John Roberts: Sworn in on a Bible?

[C Elegans]

In order not to completely forget about the original topic, I'd like to ask:

I realize that judges and others are not forced to swear on the Bible. However, the point I'm trying to make is that it is a sort of "default swearing-book" in a secular court of law. Know what I mean? That whole "default" thing just annoys me.

Why has it become a tradition to swear by the bible and swear oaths including the christian god, in a country that has consitutional separation between church and state, and religious freedom? Could somebody tell me the history behind this custum?

Religiously-affiliated traditions in public life have no place in modern America.

This I completely agree with, and it is also part of why I view the US a "fundamentalist" despite the constitution. Christian traditions, values and habits seem highly integrated in public life in a way that would never be allowed where I live due to the value that religion has no place in politics. I honestly don't understand the purpose with constitutional separation betwen state and church when your government can make decisions based on a certain religion they themselves believe in.

[fable]

[QUOTE=Faust]The largest influence on Franklin was, of course, Deism. He largely comes to it through reading Charles Blount as a teenager. As a result, Franklin actually scorned Metaphysics on a number of levels. Like Jefferson, he basically concluded that Christianity was important for the system of morals that Jesus taught (and the conclusion that the reward for a virtuous life would be etneral life, though I believe he softened this view later in life, to relying more on the goodness of God for eternal life). He came to believe several things about God, though. Franklin thought it possible that there might be one supreme God, infinitely transcendent and indifferent to human affairs, and a number of lesser Gods, one of whom ruled over our solar systems and providentially intervened in history, though never in nature. [/quote]

It's been a while since I was interested in the period, but that was my conclusion about 25 years ago when I was heavily reading all I could find from both sides of the Atlantic. Still, this doesn't answer my question about whether Ficino, possibly through his work on memory improvement, influenced Franklin's metaphysical speculations. There's also Ficino's Platonic concerns for the ideal relationship between ruler and ruled to consider. Pratt once speculated that by teaching a future king of Denmark, Ficino actually had a hand in shaping the contractual basis of Danish democratic government; and that this in turn had a far greater impact on American democratic theory than most Anglo-centric historians realized. It could have been that the link was more indirect, and entered the Colonies by way of Italy to France.

Anyway, that's a broad synopsis.[/quote]

Don't worry about missing the details--I've read 'em before.

Franklin's own views are a bit more nuanced than that, obviously. Jefferson and Franklin were relatively similar. Though, Jefferson doesn't reach the same conclusions concerning multiple deities that Franklin does. Jefferson does become very attracted to the Unitarian Movement (i.e. Channing and company) and, at one points, really is optimistic about its chance at becoming a semi-national religion.

So was Henry Adams, a century later; he boasted about it in his history covering the Jefferson and Madison presidential years. The idea died hard. Neither would have accepted the fusion of anti-intellectual "Know-Nothing" luddism, Arcadian philosophy, and Christian pietism that swept the US (especially the rural South) in the 1830s, and has continued to do periodically since that time.

[Chimaera182]

I can't read any more of this; it's too early, I'm having an allergic reaction to my mom's dog (and having my first asthma attack in months as a result), and it's too much info to process in my brain right now. So I'll go off what few things I'm gonna quote and ignore the rest for now.

[QUOTE=fable]The US Courts have always had a prefunctory oath administered on the Judeo-Christian bible associated with all swearing-ins. This applies not only to judges, but also to jury members and witnesses. However, it is permitted to refuse the bible and the "so help me god" portion of the ceremony, and has certainly been done repeatedly in the past. There is no stigma attached for doing so.[/QUOTE]
Maybe no official stigma, but what would people think if someone refused to put their hand on the Bible in court to be sworn in? Probably that that person cannot be trusted and is going to lie; not that swearing on the Bible exactly has kept people from committing perjury before.

