil society.
Van Pelt reported that traveling the states in October was a delight. Meetings were augmented with long walks along the beach of Florida’s coasts, engaging meal companions, and very lively conversation. CFI Friends and members of the audience were alert and engaged. Most meetings lasted two hours, with conversation overflowing with shared ideas and questions. The work of the Center touches and informs many areas of campus education. Most exciting was the support of many departments, such as philosophy, the sciences, women’s studies, and psychology.
Asked if she was willing to do another tour, Van Pelt responded, “This is one of the most rewarding aspects of my job. Explaining the inner workings of how our government functions and how important our Friends’ participation in civic duty is to law and policy is the icing on the cake of government affairs.” Van Pelt presented at twenty-one meetings in twenty days. Starting on the southern leg of the Florida tour, she meet with and spoke to community and college audiences in Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, and Naples. She traveled the I4 corridor in Central Florida, stopping at Daytona Beach, Rollins College, University of Central Florida, and the Tampa Community. The northern swing included Tallahassee, the University of Florida and the University of South Florida. Flying north she appeared on campus at Carnegie Mellon, Youngstown State University and Case Western. Along the way she did five radio interviews.
Look for Van Pelt at the Amnesty International confab on January 5. For details, check
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/opp, and for current Capitol Hill happenings, go to
http://www.cfidc.wordpress.com.
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Belief in God Essential for Moral Virtue?
By Paul Kurtz, CSH Chairman and Founder
A growing sector of world civilization is secular; that is, it emphasizes worldly rather than religious values. This is especially true of Europe, which is widely considered post-religious and post-Christian (with a small Islamic minority). Secularist winds are also blowing strong in Asia, notably in Japan and China. The United States has been an anomaly in this regard, for it has suffered a long dark night in which evangelical fundamentalism has overshadowed the public square, with its insistence that belief in God is essential for moral virtue. This is now changing and secularism is gaining ground.
Read the entire piece in The Washington Post Web feature On Faith.
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Join us for Camp Inquiry
July 6-12, 2009
Camp Inquiry, located at picturesque Camp Seven Hills in Holland, NY, is a place for children (ages 7-16) to confront the challenges of living a non-theistic/secular lifestyle in a world dominated by religious belief and pseudoscience. Grounded on the conviction that children can begin establishing habits of the good and ethical life early on, Camp Inquiry focuses on the arts and sciences, the skeptical perspective, and ethical character development. Campers and teacher-counselors address key issues around individual identity, forging trusting relationships, establishing a sense of local and global community, and living with respect for the natural world.
Camp Inquiry integrates the elements of a fun and memorable camp experience for children—roasted marshmallows, outdoor exploration, and new friendships—with the tenets of secular humanism, including ethical choice-making, taking naturalistic approaches to garnering knowledge, tapping into their boundless imaginations, and applying science and reason to human quests and dilemmas. It’s a place for children to think, question, and grow.
Angie McQuaig, PhD, is the Director of Camp Inquiry. She can be e-mailed at
Angie@AngieMcQuaig.com.
For an inside look at camp life, visit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikl_4fFi ... re=channel .
For more information about Camp Inquiry 2009, please visit
http://www.CampInquiry.org.
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CFI's "Jesus Project" featured on WBFO 88.7, Buffalo's NPR affiliate
The existence of the historical Jesus will be debated this weekend in Amherst. The Center for Inquiry on Sweet Home Road is hosting the inaugural meeting of the "Jesus Project," featuring scholars from around the world. Robert Price is a research fellow at the Center for Inquiry and is co-chair of the event. He joined WBFO's Mark Scott on the phone to talk more about it.
Listen to "The Jesus Project Explores the Existence of the Historical Jesus."
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CFI/CSH In the Media:
MI Biz: "Science, dogma don't mix," 11/10/08
Slate.com: "So When Will a Muslim Be President?" 11/12/08
Culture Shocks with Barry Lynn: "Future Bioethics: Overcoming Taboos, Myths, and Dogma," 11/13/08 (podcast)
USA Today: 'Playing Gods' satirizes religious violence 11/17/08
Fox News Austin: "Evolution Debate Could Decide Children's Future," 11/19/08 (Video)
KUT-FM 90.5 (NPR affiliate, Austin): "SBOE Blasted Over Evolution Controversy," 11/19/08(Audio file)
"On Faith," Newsweek-Washington Post: "Belief in God Essential for Moral Virtue?," 11/24/08
"On Faith," Newsweek-Washington Post: Welcome To The Unchurched, President And Mrs. Obama 11/25/08
Los Angeles Times: "Review: Lukas Ligeti at the Steve Allen Theater," 11/25/08
The Buffalo News: "Scholars to explore existence of Jesus," 11/30/08
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Secular Humanism Online News is edited by Nathan Bupp, Vice President of Communications for the Council for Secular Humanism and the Center for Inquiry.
nbupp@centerforinquiry.net --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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