That's bizarre. I think it's safe to say that wouldn't happen here in California.
Are you saying there are no atheists in California?
So wouldn't an upbringing in any single religious demonimination infringe on a person's "inestimable privilege of worshiping Almighty God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience"? I mean, last I heard, there was more than one religion out there, and being a member of one often sort of precludes the others.
Richard Dawkins (I THINK it's him, I know it's one of the "Four Horsemen" big-name atheist writers) says the same thing - there's really no such thing as a "Christian child" or "Muslim child," just "child of Christian parents" and "child of Muslim parents."
I don't know of any statistics, but I think in modern society children less often choose the faith of their parents when they become adults than they did in previous generations. Mass communication of the last century surely contributes. I've heard of country preachers upset that when high-school graduates from their flock go off to college and come back, they've lost their faith.
The right of people to believe in the unprovable (i.e. the tennets of religious beliefs) ought to stop when it inpacts others' lives (and rights).
Hello, Separation of Church and State? Where the F are you? We need you here now.
I want to know how this got in the NJ State Constitition:
The 1970 Time Magazine article said:
Inestimable Privilege. In an extraordinary decision, Judge Camarata denied the Burkes' right to the child because of their lack of belief in a Supreme Being. Despite the Burkes' "high moral and ethical standards," he said, the New Jersey state constitution declares that "no person shall be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshiping Almighty God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience."
One might argue the judge was just upholding the NJ Constitution, though that part sure appears to go against the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
On a slight tangent here, I can see where the wording of the First Amendment, "
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,..." (bolding mine) might be interpreted as saying that only the US Federal Government is restrained from passing laws related to religion, whereas local and state governments are not so restricted. It seems to me that much of the body of the US Constitution and many of the other amendments clearly only apply to the Federal Government (and its relation to the States, for example). But certainly this has been for the most part, or perhaps always, interpreted as meaning NO government within the US shall make such a law.
On yet another tangent, I've heard Homeowners' associations bylaws have the same legal force as town laws - I wonder if there's such an association that requires a religious belief of its residents.
1970 was some time ago....
Yes, it was. I didn't know they had the internet then. How did this article get online?
Scanners and OCR. Time Magazine is remarkable in having so many of its older articles and issues available online. I suspect that was rather expensive, but then it's all indexed in Google and when you get to the article there's an ad (a CURRENT paying Web ad, not one that was originally with the article!). I've seen a Time article (or two!) from the 1950's on a certain SF-author-turned-self-help-guru, L. Ron Hubbard.
How can you tell it's from 1970? I'm not finding a date on it anywhere (which is really poor planning on Time's part).
Yeah, it's small and gray, but I can read it fine on this CRT. You may have to adjust your monitor.
circa 2007. And said agency still emails us similar stuff.
Spammers! There's something in the mostly-silly "can-spam act" about having "recent business contact" but I'm sure that's for a lot less than two years.
Email them back telling them to stop sending you emails and CC: their Internet provider. Forward any future emails from them to their Internet provider.
And for the record, I also hate Muslim, Jewish and atheist spammers just as much as Christian spammers.