[QUOTE=frdchkn]That this is true is quite disturbing. Though it may not be offensive for some, consider how it holds with religious minorities. If you look at it like that, it's as if the US government acknowledges Christianity more than any other religion. Therein lies my problem with the way religion and state work in the US.[/QUOTE]
Of course the US acknowledges Christianity more than any other religion. You point out later how they display the 10 Commandments, and how Bush (he's not the only president to do this) ends his speech with God bless you or God bless America. And the majority of the country gives tacit approval of this and certainly does cling more strongly to Christianity. It's not exactly like the entire country spends 3-4 months getting ready for Ramadan or Hannukah (sp?), but Christmas decorations go up for sale as early as August. And in public places you see Christmas decorations hanging (I don't mean from houses, I mean from lamp posts and in stores, and I doubt that's just here where I live).

[QUOTE=Faust]Again, this is a good question. It basically boils down to the fact that America has a deeply entrenched relationship with Christianity in a way it doesn't with any other religion. As such, in the early period of the nation's history, the Bible was the surest way to prick at a persons' consciousness. Oath-taking was looked at as a very big deal. Excepting Native religions and a cursory association with African religions and Islam in the early nineteenth century, other religious faiths are new to the American scene (i.e. post second wave of U.S. immigration, so 1920s or so at the earliest). The use of the Bible persists as a historical legacy, these days, more than an actual religious statement. Personally, I view it as being very much like the Monarchy in England, rather than anything else. It has little real political meaning about religion and the state.[/QUOTE]
The second sentence is true, and the second to the last does seem like as good an example as any. Sure, the Queen has power and sure the English love and respect her, but she and the entire royal family seem, to me anyway, to be more like a collection of Hollywood: a group of people you hold superior to you and you watch them and want to know the intimate details of their lives. Frankly, I think that's sick, as I have some respect for the traditions of the monarchy; to reduce the royal family to the level of our Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman is wrong. So they're really just on display and more a tradition than anything else.

[QUOTE=frdchkn]I realize that judges and others are not forced to swear on the Bible. However, the point I'm trying to make is that it is a sort of "default swearing-book" in a secular court of law. Know what I mean? That whole "default" thing just annoys me.

Also, as an avid history buff (though admittedly more of Asian history), I understand that the Bible and Christianity has significant importance in American history and culture because of the religious makeup of the first settlers and the predominantly-Christian immigration till the 1960s. However, modern America is a true melting pot of different cultures and religions. Why should such prominent-Christian symbolism in public life (10 commandments on display, "under god" in the pledge of allegiance, 'default' swearing on a Bible in court, etc.) still continue to exist in a pluralistic society?
[/QUOTE]
I see your point on the 'default' thing, seeing how I know if I were to testify in court, I certainly wouldn't want a Bible shoved under my nose and would probably refuse it. It would make more sense if it was some kind of legal something or other, but as has been mentioned, it's more about tradition than anything else.

I have to disagree with the whole melting pot deal. We like to think of the U.S. as a melting pot, but in actuality... we are. We melt people down, strip away their culture and beliefs and religion, and pour them into a mold to forge them into the way we want them to be. Most people have to change their entire lifestyle in order to survive in the U.S., they have to conform to our way of life. I still haven't really started reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (despite the fact that it was required reading for my class... in March), but from what I gather, what happens to Jurgis and his family is basically the same thing. Jurgis struggles to make it in the U.S. and winds up trying to uphold his family's way of life while taking on the lifestyle of America; he couldn't even get time off enough for his own wedding (granted, this has more to do with the way jobs used to be back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but the analogy still works). The experience was, to say the least, thoroughly uncomfortable for him. Doesn't he become an alcoholic in the story after working so long in Chicago? He is buckling under the pressure, being forced to conform to a new lifestyle. The melting pot isn't about many different cultures coming together in peace and harmony; it's about forcing other cultures to conform to our own or let them rot.

