What does the rise in atheism mean for the First Amendment?

[LotusCarsLtd]

I ask this because I notice the rise in atheism, and I wonder if differences of opinion towards the role of religion of society will lead to a shift in the application of First Amendment rights in the US, maybe in a direction that is unfavorable to religion.

Thoughts? Any atheists have any thoughts?

 

[InJesusItrust]

CheshireCaat:

More like the opposite. Religion has always oppressed free thinkers.

youtube.com/watch?v=EuDeCaKzJyc

No, it’s the other way around. So-called “free-thinkers” always oppose religion. See: French Revolution or history of Marxism.

 

[cornbread_r2]

I ask this because I notice the rise in atheism, and I wonder if differences of opinion towards the role of religion of society will lead to a shift in the application of First Amendment rights in the US, maybe in a direction that is unfavorable to religion.

Thoughts? Any atheists have any thoughts?

Atheists in the US couldn’t deny 1st Amendment rights to the religious without jeopardizing those same rights for themselves. Whatever else one might think of atheists, they, like anyone else, can usually be counted on to act in their own self-interest. That being said however, I would also expect them – along with members of minority religious sects – to oppose any action that would privilege any one religious viewpoint over all others.

 

[Sair]

Correct me if I’m wrong - and please pardon my ignorancee of US constitutional law - but doesn’t the First Amendment relate to freedom of speech and freedom of religion (related but not identical concepts)?

There seems to have been quite a lot in the media lately about religious believers feeling threatened by the encroachment of secularism.

One thing that really got me thinking about where the lines ought to be drawn was a comment about recent cases brought before the European Court of Human Rights, regarding discrimination against Christians. Two of these cases were for the wearing of crucifixes by individuals in public service positions. The other two were for discrimination against Christians who refused - on the basis of their Christian beliefs - what can be considered important, even essential, services for homosexuals.

I see nothing wrong with declaring one’s religious beliefs in public, so I think the dismissal of a public servant merely for wearing a symbol of religious belief is ridiculous and bordering on totalitarian. When it comes to interfering with the rights and lives of others for the sake of upholding one’s personal unsubstantiated religious doctrines, then I think some penalties are perfectly justified. After all, is there any Christian who would seriously uphold the “right” of a Muslim man to imprison or even kill his wife for a perceived “dishonour”?

 

[Delaine75]

CheshireCaat:

Why are you demonizing atheists? Scared? Go run to santa-claus.

“Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to die before you die - and find that there is no death”

Where did you see that anyone was demonizing atheists? Please point that out. I’ve read the replies and am not seeing it.

 

[Mxpxlcp55]

Classic straw man? i dont know what horrible fallacy that is, but yes i see no demonizing as well.

 

[Blacksword]

Correct me if I’m wrong - and please pardon my ignorancee of US constitutional law - but doesn’t the First Amendment relate to freedom of speech and freedom of religion (related but not identical concepts)?

There seems to have been quite a lot in the media lately about religious believers feeling threatened by the encroachment of secularism.

One thing that really got me thinking about where the lines ought to be drawn was a comment about recent cases brought before the European Court of Human Rights, regarding discrimination against Christians. Two of these cases were for the wearing of crucifixes by individuals in public service positions. The other two were for discrimination against Christians who refused - on the basis of their Christian beliefs - what can be considered important, even essential, services for homosexuals.

I see nothing wrong with declaring one’s religious beliefs in public, so I think the dismissal of a public servant merely for wearing a symbol of religious belief is ridiculous and bordering on totalitarian. When it comes to interfering with the rights and lives of others for the sake of upholding one’s personal unsubstantiated religious doctrines, then I think some penalties are perfectly justified. After all, is there any Christian who would seriously uphold the “right” of a Muslim man to imprison or even kill his wife for a perceived “dishonour”?

I agree with this, the line in civil society should probably lie right about where you’ve drawn it here.

 

[Dale_M]

I ask this because I notice the rise in atheism, and I wonder if differences of opinion towards the role of religion of society will lead to a shift in the application of First Amendment rights in the US, maybe in a direction that is unfavorable to religion.

During the past 100 years in the US, we have seen a great many court cases which have protected both government and religion from one another. As the US becomes less religious, I think we will see more court cases defending religion from government since there will be more non-believers setting government policy.

