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From: garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.religion
Subject: Re: Re: "Secular Humanism" banned in the US Schools.
Message-ID: <953@bunker.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-Aug-85 16:57:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: bunker.953
Posted: Fri Aug 23 16:57:56 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 02:06:57 EDT
References: <161@gargoyle.UUCP> <1639@akgua.UUCP> <1568@pyuxd.UUCP>
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Xref: watmath net.politics:10634 net.religion:7468

> ... the reason the Supreme Court applied Constitutional
> rights to belief systems without deities is because they wanted to
> ensure that the negligence of the founding fathers was not visited
> on other beliefs:  they wanted to ensure rights for all belief systems,
> even though the Constitution spoke of "freedom of religion" (I believe
> they wanted it for all such systems).  Thus they labelled such beliefs
> as religions for such purposes.  (What other purposes, other than
> legal purposes, could they define?)

Certainly, the Supreme Court's definition of "religion" is for
"legal purposes."  But the same definition must be used for all
legal purposes, and therefore, if the Constitution forbids the
teaching of Christianity in the public schools, then it also
forbids the teaching of "secular humanism."

> Another example of succumbing
> to human laziness and carelessness with the words we use.

Or an example of trying to refine our understanding of the way
words are used.

> 						Rich Rosen   pyuxd!rlr

Gary Samuelson
ittvax!bunker!garys