[fable]

[QUOTE=C Elegans]You have a government that has prohibited funding to embryonal stem cell research for religious reasons, a decision that has hampered the development of treatment for neurodegenerative disorders and injuries (like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, MS, ALS, spinal cord injuries) that millions suffer from. You have state school boards that for religous reasons have decided not to teach evolution, or teach creationism as science, to hundreds of thousands of children. Those children are denied a proper education, which will affect their future opportunities. I view that as massive influence.[/quote]

We don't have a govenment that has prohibited this funding; we have a single, elected official who has done so. Unfortunately, the government in the US provides for a very strong executive branch, and the two-party system makes for gross adjustments to policy, lacking in the kind of nuanced reactions possible under more broadly representative parliamentary structures. So a very popular president on the lunatic fringe of one party can get everything he or she wants, because that party wants to stay in power; and agreeing in general with a few broad goals, is willing to swallow other guidelines they disagree with, in some cases, strongly. There are many Republican members of the US Congress that have gone on record as favoring stem cell research, but they've known that they were facing a very power-hungry president who would veto any such bill, and that they needed to stand together with him in order to win elections and stay in power. If the no power/absolute power equation of American politics were different, and power wa shared out as a percentage at all times, this wouldn't be the case.

Nor is Dubya somehow representative of the US through all time, or even the US as it is. And I've yet to see any figures showing that Bush's views on stem cell research represent those of the US public.

I am sure the urban population in the US are as estranged to Young Earth creationism as Europeans are. I meet Americans every day, and I am still to meet a person who believes in creationism any more than I do. But again: we are still talking about 50% of the US population. We can't discard them because they live in rural areas.

But we should realize that the US is really more than a dozen geopolitical cultures, spread over a land mass larger than the size of Europe. I don't think the US should be considered a single, unified culture, at all--not when you can visit large areas such as New York City, with its 9 million inhabitants, nearly all of whom would laugh themselves sick at creationism. Again, this isn't an issue IMO of the US vs Europe, but rural areas who are just awakening to their political power, vs the articulate, urban zones that have always been centers of power. The numbers aren't "creationists, 50%" in the US. They're more likely 10% or 90%, depending upon where you're inquiring: in states that are almost entirely agricultural (Utah, Mississippi) or industrial (Massachusetts), and in smaller state-subsets that again emphasize differences of cultural goals. And Sweden has cultural sub-sets that probably could duplicate those extremes. You just don't have them in the kind of concentration found over here, because of the sheer size of the US. And they don't get publicized because your rural communities have yet to discover their political power via party-run computer networks and the media outlet of the church--yet.

But the myth of an ideologically unified US is just that: a myth. This isn't new information: several southern states vehemently opposed racial integration through the 1960s, when it was extremely popular in the NorthEast and West. The vast majority of North Carolinians, as I recall from my time living in the state, regard gthe triangle of major universities (Duke, North Carolina U, U of North Carolina) with anger; and I remember polls taken during the time I lived there that showed an entirely different view on just about every major issue facing the country between the major cities and the large rural population. I could go through every major and minor political issue in this country and find you several areas where these views are hated, and others where they're embraced.

CE, there is no United States. There are consortiums of sub-cultures that hold together through social inertia, a vague sense of misty patriotism, and the force of state and national governments that won't let them fly apart. To confound Southern California with Texas or Alaska with New Jersey, Miami with Iowa, doesn't make good sense.

[fable]

Maybe no official stigma, but what would people think if someone refused to put their hand on the Bible in court to be sworn in? Probably that that person cannot be trusted and is going to lie; not that swearing on the Bible exactly has kept people from committing perjury before.

As I mentioned above, there is no stigma attached to refusing a swear-in the US legal system on the bible, or with the words, "so help me god." Jurors and witnesses do it all the time. I am sure there are areas of the country where this would be considered amazing, but there are also areas where it happens everyday without note. It is a formality, like the British legal custom of judes and barristers wearing white wigs. Or should we think that all those men and women donning those white wigs means an emphatic interest in returning to the dress styles of the 18th century?

[C Elegans]

But Fable, whether we like it or not, the federal republic of the US of A is a national state. The national state is a political concept, it is not based on homogenity of culture. With the exception of some few small and geographically isolated countries like Iceland, national states worldwide contain a variety of cultures. The number of cultures in a given state is however not necessarily lineary related to the policy and ideology of the government in that state. Especially not so in the kind of two party system you have is the US (as well as in France and the UK).

