As I write this, it’s a few days before the primary elections. I imagine candidates are gearing up for the big day, getting out that lucky suit and writing acceptance speeches. Will winners thank the voters, campaign workers, their spouses? Or will they look skyward, wave and thank God for their victory?
The faith-based life seems to jibe well with voters. According to a recent survey published by the Pew Research Center, 61 percent think it’s important that members of Congress have strong religious beliefs. Among atheists and agnostics, 85 percent disagree. It seems they want their politics plain, with no religion on the side.
Members of the Center for Inquiry of Southern Arizona (CFI-SAZ) seek to end the influence that religion has on public policy. Their mission is “to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry and humanist values.”
Co-founded by Jerry Karches, CFI-SAZ (www.centerforinquiry.net/saz) launched in October 2004. “We are a group of people who are freethinkers, agnostics, atheists, skeptics. … We like to have dialogue with others with the same frame of reference. … There are other principles to guide life. We don’t need god or the devil to reward or punish us.”
CFI-SAZ offers educational programs, lectures, discussions, support groups and social activities. A goal is to “end the influence that religion and pseudoscience have on public policy.”
Karches points to abortion and gay rights issues as examples of religious influence. “There are any numbers of things like that where they use their belief system to determine what the policy of the government should be. It’s an influence we feel that is against our principle of separation of church and state.”
CFI-SAZ has formed an advocacy group to align with other national groups—all with the goal of keeping religion out of government. “We intend to remind our elected representatives that they were not placed in office by a particular god or religious organization but by the pluralistic and multicultural voters of Arizona,” writes CFI-SAZ member Gil Shapiro.
Another goal is to “end the stigma attached to being a nonbeliever.” Karches explains, “We feel if you announce you are an atheist, it’s almost like saying a dirty word. We just have one less religion than others.”
The theme of less, or no, religion runs through various secular inquiry groups—small discussion or social groups with a focus topic such as arts, literature or family. A new group, the Secular Humanist Jewish Circle, was formed after Rabbi Miriam Jerris from the Society for Humanistic Judaism spoke in Tucson. A steering committee formed to create a local secular humanist Jewish group.
I spoke with steering committee members Becky Schulman, Susan Rubin and Barbara Russek and found all three love the Jewish culture, tradition and history—without a supernatural authority in the mix.
“I am very much identified as a Jewish person,” explains Rubin. “I have great respect and love for Jewish history and the contributions we’ve made. … Humanistic Judaism is a way to affirm my Jewish identity as well as be consistent with my beliefs about the nature of the world.”
Russek refers to herself as a “cardiac” Jew. She heard the expression from a rabbi and felt it fit. “I am definitely Jewish in my heart. I don’t have a religious inclination. I am attached to the history of the Jews and relate to their sufferings, traditions and customs,” says Russek.
Schulman decided to modify tradition and created her own Passover Seder. She recalls, “I went online and found a downloadable secular Haggadah (text containing the story of the Exodus and the ritual of the Seder). There’s no mention of God. It tells the story of the Exodus in historical terms.” She joins with Rubin and Russek in wanting to celebrate Jewish identity and culture in a non-theistic way.
I commend the women for forming a group that is true to their beliefs, and agree with CFI’s stance on keeping church and state separate. As Jews know all too well, when those in power mix personal beliefs and policy, the results can be disastrous.
This article appears in Aug 26 – Sep 1, 2010.
It is difficult to understand how members of the Center for Inquiry of Southern Arizona (CFI-SAZ) can justify ending the influence that religion has on public policy in America. They say their mission is “to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry and humanist values.” So, how can they demonstrate science, reason, freedom of inquiry and humanist values when they attempt to separate the fact that religious people founded this country; our Constitution supports keeping government from interferring with religious freedoms; and our cultural/social creed is “IN GOD WE TRUST?” Obviously, these questions represent only a few of the dichotomies involved in this topic.
Understanding that America was originated to get away from religious persecution, I believe that it is possible these “secularists” are misguided to say the least. Nevertheless, they have the right to believe not in God, but only themselves; and code words like “reason” and “science.” This is their religion, however pitiful. Obviously, I am playing along here with the topic as the secularists would have me react, because the truth of the matter is that they dislike God and they will not have God tell them what to do. So, their issue is with God and not the faithful. However, they will continue on their path to try to remove the rights of the American Citizen with the argument that public affairs cannot tolerate religious views or anything religious for that matter. Strange. Perhaps they should move to a country where religion does not interfere with their intolerance. Let’s see, what country doesn’t believe in God in one name or another?
