First there is a quotation from a constitution (which one, I will reveal later), and an explanation by an author. The subjects are religion and public education.

SEC. 4. All persons have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences. No person shall be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship against his consent, and no preference shall be given by-law to any religious society, nor shall any interference with the rights of conscience be permitted. No religious test shall be required as a qualification for office, nor shall any person be incompetent to be a witness on account of his religious belief; but nothing herein shall be construed to dispense with oaths and affirmations. Religion, morality, and knowledge, however, being essential to good government, it shall be the duty of the legislature to pass suitable laws to protect every religious denomination in the peaceable enjoyment of its own mode of public worship, and to encourage schools and the means of instruction.

Here’s the gloss:

No one has a right to regulate our consciences or our worship for us. The right of each one to obey his own conscience in the matter of worship cannot be defeated by any law. This applies to his right to attend such church as he chooses, or not to attend; and to helping in the erection and support of any church or religious organization. That a person belongs to any particular church, or does not belong to any, cannot be urged as a qualification or disqualification for an office, nor deny to any suitor in court the right to call him as a witness. This does not say, nor does it mean, that the state, or the law, or the court, only, shall not apply the “religious test;” it means that no one has a right to apply that test. If a voter votes for a candidate solely because of that candidate’s religious belief, that voter violates the letter and spirit of this section of the bill of rights. As all the people have the right to their religious belief, it is right that the law shall not give any preference to any religious body or organization, but that it should fully protect each body in the enjoyment of its own organization and mode of worship. As education makes better citizens, the state ought to encourage it.

The constitution quoted is that of the state of Nebraska (1875), which according to that document cannot foster or support one religion over another. Hm. And that state should also encourage and provide public education. Hm hm. Most states have similar provisions in their constitutions. You should read yours sometime.

The commentary is not from some wild-eyed liberal/commie/socialist/marxist, but an educator named M.B.C True, who wrote a civics book for the Nebraska school system.

In 1885.

A hundred twenty-six years ago, people understood the the principle of the separation of church and state, and the necessity of government (that is, the taxpayers) to provide an education for all children.

Why are these ideas so hard for some people to understand now?
——————————————————————-
Reference:
True, M.B.C., A Manual of the History and Civil Government of the State of Nebraska, Leach Shewell and Sanborn, Boston and New York, 1885.

Draw your own conclusions. And enjoy your weekend — maybe it will be rapturous in an entirely different way.

“This is not about us and them,” said Dalia Mustafa, a student who attended mass at Virgin Mary Church on Maraashly Street. “We are one. This was an attack on Egypt as a whole, and I am standing with the Copts because the only way things will change in this country is if we come together.”

Good advice for us in the United States.

A photo slideshow is at Ahram Online, an Egyptian news site.

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* Peace be upon you; hello; goodbye — the equivalent in Hebrew is “shalom“

Please take a look around my space here, in between reading these great submissions to the current edition of Carnival of the Godless.

The Postman at “Gone Fishin’: Postcards From God” delivers a heartfelt letter from Gawd to His/Her/Their/Its peeps in “Dear People of the Book.” Gawd has not improved His/Her/Their/Its writing style much in the last 2000 years, since this letter is every bit as confusing and self-contradictory as the Book itself. Perhaps there’s a lesson there for us.

(By the way, judging from His/Her/Their/Its blogroll, I think Gawd lives in Kentucky now. This explains a lot about the Bluegrass State’s politics – confusing and self-contradictory. But I digress.)

Tomas de Torquemada

Speaking of strange religious practices, how about The Church of Body Modification‘s? No, we’re not talking about chopping and channeling a ‘49 Mercury, though it would be a lot more fun. We’re talking about your body, as in tats and piercings. Matt at The Village Heathen tells us about a member of the church, a 14-year-old girl, who was suspended from school for sporting a teeny, tiny nose stud. The family intends to file a complaint against the school for religious discrimination.

Matt’s got some body modifications himself, but not for religious reasons. In his post, “How I Overcame Childhood Indoctrination,” he credits the comments left by atheists at a Christian youth message board to get him to thinking about Gawd. The results were not pretty (from Gawd’s perspective). Matt went on to the harder stuff, like visiting atheist websites and blogs, and reading the Bible with a critical mind. It took years, but finally Matt left religion — and a childhood phobia about going to Hell — behind.