Regardless of the number of diverse cultures, you have one federal government and one president in the US. This government and it's leader has an immense amount of power. You have a common foreign policy including armed military actions, in some areas a common domestic policy, you have a federal budget including federal spending, and you also have federal laws.

We don't have a govenment that has prohibited this funding; we have a single, elected official who has done so. Unfortunately, the government in the US provides for a very strong executive branch, and the two-party system makes for gross adjustments to policy, lacking in the kind of nuanced reactions possible under more broadly representative parliamentary structures.
<snip>
If the no power/absolute power equation of American politics were different, and power wa shared out as a percentage at all times, this wouldn't be the case.

I am not sure I understand. You have a federal government. The head of your government is your elected president, George W Shrub. Your policial system, that has the effect of no power/absolute power, has given this head of the government an immense power. He has prohibited embryonal stem cell research, he publically supports creationism and the publically states he believe he is sent by god to lead the country. If your political system was different, it would be different. But now you are stuck with this system, and my opinion about the current state of religion in the nation USA, is tied to the activities and attitudes of the current government at a federal level that affects everybody, and the effect this government has on the part of the population (and their children!) that was strongly conservative christians even before Bush.

Nor is Dubya somehow representative of the US through all time, or even the US as it is. And I've yet to see any figures showing that Bush's views on stem cell research represent those of the US public.

Ayatollah Khomeni did not enjoy majority support in Iran either. Many people fled. Even many of those who supported him initially, swiftly changed their mind (like one Iranian said "After 2 weeks, everybody regretted it so much.) Yet, he and his government had power to affect the society. So what I am saying is: a government does not need to have majority support in order to have a lot of power and influence over the society in the country it governs.

I know Bush is now decreasing in popularity, good. I don't know if a majority supports his decision to cease funding embryonal stem cell research, and it doesn't matter since he had the power to do it anyway. Not researching embryonal stem cells for religious reasons, is a decision at federal level. It influences millions of ill people and their families throughout the whole US, regardless of their culture and regardless of whether people agree with the government or not. Thus, I maintain my view that religion has a profound influence of the US.

But we should realize that the US is really more than a dozen geopolitical cultures, spread over a land mass larger than the size of Europe. I don't think the US should be considered a single, unified culture, at all--not when you can visit large areas such as New York City, with its 9 million inhabitants, nearly all of whom would laugh themselves sick at creationism.
<snip>
The numbers aren't "creationists, 50%" in the US. They're more likely 10% or 90%, depending upon where you're inquiring: in states that are almost entirely agricultural (Utah, Mississippi) or industrial (Massachusetts), and in smaller state-subsets that again emphasize differences of cultural goals.

But again, this has nothing to do with culture. It has to do with the US as a state, as a unified state with a common foreign policy, common federal laws and all that I described in the beginning of this post. At the federal level it doesn't matter how opinions are distributed, 100 people have 100 federal votes regardless if you live in Utah or NYC.

Let's take the Kansas, Arkansas and Ohio. Together, they have about the same population as the cities New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and San Fransisco together. Let's say 90% in the three states are Young earth creationists and 10% are not. In the urban areas, let's say 90% are not Young earth creationists, and 10% are. Regardless of demographic distrubution, everybody still has one federal vote.

There is also a local level. Many children in Kansas, Arkansas and Ohio do not recieve a proper education due to the state school boards' decisions, a schoolboard that has been voted for by the creationist parents. Although the First Amendment prohibits teaching that is religiously motivated, or has the effect of advancing religion, state schoolboards can still choose to teach creationism/"intelligent design" and other mythical ideologies as science.

The opinions I have stated in this thread about US religiousity, are at two levels, federal (your government) and local (populations). The federal level affects everybody in the US, like it or not. The local level affects only those in that population, but the local people also belong to the federation and vote at a federal level. Thus, the two levels have bi-directed interaction effect at each other. So I maintain that the discrimination of hundreds of thousands of children in the US, is also a national issue although it only affects children in certain areas.