Does anyone understand Steve’s use of the term “dichotomies”? Where is the dichotomy in being secular (respecting the freedom to believe or not as one chooses) and support for the Constitutional principle of Separation of Church & State? Steve, how is it that “secularists are misguided”?
Steve also misses a rather important point. Secularism is a philosophy, not a religion. To be a religion, it would have to include some belief in the supernatural, which it does not.
Steve claims that we secularists don’t like God because we don’t want to submit to His authority. False. We simply don’t see any empirical evidence of an all-powerful, benevolent creator of the universe who interacts in human affairs and protects the innocent and vulnerable. Because people like Steve do, we think of them as gullible and superstitious.
The members of CFI of Southern Arizona don’t really care what others believe. None of our business. Until they make it our business by forcing their irrational Christian worldview and Bible morality on the rest of us through law and public policy. Jim Gressinger
In 1906, France decided that “public affairs cannot tolerate religious views or anything religious for that matter”, and therefore enacted a law on a complete separation between government and religion.
Steven:
Your view of Constitutional history is slightly skewed and incomplete.
1. That the United States was founded by Christians is an accident of history and culture. It is not any sort of evidence of a divine plan for a Christian Nation. It is not evidence of the existence of any deity.
2. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and a good many other of the founding fathers are rightly described as “Deists,” not Christians. Yes, they had beliefs that might be described by religious, but they were not at all comfortable with the comingling of Church and State. Jefferson, in particular, is credited with coining the phrase “Wall of Separation.”
3. Our Constitution does not mention the words “God,” “Jesus,” “Christ,” or “church” anywhere in the body of that august document. In particular, the Preamble specifically states that the authority to govern is derived from “We the People” and their informed consent, not divine fiat or ecclesiastical approval.
4. Article VI, para 3 of the U.S. Constitution: “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
5. Historically, the First Amendment has been interpreted to mean a position of absolute neutrality with respect to religion, not that the government cannot interfere with religious institutions when their practices run afoul of our secular laws (consider, for example, the sexual abuse of children).
The rest of your arguments constitute the usual litany of insults and scapegoating that we have come to expect from religious bigots, and are not worth any further comment.
Jim – The secularist’s ability to generate and agree with a set of operational definitions in support of a “philosophy” and argument(s) only demonstrates the ability of people to live in a delusion. Ask anyone in a mental institution whether they are sane, and regardless of “who” they think they are (Neapolitan Bonaparte for example); they will always argue strongly in an effort to convenience themselves and others that they are correct (and thus not mad as a hatter). This is a demonstration of the reasonable mind, which is built into humans, presumably to assist in survival. The reasonable mind will not allow one to be, let’s say wrong about reality. This is a human condition that cannot be denied. A human will always argue their philosophy or what they think they believe and who they think they are. The test is to support one’s position with history and facts. So, the only thing left is to divine truth as inspired by inquiry by real scholars (regardless of the subject). The Judeo-Christian and Muslim religions developed over the centuries beginning and based on the Septuagint around 4169 B.C. when Abram entered Canaan during the early Kingdoms of Egypt. This long history of scholarly effort is documented and supported, however fraught with argument and differences of opinion, it has passed through the threshing floor of historical review to arrive in our current understanding about God and the human condition here on the cutting edge of time and history.
The first 250 colleges and universities built in the United States were 99% Christian and Christian churches and Jewish synagogues (and beginning last century, Islamic mosques) have been built on every corner of our cities and towns since our founding. The Christian experience in America supports our understanding of our incredible human adventure since the time Abram and God first spoke. However well documented and reviewed by scholars throughout the timeline of human civilization, God is not what we believe, but what I and many believe in. To say you can develop a modern secularist philosophy and simply erase this human struggle and understanding to then decide the fate of the United States, regardless of the founding of the USA under the unalienable rights given by our “creator” (the supernatural entity stated in our Constitution) which include the right of the religious to live, vote, work, politic, govern, speak, write and worship whenever or wherever we want, is quite frankly ridiculous.