STORY: In St. Louis, grade 4 student Raymond Raines bowed his head in prayer before lunch. The teacher stormed to his table, ordered him to stop immediately and sent him to the principal’s office. The principal told the young Christian that praying was not allowed in school. When the student was again caught praying before meals on three separate occasions, he was segregated from other students, ridiculed in front of his classmates, and finally sentenced to a week’s suspension.
In Saratoga Springs, New York, kindergarten student Kayla Broadus held her hands with two classmates before eating their snack. She recited this prayer: “God is good, God is great, thank you, God, for my food.” The teacher severely reprimanded Kayla, and reported her to the principal who sent a sternly worded letter to Kayla’s parents advising them that Kayla was not allowed to pray in school, aloud or with others.
Secular humanists say that these are totally justified in order to ensure the separation of church and state. What do you feel?
Background:
In 2002, a divorced atheist father in California said his daughter objected the inclusion of the word “God” in the Pledge of Allegiance (“one nation under God”) which students recite everyday. The ACLU supported his claim. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the word should be deleted. A public outcry followed. The daughter and her mother (who has custody of the girl) publicly denounced the lawsuit and said they are Christians. The Congress immediately passed a law to affirm the use of the word “God”. In December 2003, the lawsuit was heard by the US Supreme Court.
In Canada, a homosexual Member of Parliament proposed to delete the word “God” from the Constitution of Canada. In many places, the term “Christmas tree” is now banned, to be replaced by “holiday tree”; “merry Christmas” becomes “season’s greetings”.
· Many people thought that the phrase is originated in the US Constitution but there is actually no such phrase in the US Constitution.
· It was created by the US Supreme Court in a 1947 ruling which wrongly interpreted the Constitution.
· The Constitution simply prohibits the establishment of religion by the government, meaning that there should not be a state religion, but at the same time, there should be no interference from government on the free exercise of religion. The Constitutional amendment explicitly speaks about free exercise of religion by the citizens. Therefore the restrictions are imposed on the government only. It does not restrict the influence of religion on government.
· But this landmark ruling, which describes “a wall of separation” between church and state, laid the legal foundations for the systematic removal of religion from American public life. The “wall” metaphor, in particular, provided the rationale for judicial decisions censoring religious expression in schools, stripping public spaces of the Ten Commandments, and excluding religious communities from full participation in civic life.
· This US-based principle has been used widely by humanist to marginalize Christianity.
Doctrines of secular humanism
1. One’s first obligation is to oneself. The quality of personal experience holds priority over everyone else.
2. Morality is developed from within one’s own mind and experiences. Old morality is chained to the past and is no longer relevant to the present life.
3. Moral ties and loyalties are linked only to one’s immediate group.
4. Sex is only a physical experience and has no moral or ethical relevance beyond emotional and physical self-fulfilment, which may or may not be linked with affection for another. Expressions of sexuality, whether heterosexual or homosexual, are contingent upon style and preference.
5. Honesty is virtuous only within the intimate group. It is all right to rip off outsiders, especially institutions with a different philosophy.
6. There is no purpose or meaning beyond this life.
Motto: Do it. Experiment. Be free. Live, live, live.
· The reality is: when any mention of God or religion is prohibited in the classroom, humanism (which teaches man is God) and secularism (which encourages antagonism toward religion) are taught to our children by default and become the society’s new religion. If we do not help them to establish a firm foundation in our faith, they will become secular humanists themselves.
· The reality is: laws are never morally neutral. The government is legislating morality all the time. The drafting of the Criminal Code was intended to teach values. When the law prohibits certain acts, it is a lesson telling the citizens that those acts are morally wrong. Conversely, when the law decriminalizes certain acts, it is telling the citizens that those acts are normal and morally acceptable. For example, the inclusion of the “sexual orientation” clause in Canadian laws indirectly encourage more people to practise homosexuality.
· The reality is: customs do change with time and vary with culture. But things that are inherently immoral will forever be immoral because man was created in the image of a moral God. There is an absolute moral standard, the standard of God. That is why murder is always wrong and telling a lie always pricks our conscience.
State religion of secularism
A professor of constitutional law in the University of Western Ontario said in 2003 that “Canada now is a totalitarian theocracy” with a state religion of secularism, and “anything that is regarded as heresy or blasphemy (against secularism) is not tolerated.”
o The ACLU threatens lawsuits against schools that display Christmas trees.
o Christian symbols (such as nativity scene) are banned from New York schools, while those associated with Islam and Judaism are expressedly allowed.
o In Yonkers, a NY suburb, decorations in the schools were ordered to be limited to ‘Happy Holidays’ or ‘Season’s Greetings.’
o In response, many people start referring to “Christmas” as Holiday. In 2003, the US Congress called the Capitol Hill Christmas Tree “Holiday tree”.
o Atheists tried to eliminate the phrase “under God” from Pledge of Allegiance and a high court agreed. However, the US Congress immediately passed a law to reaffirm the use of the phrase. The case was heard before the US Supreme Court in December 2003.
o In Tennessee, a firefighter erected a replica of the WTC in memory of his fellow firefighters who died on Sept. 11, 2001 but was forced to remove it because it contains the words “God Bless America”
o In Pennsylvania, a teacher’s aide received a one-year suspension for wearing a small cross necklace at school.
o The ACLU tried to dismantle many displays of the Ten Commandments from public buildings such as courts. In Alabama, the chief justice of the State Supreme Court insisted that a stone monument with the Ten Commandments should stay before the court building. He was overruled by a higher court and was removed from office and the monument was also removed. Nevertheless, there are still thousands of such displays in public buildings including the US Supreme Court Building. They remain the targets of ACLU litigation campaigns.
o In Canada, an atheist homosexual MP tried unsuccessfully to remove the word “God” from the Constitution.
o In Ohio, a 7th grade had an assignment to write a letter to someone who dramatically changed his life. When the boy put Jesus as the receiver, the teacher did not accept the assignment and insisted that Jesus was not a real person.
o A first-grade teacher in Sacramento County, California, reported that her principal has prohibited instructors from uttering the word “Christmas” in class or in written materials.
o In 1996, a student in New Jersey drew a picture of Jesus on a poster and wrote “Thankful for Jesus” for a kindergarten class Thanksgiving assignment. His school took it down from a hallway display. A year later, he chose his favorite Bible story from his beginner’s Bible to read out loud in class, but school officials would not let him read it. The boy’s family fought the restriction. As a result, President Bush introduced in 2003 an administration policy that allows students to express their religious beliefs in homework, artwork and other written and oral assignments, and calls on teachers to judge and grade on academic standards and without discrimination. The policy is being challenged in courts.
o Good Friday or Christmas as holidays
o “In God we trust” on US currencies
o words in the Declaration of Independence of the words: “Nature’s God,” “Creator,” “Supreme Judge,” and “Divine Providence”
o last stanza of the “The Star Spangled Banner”
o any form of public use of the Bible
o Bill C-250 (which prohibit hate speech based on sexual orientation) will lead to declaring the Bible as hate literature because the Bible describes homosexuality as immoral. It will then lead to restrictions on the distribution of the Bible such as to high schools and in hotels.