In 1987, the Supreme Court ruled that creationism was not allowed to be taught as science. Since then, a new variant of christian beliefs that propose life must have been created by god, intelligent design, has developed. According to Washington Post, there are challenges to teaching evolution in school in 40 states or local school districts around the US today.

Please, read this open letter from the president of the National Academy of Sciences:
http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServe ... _evolution

There is currently an ongoing court case in Pennsylvania, where American Civil Liberties Union and a group of parents are suing the Dover Area School District for voting in new rules that will encourage children to consider "intelligent design" as an alternatives to evolution.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8042

Since it's a constitutional right to that children should receive an education that is not religiously motivated, or has the effect of advancing religion, I certainly think this is a national, not only a local, issue.

But the myth of an ideologically unified US is just that: a myth.
<snip>
CE, there is no United States.

I have not ever heard anyone state the belief that the US is ideologically unified, not even the Shrub. It is possible that this is an existing myth, but what I have posted is not related to that myth, it's related to the nation state US as a political actor and as a geographical unit where people, regardless of their culture and whether they like it or not, are governed by the same federal government with power that influence every single person living within those geographical boundaries.

[fable]

I am not sure I understand. You have a federal government. The head of your government is your elected president, George W Shrub. Your policial system, that has the effect of no power/absolute power, has given this head of the government an immense power. He has prohibited embryonal stem cell research, he publically supports creationism and the publically states he believe he is sent by god to lead the country. If your political system was different, it would be different. But now you are stuck with this system,

True, but my point is that when you write, "You have a government that has prohibited funding to embryonal stem cell research for religious reasons," it is not in fact the entire federal government that has done this, which would seem to indicate 50 states have chosen to elect a combination of hundreds of officials who support this policy. Rather, one person has been elected for entirely different reasons, and this is one of his pet ponies. In other words, the government's views on this issue are really only Dubya's views; and Dubya's views are definitely not the views of most Americans in this regard. If they were, this would have been an important issue her used to "ride to the White House," and his predecessors would have been elected upon similar, religiously luddite and backward themes.

But Fable, whether we like it or not, the federal republic of the US of A is a national state. The national state is a political concept, it is not based on homogenity of culture.

But when you complain about the views of American citizens, you are not conplaining about a political entity, but a host of separate geopolitical, economic entities that by no means hold the same opinions about anything. So while you are right, you see, to regard the Bush administration and its Congressional allies as dangerous for the fanatacism they show, these same views can not automatically be taken to represent a uniform group of 50% or more of the populace of the US across it.

Not researching embryonal stem cells for religious reasons, is a decision at federal level. It influences millions of ill people and their families throughout the whole US, regardless of their culture and regardless of whether people agree with the government or not. Thus, I maintain my view that religion has a profound influence of the US.

Yet Bush is not religion; he is a man with tremendous power, who has religious views that he is enforcing on others. When he is gone, his successor will likely change those policies; and for religion to have a profound influence on the US, it would have to be supra-governmental, a matter of cultural prominence that isn't affected by the presence or absence of Shrub. A snapshot is not a film, and I think you will find that there are large sections of the US where Bush is reviled, his policies ignored, and such ideas as creationism hooted at by millions of people. The children in Kansas may (or may not, depending on how the appeal to the Supreme Court goes; ever appeal to the SC in the past on the issue of creationism has upheld evolution and thrown out false science) teach children this fantasy, as you say, but elsewhere it is not taught. So while it is correct to say that portions of the US are strongly influenced by religion, it is certainly not true of much of the nation.

[C Elegans]

[QUOTE=fable]True, but my point is that when you write, "You have a government that has prohibited funding to embryonal stem cell research for religious reasons," it is not in fact the entire federal government that has done this, which would seem to indicate 50 states have chosen to elect a combination of hundreds of officials who support this policy. Rather, one person has been elected for entirely different reasons, and this is one of his pet ponies. In other words, the government's views on this issue are really only Dubya's views; and Dubya's views are definitely not the views of most Americans in this regard. [/quote]

I see what you mean, but that's not what I meant with "the government", I meant the excecutive branch that had the power to do so, prohibited funding of embryonal stem cell. If I say "the Swedish government has decided to raise income tax", it refers to the executive body of the government, which in Sweden is the prime minister (leader of the majority party) and his/her ministers with the excecutive power to make a national decision, I don't mean the entire parliament or which also contains MP:s from the opposition parties and/or individual members of the ruling party that may have opposed to a particular decision, or even individual ministers that may have opposed to a particular decision.

