response 176 of 236:

Sep 6 15:43 UTC 2000

Re #171: no, atheism isn't even a "belief". It is not codified, has no
tenets, and has no rites or rituals that adherents must obey. As far as it
goes, it is an *observation* that there is zero evidence for supernatural
effects or entities (gods). Given zero evidence, it makes no sense to
invent such supernatural entities, except to control other people's
thoughts and behaviors. This has been done in abundance, throughout
history. But that's a sham. The *observation* that there are not gods is
also testable - produce some, or some of their purported actions, and put
them to a test of reproducibility and absence of human fakery or error.

It is illogical to consider the absence of beliefs about supernatural
phenomena to be a supernatural belief in the absence. If it is absent, one
just forgets about it and acts in accord with the absence.

But that is a separate issue from the constitutonal mandate that
governments here may not take actions to establish any religion. Not just
not one in preference to others, but NONE. That means, no governmental
branch, agency, or employees thereof, may take any action (in their
official capacity)  that promotes any or all religions.

There is a lot of ad-hoc violation of this principle (all the symnbolism
that Marcus mentions, the congressional chaplains, etc), but fortunately
these violations are not taken so far as to impose upon the lives of
citizens in really atrocious ways (as does prayer in governmentally
sponsored or supported venues).

response 178 of 236:

Sep 6 19:43 UTC 2000

<nods in agreement with Ric>

response 180 of 236:

Sep 7 00:12 UTC 2000

In the Texas case, the school was trying to do an end run around the
Constitution by having a student elected by the other students to say
"whatever he wanted to say," but which was clearly expected to be a prayer
of the community's majority religion.  The school's position was that the
student wasn't part of the Government.  But what is the Government?  The
Government isn't some magical force that is inherently powerful, but rather
a group of people elected by whatever population they govern.  The Federal
government is elected by the people of the US, and the State governments are
elected by the people of those states.  From there, the state governments
delegate power to smaller local governments, such as school boards, elected
by smaller constituencies.  The elected governments in turn delegate power
to to their employees, elected commissions, unelected commissions, and so
forth.  In this case the school board had presumably delegated the power to
lead the school in prayer to school administrators, who had then delegated
that power to a student elected by the other students.  The argument that the
student wasn't part of the government because he had been elected by the
students to a position created by government actors could also be used to
argue that any elected official anywhere in the US was not part of the
government.  It makes no sense.

In the Texas case, I seriously doubt the court would have had any problem with
a situation where some people were praying, others were talking about other
things, or saying different prayers, and anybody who wanted to say "la la la
la la" very loudly over the rest of the crowd would have been permitted to
do so.  Those would all be individual expression.  But that's not what was
happening.  Instead, an elected student official was leading the rest of the
assembled student body in a prayer for the majority religion, whether the
other students wanted to participate or not.

response 182 of 236:

Sep 7 04:48 UTC 2000

It could also be argued that those wishing to dispute something that's been
accepted "common knowledge" for hundreds of years should have proof, but none
of that's relevant.

I'm pretty much an atheist, because I find it extremely hard to believe that
a "god" in the traditional Christian or Jewish sense exists.  I don't know
to what extent that's really a religious belief, as I don't feel very strongly
about it.  I'm certainly somewhat mystified when I hear news stories about
that missing woman who was supposedly the leader of the atheists, since I
can't imagine atheists being enough of a group to have somebody lead us in
our atheism.  But in the context of religious freedom, it makes very little
sense to think of atheism, agnosticism, and the like as anything but
religions.  Religious freedom is the freedom to believe what you want to
believe, whether that's a belief that everything the leader of some
established religion says is true, a personal belief in a god or set of gods
and how that god or gods wants you to live, a belief that no such gods exist,
or any other set of religious convictions.  As such, for the government to
declare the nonexistence of any god, or of a certain god, would be just as
inappropriate as it would be for the government to declare that a god exists.

response 184 of 236:

Sep 7 14:37 UTC 2000

Doesn't something like 95% of the human population of this earth believe in
some sort of "supernatural being" (or beings?)

And it's been that way for thousands of years, not hundreds of years.

response 186 of 236:

Sep 7 14:43 UTC 2000

Well, they could always do what I was taught to do when someone other than
my religion was saying a prayer, put your hand behind your back and stand
there quietly until they were done praying.

response 188 of 236:

Sep 7 18:02 UTC 2000

        Every early society that I can think of, however, had supersitions,
taboos, and it's own pantheon.  Why would *every* society have these same
features, and why would there not be an athiestic or cynical early society
there to beat them at the games that cultures play?

response 190 of 236:

Sep 7 18:03 UTC 2000

(jazz slipped in)

response 192 of 236:

Sep 7 18:23 UTC 2000

Because everyone knows that you must argue with a horse in *Marathi*!

response 194 of 236:

Sep 7 18:38 UTC 2000

Re #188: Because of ignorance. I think that humans evolved to *want* to
believe in superstitions. For one thing, they had no other explanations
for the multitudes of mysteries around them - in effect, they did not know
for millenia what anything was or why anything happened. Assuming
explanations and holding to them would have "solved" this cunumdrum for
early humans, and that is likely to have had survival benefits.  Even if
the relation between actions and consequences were random, coincidences
would still have fortified beliefs that certain actions had desirable
consequences, and they would have been repeated until they became
traditions. For example, Rain Dances. Sometimes it rains, and sometimes
people like to dance, and sometimes they coincide: so why not try that
dance again? One can see how all sorts of rites and rituals would become
established, and eventually codified in "religons". 

An atheistic perspective would not have provided any answers that were
anywhere near as "satifying" as the answers that were invented along the
way. However, wherever humans have left a written record of beliefs, among
them are the atheistic beliefs of some. They just did not get much support
because they did not address the problems that people were trying to
solve. Praying and burning offerings and cutting out the hearts of
sacrificial humans, were at least *doing* something. Certainly, *doing*
something would have appeared to have a better chance of attaining desired
goals, for societies steeped in ignorance, than not doing anything because
it was likely all that ritual really was useless.

This argument is even made today: why take a chance not carrying out 
rituals when *doing* a ritual just might have a desired consequence?

response 196 of 236:

Sep 7 20:58 UTC 2000

And Rane replies with the standard answer.  Same debate, same theories 
repeated.  <sighs>