 

[losh14]

I’d like to steer this into another direction for a moment. When the Establishment Clause - as the part of the 1st Amendment that pertains to Religion is known - was written, the concern was to prevent a state church from being enacted and allow the free practice of religion without undue entanglement by the government. This was the nascent United States hashing out the church-state relationship in the shadow of England’s ongoing religious strife (including anti-Catholic riots in 1780 following the passage of a law that returned, for the first time in 80 years, property rights to Catholics provided they swear not to obey the Pope) and history of religious violence. The idea was that religion should be left alone and proceed without government interference, and government should not come under undue pressure from religion. Toleration of non-Christian faiths and of atheism was not on the radar at the Constitutional Convention though it was no doubt an important local issue (for example, the Sephardic Jews in South Carolina had agitated for, and attained, equal right to political participation in local politics in the late 18th century).

Fast-forward 220 years and we’re seeing a lower self-identification as religious, and greater diversity of what constitutes religion, than we had in the 18th century, and growing public argument that freedom of religion is really freedom of worship and belief, rather than of action in public life. We famously have Catholics in politics who acknowledge their faith in their private life and then sever it in their public life. Meanwhile, areas of entanglement between government and religion have grown, from the compulsion to military service (which gave rise to conscientious objector status), to the issue of funding schools (especially in areas like St. Louis, where parochial schools are opening doors and funding to accept kids from failing public City schools), to access to contraceptive services at religiously-affiliated hospitals, to insurance requirements for contraceptive coverage at religiously-affiliated charities.

Based on this, I can see where atheists (and to a lesser extent non-Christians, or at least non-Catholics) may agitate against expressions of Catholic faith by Catholic institutions that these institutions would consider intrinsic to their mission. But I think those issues don’t pertain solely to atheists. Women who want birth control prescribed for them won’t go to an OB/GYN who refuses to prescribe it, pagan couples know not to ask a Catholic Church to host their wedding ceremony, etc. But an atheist who wants to help the poor may very well work for a Catholic charity, and therein lies the clash between the worker who wants to have his wife’s tubal ligation or his own vasectomy covered under the charity’s insurance, and the self-insured charity’s desire not to pay for a procedure that goes against its self-professed Catholic social teaching.

Note that we could have seen such clashes in previous years. At one point the majority faith in the U.S. was Methodism, believe it or not, and it’s not unfeasible that a Methodist could have sued for the right to teach at the only school in town, which happened to be run by the only church in town, which happened to be Baptist. We did see this to some extent - for example, Bishop Kenrick asked the Philadelphia school board to exempt Catholic children from participating in Protestant religious activities during the day, and instead spend time reading out of their own Douay-Rheims Catholic bibles rather than the school-provided KJVs. The school board agreed, and Philadelphians burned down a Catholic Church in retaliation.

So the challenge to us today, as people of faith, is to emphasize that our faith life is not something we can be merely allowed to practice for an hour on Sunday and forget about the rest of the week, but rather we have to be free to live it, and find workable compromises where clashes with the private rights of others exist.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Correct me if I’m wrong - and please pardon my ignorancee of US constitutional law - but doesn’t the First Amendment relate to freedom of speech and freedom of religion (related but not identical concepts)?

You understand it correctly. The first amendment both restricts and protects certain religiously motivated actions. For example, in public schools while students and teachers can pray in school a teacher is not allowed to lead students in prayer or obligate a student to pray. Sometimes this is seen as unfair. But the fairness of it becomes more clear in scenarios such as the teacher being of a non-Christian religion. This law doesn’t impact private schools in this way since private schools are not considered part of the government and if they have compulsory prayer it is not that the government is giving preference to one religion.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

But an atheist who wants to help the poor may very well work for a Catholic charity, and therein lies the clash between the worker who wants to have his wife’s tubal ligation or his own vasectomy covered under the charity’s insurance, and the self-insured charity’s desire not to pay for a procedure that goes against its self-professed Catholic social teaching.

You raise some good points. And I know quite a few cases that might match the scenario that you describe above. I know of a strong atheist that works as a camera man in a church. My sister and I have both volunteered with organizations that have some religious identity even though the both of us remain non-religious. I know of a atheist social worker at an organization with a Christian identity. None of her coworkers know she’s not a Christian (though eventually some one may wonder why she never accepts the many invitations she gets to come to their churches).