I read that 36 republicans were among the 206 members of the House of Representatives who signed a letter asking the president to reconsider the prohibition. Yet, I don't view it as incorrect to use the word "the US government has prohibited..." as equal to "the Bush administration". If the Bush administration is not the same as your government, just replace "the government" with "the Bush administration" in my previous post, it does not change anything for my line of argument. My argument is still that the this prohibition is an official, federal policy based on religious belief, that has a profound effect on millions of Americans nationwide.

[quote="Fable]
But when you complain about the views of American citizens"]

No, and that is why I try to make it clear that my critisism is at two levels; one level is the state level, represented by Bush and his fellow fanatics, the other level is the 50% of American citizens. As I try to describe in my previous post, the two levels have some bi-directional interaction since extremist groups can use Bush's public stance as support for the propaganda they distribute among people, and a majority of the 50% "creationists" voted for Bush (a little more than 2/3 IIRC) but not all, so the relationship is certainly not 100% and it's not at all sure that the 2/3 of creationists voted for Bush because he is endorsing creationism, it could be for some other varible they have in common. Thus, I make an effort to separate these two levels but they do interact and both of them contribute to my assessment of the effect, degree and qualities of the religiousity in the US.

[quote="Fable]Yet Bush is not religion; he is a man with tremendous power"]

I hope the religious fanatism of the Bush administration will be but a paranthesis in US history, the legacy of its' foreign policy will have to long-lasting effects to be impossible to reduce to paranthesis I'm afraid.

However, as it is now, I cannot view the denial of potential treatment for millions of Americans with nervous system diseases or injuries, as anything else than a "profound effect". Many of these people will be beyond rescue when the prohibition is lifted. Even an 8 year halt in the worlds leading stem cell research counrty, may have meant life or death to millions.

Also, for a child in school, 8 years is a very long time, it's almost the entire primary education. I must point out that it's not only the kids in Kansas that are denied a fair education. Kansas is the only state that has openly gone against the 1987 ruling of the Supreme court, and for this they were kicked out from NAS. However, creationism and intelligent design are still taught as scientific alternatives to evolution in both Ohio and Arkansas (that's why I took these 3 states as examples) and in Georgia, Tennessee, New Hampshire, West Virginia, New Mexico, North Carolina, Washington, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky and Arizona, various forms of anti-evolution legislation have been passed. The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) state that they have dealt with new on ongoing controversies regarding teaching about creationism in 34 states in two years (Jan 1999 - Dec 2000).

Most of this is not related to Bush, creationism has a longer history in the US that the Shrub, but I don't think the increasing activity among advocates for creationism and/or intelligent design is unrelated to Bush, and thus I think the amount of children who are denied a proper education will increase as an indirect effect of Bush supporting teaching of intelligent design.

[jopperm2]

ACK! I only had time to read about half of this thread but I love the topic.

I think the swearing on the bible has everything to do with Freemasonry.
In Masonry we swear oathes on the "Volume of Sacred Law" (meaning a book that we think holds the great laws of the universe, could be the Bible, Koran, Torah, Bagivad Gita, whatever the candidate prefers) which for every Mason I have ever met is the Bible. Many of the founding fathers were Christian Masons and I would venture a guess that they just fancied the idea of carrying over that tradition, just as the use of the gavel has been carried over.
The judge being sworn in merely uses the book to add personal importance to the matter as swearing an oathe to God is far more important than swearing one to anyone else for most Americans(and many other people as well).

As to if America is fundi or not I would say no, but I get what CE meant by it. It is certainly more influenced by Christianity than most other places.