Signý is another refugee from theism, but from the Muslim community. In “When We Were Single,” she relates how men of her faith suddenly took a keen interest in her when she, a lukewarm convert, started hanging out with more devout Muslim sisters. But that interest had a downside: she discovered that converts are second-class citizens, and Muslims are every bit as racially divided as Baptists in the South are.

Nevertheless, Signý did get married, but if you want to hear about what happened after, you’ll need the check out the rest of her blog, Here in Glitnir.

Churches are losing a lot of young people from the flock. Raithie, The Teenage Atheist, is one of them. This thoughtful 16-year-old blogger offers two posts for our consideration. Here’s an extract from the first, “I’ll Create My Own Meaning, Thanks.”

If you depend upon a celestial skydaddy to enrichen your life, your life can’t be all that meaningful. Meaning is what you extract from your life and surroundings. It’s an entirely personal discovery. You acquire it from your memories, experiences and from the people who you love and consider close. What is meaningful and special to you, is what essentially offers your life meaning. Your the one with the chisel, not any ethereal, invisible being.

In his other submission, “I Fear Nothingness,” Raithie contemplates death, the end of his existence and the meaning of life from an atheist perspective. I am humbled. When I was 16, I was more worried about getting my driver’s license and getting that pretty blonde to talk to me.

Belief in supernatural influences is not limited to Christianity or Islam, of course. There’s all that New Age-y stuff that’s maybe even sillier. Maria at the Fledgeling Skeptic tells us in “Stomping Puppies” how she shot down her mom’s hopes that numerology can improve one’s love life. (Personally, I think the best number to start with is the other person’s telephone number, but to each her own.) Maria gave mom a Michael Shermer book, and is waiting for her mother to stomp on that now.

“Is Gawd dead?” Atheists would say Gawd was never there to begin with, but some theists object to the notion that He/She/They/It might be RIP. Kel at Kelosophy imagines a spectrum of responses to those timeworn questions, “How do you respond to the atheist’s charge that God is dead?” and “How would you respond to one who proclaims God is dead?” Here’s the Fundamentalist Theist response:

If God was really dead then why did blasphemer Christopher Hitchens get cancer?

I bet that fun-loving guy,Torquemada, would have enjoyed that one.

Why are there so many possible responses to these questions? Perhaps it’s because we each make Gawd in our own image. Andrew, the 360 Degree Skeptic, in “Freethought Musings: the political necessities of an abstract god” suggests losing the concrete depictions of the ancient pantheons enables monotheistic believers to imagine Gawd in whatever form suits their purpose.

How about the notion that religious belief is a virus of the mind? A writer for the Guardian in the UK tackled that question, and showed how clueless she is, according to Steve at the Socratic Gadfly. Susan Blackmore is ignorant on both memes and religion, he says.

Steve also takes the religious in Virginia to task for their lack of consistency about pro-life matters, as the recent execution of Teresa Lewis shows. Shouldn’t pro-lifers also oppose capital punishment? Or to put it another way, shouldn’t pro-lifers (if they’re really serious about this abortion = murder stuff), expand the death penalty to include the women who get abortions? I mean, come on, why stop with women who plot to kill their husbands?

(Of course, there’s always those nifty torture devices from the Inquisition, and those punishments listed in Leviticus. I bet some pro-lifers would get off on those.)

On a less serious note, let’s talk about the “Three Crazy Things Parents Worry About. As Dan at MyDadBlog.com argues, parents nowadays don’t really worry about the really big things, like a decent education or health care, they get their underwear in knots about protecting their kids against isolated events that get way too much media exposure. Their Number 1 fear: child molesters. Number 2: vaccines. Number 3: foods that can kill you.

And from Thailand Breeze we close with an observation from nature. Animals kill each other, but not because of their egos. Only humans have that nasty habit.

And that ends another Carnival of the Godless. Hope you enjoyed your stay here, and y’all come back now, y’here?

[Yes, it's the end. What, were you expecting the Spanish Inquisition? No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise, surprise and fear! ...]

Bary, the Christian convert teen who ran away from home last year alleging her Muslim parents would kill her, apparently is rejecting chemotherapy for her uterine cancer, claiming she was cured by a faith healer. She is also rejecting a reunion with her family, whom law enforcement officials say pose no threat to her safety.

The teenager became a poster child for the anti-Muslim and/or born-again religious crowd after she ran away from her Columbus home to Orlando, Florida, claiming her parents would kill her because of her conversion to Christianity three years before she fled. She eventually ended up in foster care back in Ohio.

