{"id":4919,"date":"2015-12-18T19:58:10","date_gmt":"2015-12-18T19:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/?p=4919"},"modified":"2015-12-19T09:22:12","modified_gmt":"2015-12-19T09:22:12","slug":"christmas-busybodies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/2015\/12\/18\/christmas-busybodies\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Busybodies"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is another post from Bert Bigelow<\/a>. Cheers!<\/p>\n

Busybody: noun;\u00a0 a person who mixes into other people\u2019s affairs; meddler; gossip<\/p>\n

Every year at this time, as predictable as snow in Saskatchewan or icicles in Idaho, it happens.\u00a0 The bleating about the \u201coppression\u201d of Christians starts anew.\u00a0 Usually, it is triggered by some evangelist group that wants to place a nativity cr\u00e8che on a courthouse lawn or a public park.<\/p>\n

When non-Christian groups object, the cries of anguish begin.<\/p>\n

A department store hangs a sign that says HAPPY HOLIDAYS or SEASONS GREETINGS instead of MERRY CHRISTMAS.<\/p>\n

THEY ARE TAKING CHRIST OUT OF CHRISTMAS!<\/p>\n

CHRISTIANS ARE OPPRESSED BY THE SECULAR AND ATHEIST LEFT WING!<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take these in order.\u00a0 First nobody can take the religious significance out of Christmas for a Christian.\u00a0 The meaning of Christmas is whatever each individual decides that it is.\u00a0 To a Muslim or a Jew or a Buddhist or an atheist, Christmas does not have the same significance that it does to a Christian.\u00a0 Christmas has become a secular, as well as religious, holiday\u2026a time when families gather, exchange presents and share in a holiday feast.\u00a0 Non-Christians probably don\u2019t think much about the religious aspects of Christmas.\u00a0 What\u2019s wrong with that?\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t prevent devout Christians from celebrating its religious significance.<\/p>\n

This is similar to the claim that same-sex marriage \u201cthreatens\u201d the institution of marriage.\u00a0 The \u201csacred union\u201d that religious people forge in a church has exactly the significance they choose to place on it.\u00a0 Nobody can change that except the partners in the marriage.\u00a0 How other people marry is, quite simply, none of their business.<\/p>\n

Now, let\u2019s address the \u201coppression\u201d question.\u00a0 Surveys have shown that Christians make up somewhere between 70% and 85% of the US population.\u00a0 Of course, Christians come in many flavors.\u00a0 Many of them don\u2019t go to church regularly, and religious thought doesn\u2019t play a major role in their lives, but they say they are Christians, and I see no reason to doubt them.\u00a0 Now, that is a substantial majority of the electorate, and so I find it laughable that the miniscule minority of non-Christians are \u201coppressing\u201d that vast majority.\u00a0 I would venture that many non-Christians living in this country feel oppressed by the constant pressure from Christian religious organizations who persistently push their Bible-based ideas into the public sphere.<\/p>\n

One of the main purposes of the Constitution is to protect minorities from oppression by the majority.\u00a0 Alexis de Tocqueville warned that the \u201ctyranny of the majority\u201d is a real danger in \u201cilliberal\u201d democracies.<\/p>\n

The founders of our nation saw that danger, and built into the Constitution some safeguards to protect minorities from persecution by the majority.\u00a0 They realized that religion should never dominate government.\u00a0 That is not to say that individuals in positions of power cannot let their religious beliefs influence their decisions.\u00a0 Such a prohibition would be unenforceable anyway.\u00a0 Instead, the founders said that government should never officially endorse religion.\u00a0 Some people have interpreted this to mean that government should not endorse any specific religion.\u00a0 They claim that endorsement of religion in general\u2026with nondenominational prayers for instance\u2026is permitted.\u00a0 A simple reading of Article 1 makes it clear that this is not the case:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cCongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The prohibition is against religion in general, and it is unequivocal.<\/p>\n

Others have claimed that this refers only to the federal government, and that state and local governments are free to endorse religion.\u00a0 Or that it only prohibits the Congress from establishing a national church.\u00a0 But the courts have generally adopted a literal interpretation\u2026until recently.<\/p>\n

Why do some Christians feel the need to erect Christian displays in public places?\u00a0 The reason often given is that it \u201creaffirms the fact that we live in a Christian nation.\u201d\u00a0 The quote from Article 1 above makes it clear that we most assuredly do not live in a Christian nation.\u00a0 We live in a secular democratic republic in which a majority of the citizens claim to be Christians.<\/p>\n

Is it an attempt to demonstrate their personal devotion?\u00a0 Why not erect the display in their own back yard or in the churchyard? \u00a0Would it not be seen and appreciated by God there?\u00a0 There must be another reason, and that reason seems obvious to me.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s advertising.\u00a0 Like any business, churches have a product to sell.\u00a0 The Bible tells them to spread the word of the gospel.<\/p>\n

Mark 16:15 (King James Version):\u00a0 \u201cAnd he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.\u201d<\/p>\n

So they want the displays to be in public places where they will be seen by the most people.\u00a0 But more importantly, their presence in a courthouse or other government facility connotes an implicit endorsement of the religion they represent\u2026and, of course, that is exactly what the writers of the Constitution were trying to prevent.<\/p>\n

A long string of court decisions have affirmed and reaffirmed the prohibition against such displays in general, but recent rulings of an increasingly right-wing and overwhelmingly Catholic Supreme Court have diluted the decisions of earlier courts.<\/p>\n

It has occurred to me that one way to solve the problem is to allow anybody and everybody to advertise their products and services in government buildings.<\/p>\n

Just imagine what courthouse walls would look like:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"ad<\/a><\/p>\n

The halls of legislatures and city councils, where \u201cIn God We Trust\u201d is often displayed would look like this:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"trust<\/a><\/p>\n

But then, every business would claim a right to advertising space and the walls of public buildings would quickly fill up.\u00a0 Who would decide which business gets the space?<\/p>\n

There is only one answer for a capitalist society.\u00a0 The space should be rented to the highest bidder.\u00a0 The rental income could help alleviate the chronic deficits that government at all levels is suffering.<\/p>\n

But wait, there is still a problem.\u00a0 Churches have a huge advantage in competing with businesses.\u00a0 They don\u2019t pay taxes.\u00a0 Taxes from businesses helped to build those courthouses and council chambers, and provide the funds to operate them and pay the government officials who work there.\u00a0 Is it fair to make them compete with tax-exempt churches in a bidding auction for advertising space?<\/p>\n

That opens a whole new can of worms:\u00a0 Why are churches tax-exempt?\u00a0 Why doesn\u2019t a tax exemption for a church violate the Constitution?\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t that tax exemption constitute an endorsement of religion?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t a law that gives churches tax exemptions a law \u201crespecting the establishment of religion?\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though a majority of American voters approve of laws that give tax exemptions to churches, doesn\u2019t that constitute tyrannical rule by the majority that de Tocqueville warned us about?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that exactly what the Constitution was designed to prevent?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Busybody: noun; a person who mixes into other people\u2019s affairs; meddler; gossip<\/p>\n

Every year at this time, as predictable as snow in Saskatchewan or icicles in Idaho, it happens. The bleating about the \u201coppression\u201d of Christians starts anew. Usually, it is triggered by some evangelist group that wants to place a nativity cr\u00e8che on a courthouse lawn or a public park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[256,1054,362,1072,1],"tags":[39,1826,700,638],"class_list":["post-4919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism-2","category-featured","category-religion-and-society","category-secularism-2","category-uncategorized","tag-atheism","tag-bert-bigelow","tag-christmas","tag-secularism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4920,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4919\/revisions\/4920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}