[VonDondu]

[QUOTE=C Elegans]Why has it become a tradition to swear by the bible and swear oaths including the christian god, in a country that has consitutional separation between church and state, and religious freedom? Could somebody tell me the history behind this custum?[/QUOTE]
I don't know the exact origin of the tradition of swearing oaths on the Bible, but that custom is hundreds of years old. We swear on Bibles to this day because "that's what we have always done". During the American Revolution (circa 1776) when the original thirteen States wrote their state constitutions, most if not all of them specified that public oaths should be sworn on the Bible.

I don't want to get bogged down in the details of early American history, but here are some basic ideas. First of all, the original thirteen colonies were ruled by the British, and even when they broke away from Britain, they still retained many British customs, and British common law was the basis of American law. (Common law is the body of legal precedents on which new cases are decided.) I'm not sure when courtroom habits changed (we don't use terms like barrister or "My Lord" anymore). Some colonies had existed for nearly 200 years before officially breaking away from Britain, and that was certainly enough time for them to develop customs of their own. But even federal courts on the western "frontiers" bore some resemblance to their original British models.

The separation of church and state is probably best seen as a reaction against divine monarchy and state religions such as the Church of England as well as institutions such as the Catholic Church. In order to rebel against King George, the colonists were forced to deny his divine right to rule. One of the main motives for rebelling against England was the colonists' resistance to paying taxes which they thought were unfair. But many of them also had new notions about government (this was the time of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution), and the time was ripe for political revolution and a new form of government the world had never seen before. "Separation of church and state" was so new and so radical, it wasn't something that could be embraced completely; there was no more divine rule, but the Bible still had an effect on public policy since over 95% of the colonists were Christians.

One of the reasons why America was originally colonized was because people were fleeing from religious tyranny and persecution. I'm sure you know about all the wars between the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, and all the various Protestant groups in Europe. But rather than seeking freedom from religion, the American colonists were seeking the freedom to practice their own religion--in nearly all cases some form Christianity, of course--and they had a tendency to enforce their own religion as tyrannically as any tyrant in the Old World. There was no separation of church and state in such colonies.

When the colonies banded together to rebel against England, they firmly decided that the federal government would not promote any Christian religion over any other Christian religion. But it went without saying that American society as a whole was based on Christian values and customs. That's why most if not all of the new states declared in their own constitutions (unlike the federal Constitution) that public oaths should be sworn on the Bible.

Keep in mind that the United States is a federation of separate states. The federal government is at the top, but each state has its own government and its own constitution. The federal government has much more power in its spheres of jurisdiction than those of the collective states--for example, state laws can be struck down if they violate the U.S. Constitution. But any powers not granted to the federal government by the U.S. Constitution are "reserved" to the states. This means that state governments can put almost anything into law (if the voters will let them) as long as it doesn't violate the U.S. Constitution. Conservatives, especially Christian conservatives, have been calling for years for a return to "strict interpretation of the Constitution" and "states' rights" to eliminate the constitutional constraints that prevent states from enacting legislation, for example, to outlaw abortion, require prayer in schools, outlaw homosexual activity, require the teaching of creationism in school, and other precious items on their agenda. If the U.S. Constitution is subjected to a "narrow interpretation" as it likely will be when President Bush finishes packing the court with conservatives and cronies, conservative states will undoubtedly put more religion into state government, even though the federal government will always be required to maintain separation of church and state (the prime exception being Presidential speeches, of course).

[VonDondu]

Back in July, a county judge in North Carolina refused to let a Muslim woman swear her oath to tell the truth on the Koran:

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/v-prin ... 7516c.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0720/p02s02-usju.htm

Keep in mind that the county judge was doing his best to interpret the wording of the state constitution. I happen to believe there's no way in hell the founding fathers ever intended the words "Holy Scriptures" to include all "heathen" religious texts as well as the "Holy Bible". Also, keep in mind that The Christian Science Monitor is not a partisan mouthpiece for the Bush administration; it is actually an organization of great integrity, and unlike many secular news media, they are actually fair, balanced, and truthful.

I think this case sheds light on the current debate here at SYM and raises some very important questions.