The recent flurry of “religious liberty” bills in many states, including Georgia, in response to a perceived “war on religion” prevents religious citizens from being compelled to do anything that conflicts with their beliefs, thus allowing discrimination against sexual minorities demanding equal rights and treatment under the law. This has spawned bitter controversy, reminding us yet again how religion sows discord within our culture and retards attempts to improve our moral climate and enhance the quality of human life.
One reaction to this religious obstructionism has been the emergence of the fledgling but steadily growing “New Atheism” movement best represented by, among others, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Salman Rushdie, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens, who have argued their atheism and actively attacked the world’s religions for fostering intolerance and acting on false beliefs. Their primary purpose is to challenge religion at every turn with science and reason, a purpose best expressed by eminent biologist E.O. Wilson, who said religion should be eliminated “for the sake of human progress.”
We don’t need to go that far. Humans have always wondered about matters of God and an afterlife, and that’s unlikely to change any time soon. But there’s a pressing need to publicly justify and communicate America’s unabashedly secular foundation. The Constitution assumes the new republic would be a tolerant secular society where individual rights are respected as long as they don’t hinder the rights of others, and where decisions of national import are based on logic and reasonable evidence rather than on religious beliefs.
Indeed, religion is mentioned only twice in the Constitution. The first reference occurs in Article VI, which forbids the use of any kind of religious requirement or test for candidates for office. The second is in the First Amendment, which guarantees the individual right to practice a religion and prohibits the establishment of a national religion or giving preference to one religion over another. In an 1802 letter, President Thomas Jefferson famously made reference to “the wall of separation that exists between church and state,” which has come to be regarded as shorthand for the “establishment clause” of the First Amendment.
But this important aspect of our national identity is denied by the Religious Right, which persists in its profoundly mistaken claim that this is a Christian country which should be governed by their version of Christian principles.
How then can we go about clarifying and affirming our identity as a secular nation that bases its public decision-making on science and reason?
The most promising possibility is through public education. The Religious Right is well aware of this, which is why its members persistently decry the “godless” public schools, oppose the teaching of evolution, reject textbooks that don’t reflect their beliefs, and advocate voucher systems for public education so students can attend schools where the curriculum is enshrouded in religion. Another example is the Texas GOP’s rejection of the term “critical thinking” from its platform on education because it might cause students to question their religions.
The only way to oppose the unconstitutional intrusion of religion into public education is to insist that the curriculum be based on the use of reason, appropriate evidence and the scientific method. While not infallible, these have proved over centuries to be the best instruments for gaining knowledge of our world and ourselves. Since all religion by its very nature derives from the supernatural, religious beliefs can never serve as the basis of a well-reasoned argument or the scientific method. In short, “the Bible says” can never be regarded as valid evidence in the judicious application of reason. Yet this what the Religious Right’s argument against gay marriage boils down to.
This does not mean religion should be excluded from the curriculum; only that it should be there solely as an object of study. Such study has determined to date is that religion, like art, is a form of symbolic cultural expression with roots deep in our evolutionary development. Also like art, religion is subject to interpretation and analysis and can be studied through the lenses of history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, literature, philosophy and — if the hypothesis of a “god gene” bears out — biology.
But religion and religious belief cannot be used to make or decide truth claims. Students should be shown early on through reasoned argument there is no substantiation for the belief that there is one “true” religion, and that faith-based beliefs and scriptural sanctions or prohibitions are not admissible evidence in the arena of reason and science.
We should be proud of our secular identity and its reliance on science and reason to guide our progress. We should also take pride in being a nation that believes in the right to worship as one pleases and acknowledge that religions do much good through their charitable programs and play an important role in their members’ spiritual lives. But nowhere should religion be involved in government and public education.
Lucas Carpenter retired this spring as Charles Howard Candler Professor of English at Oxford College of Emory University.
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