In May, the 17-year-old Sri Lankan native was diagnosed with uterine cancer, and has since had three operations.

According to news reports, documents filed by her parents in Franklin County Court state that Bary is refusing chemotherapy because she claims she was healed at an event in Youngstown last month. She was allegedly taken there without her parents’ consent, and her parents want the court to force Bary to undergo chemotherapy if she needs it.

A judge will decide on the parents’ motion today.

Meanwhile, Bary, who turns 18 next week, has refused to meet with her family. Her lawyers say the girl fears her parents still.

[Oh, ye of little faith. But I digress.]

Adding to the complexity of this passion play is the undocumented immigrant status of the entire Bary family. Rifqa is seeking to avoid deportation so she can continue her medical treatment … which her parents say she is refusing.

Confused yet? I’ve been following this story for a year, and even I have trouble understanding it.

If things weren’t already strange enough, it seems the neo-Pentecostal Christians surrounding Bary say she has a special prophetic role to play as someone who has escaped the “evil” of Islam.

Bary made a dramatic, and somewhat disturbing appearance on a telephone prayer call last year, at a time when she was supposed to be denied access to the people who helped her run lured her away from her home.

Islamophobe Pamela Geller has been touting Bary’s situation as another case of Muslim “honor killing” for apostasy (converting to Christianity), while accusing the girl’s parents of crimes they have neither committed nor seem inclined to commit.

The religious aspect of this family drama stinks worse than the Fulton fish market, as my mother used to say. This girl is being exploited by so-called faithful people who have no real regard for her welfare. They just want her to play a part in their imaginary End Times battle between Christians and Muslims.

If the girl had been helped by some wacko cult to run away from her Christian parents, the cult would have been vilified and the girl would be home now (maybe after some needed counseling). Does the name Elizabeth Smart ring any bells?

Instead, the supposedly well-meaning busybodies who interfered with the Bary’s family life — instead of going directly to civil authorities — get free passes because they are “Christian” and the girls’ parents are distrusted because they’re Muslim and in the State illegally.

It ain’t right.

They sent him a letter. I predict it ends up in the trash. See for yourself:

Dear President Obama:

 
It is with great concern that we have watched your rhetorical shift in terminology, choosing to use the phrase “freedom of worship” rather than “freedom of religion.” We’ve noted your use of that phrase (“freedom of worship”) at the Ft. Hood memorial service in November of 2009, as well as your utilization of the same during speeches in Japan and China.

 
While some may deem the words “worship” and “religion” to be synonymous, and thus interchangeable, they are most definitely not! The First Amendment of the United States Constitution uses the word “religion” and states unequivocally that Congress cannot prohibit the “free exercise” of said “religion.” Your use of the word “worship” implies that we have freedom ONLY within the confines of structures set aside for religious expression (i.e. churches, synagogues, etc.). This is not only a gross departure from the original intent of the First Amendment, but is also the first step toward eliminating faith expression in the public marketplace (i.e. display of religious symbols on public land, printing of religious materials for the purpose of evangelizing, public discussion of faith, etc.).

 
Mr. President, we call on you to retract all past use of this incorrect and misleading phrase, “freedom of worship,” and cease all future use of the same. We also call on you to acknowledge America’s Christian heritage as is clearly evidenced in our Founding Documents and the overwhelming abundance of statements from our Founding Fathers.

 
Sincerely,

 
The Faith and Freedom Institute

Dr. Gary G. Dull, President,

Dave Kistler, Vice-President

Dan Kistler, Historian

The aptly named Dr. Dull and the Kistlers apparently picked up this fearful backsliding into the abyss of apostasy from the charming folks at the Family Research Council, yet another right-wing religious organization. [Using "family" in a group's title generally indicates right-winginess, it seems.]

But as it turns out, Obama and the White House has used the expression “freedom of religion” far more than “freedom of worship.” And, none other than the born-again President George W. Bush has used the expression “freedom of worship.” No one complained when he said it.

Could it be because the FFI believes Obama to be a usurper, a foreigner, a Muslim? Just maybe. From the same webpage, the FFI’s manifesto to impeach Obama leads with:

A. The act of not providing a clear copy of his official and complete birth certificate indicating that he is a natural born citizen of the United States of America as is called for in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution where it reads, “No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States…shall be eligible to the office of the President.”

Will people ever get it through their thick heads that he was born in Hawai’i? And the last I checked, to worship generally means to have a religion, unless one worships Lady Gaga, who while good has not yet ascended to godhead.