{"id":24,"date":"2007-09-14T16:26:02","date_gmt":"2007-09-14T22:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.consider.org\/blog\/?p=24"},"modified":"2007-09-14T16:26:02","modified_gmt":"2007-09-14T22:26:02","slug":"a-review-of-richard-dawkins-the-god-delusion-part-vi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/2007\/09\/a-review-of-richard-dawkins-the-god-delusion-part-vi\/","title":{"rendered":"A Review of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion Part VI"},"content":{"rendered":"

Listen to the MP3<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Sept 14, 2007<\/span>, Wausau, Wi<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>\u2014<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Last time in my review of Richard Dawkins\u2019, \u201c<\/span>The God Delusion<\/a>\u201d I showed the superficiality of Dawkins\u2019 view of God.\u00a0\u00a0 From there, Dawkins begins a discussion of the Founding Father, trying to claim that, \u201ccontrary to [The American right\u2019s\u2019] view, the fact that the United States was not founded as a Christian nation was early stated in the terms of the Treaty of Tripoli, drafted in 1796 under George Washington and signed by John Adams in 1797.\u201d (pg 40)<\/p>\n

Once again, the simplicity of Dawkins\u2019 approach leads him into error.\u00a0 United States is not a Christian nation in the sense that government has established Christianity as the official religion of the United States; which is basically what the Treaty of Tripoli says for it clearly refers to \u201cThe Government of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem for Dawkins\u2019 is that there is a difference between the government and the nation as a whole. A country is more than just its government.\u00a0 This is true of all nations, and is particularly true of the United States where even within the government there is a difference between the federal and the states.\u00a0 Nothing shows this clearer than at the very time Dawkins claims that the Treaty of Tripoli showed that the United States was not a Christian nation, many of the states still had established religions, all of which were Christian.<\/p>\n

Dawkins goes on to claim that, \u201cthe genie of religious fanaticism is rampant in present-day America, and the founding fathers would have been horrified\u2026\u00a0 the founders most certainly were secularists who believe in keeping religion out of politics, and that is enough to place them firmly on the side of those who object, for example, to ostentatious displays in the Ten Commandments in government-owned public places.\u201d (pg 41-2)<\/p>\n

Dawkins\u2019 view is common among secularists, but it conflicts with the actual history.\u00a0 In fact, as I detail in my book, Christianity and Secularism<\/a>, the phase \u00a0\u201cSeparation of Church and State\u201d which is the defining phrase for secularists is not only absent from the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it did not even enter into Constitutional law until 1947, when it was inserted by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

While secularist do mention it very often, the very first clause of the First Amendment reads \u201cCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion\u201d Perhaps the only thing that secularist mention even less, would be the second clause, \u201cor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.\u201d The founding father thought that religion was important enough to make this the very first part of the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

Dawkins\u2019 view is even further called into question by the fact that Congress, the day after approving the First Amendment passed a resolution calling for a national day of prayer and thanksgiving.\u00a0 If the founding fathers were so intent on getting religion out of politics as Dawkins\u2019 claims, how could the very same people who approved the First Amendment the very next day pass such a resolution?\u00a0 The simple fact is that if Dawkins\u2019 view of their goals were correct, they couldn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n

Rather than being horrified by rampant religious fanaticism as Dawkins\u2019 claims, the British historian Paul Johnson has a much more actuate view when he pointed out that the current dominance of secularism \u201cwould have astonished and angered the founding father.\u201d (see Christianity and Secularism, pg 19)<\/p>\n

\u00a0While it is true the founding fathers did not want an established religion, it was because they saw religion as extremely important, so important that it needed to be the very first thing protected in the Bill of Rights.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The founding fathers believed in checks and balances.\u00a0 The reason they saw religion as so important, is that it was the one thing strong enough to check the growth of government. \u00a0They did not fear religion, what they feared was that one group would gain power and use its position to dominate and suppress opposing points of view. In short, that a single view of religion would become a tool of government and used to suppress differing religious views.<\/p>\n

The founding fathers\u2019 view of religion dominated until the middle part of the 20th century.\u00a0 By then secularism\u2019s distain for religion had grown to the point that religion came to be seen, not as something so important it needed to be protected from government, but something so dangerous that government\u00a0 it need to be protected from it.<\/p>\n

Thus, starting with the 1947 Everson v. Board of Education ruling, the Supreme Court has effectively rewritten the constitution, allowing the court to reshape American society. \u00a0What we have now is what the founding fathers\u2019 feared most, that one religious view, in this case secularism, has gained power and has used that power to reinterpret the First Amendment, and is using the new interpretation to dominate and suppress all competing religious views.<\/p>\n

Thus in the name of freedom, prayer in public schools was prohibited. In the name of freedom, Bible reading in public schools was prohibited.\u00a0 In the name of freedom, prayer at graduations was prohibited, even if voluntary and done by students.\u00a0\u00a0 In the name of freedom, the Ten Commandments were banned from public schools.\u00a0 In the name of freedom, Christians are routinely told that their values and beliefs are illegitimate in the political process because they are \u201creligious.\u201d\u00a0 Thus on many issues such as abortion or definition of marriage or family, secularists say you are free to have whatever views you want, just as long as you keep them to yourselves, as only their views can be represented and promoted by government.\u00a0 That is hardly view of freedom and democracy the founding fathers wanted.<\/p>\n

This is Elgin Hushbeck, asking you to Consider Christianity<\/a>: a Faith Based on Fact.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listen to the MP3 Sept 14, 2007, Wausau, Wi\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Last time in my review of Richard Dawkins\u2019, \u201cThe God Delusion\u201d I showed the superficiality of Dawkins\u2019 view of God.\u00a0\u00a0 From there, Dawkins begins a discussion of the Founding Father, trying to claim that, \u201ccontrary to [The American right\u2019s\u2019] view, the fact that the United States was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6,14],"tags":[28,46,52,70,86,116,1074,146,203,220,223,247,1078,466,510],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/consider.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}