If citizens in the USA cared about keeping evangelizing and proselytizing out of the schools, the Constitution would be accompanied by laws imposing fines and other punitive measures for doing it. Teachers would be suspended, depending on the severity of the violation, and students reporting a violation would be given rewards. Families forced to move because of community reactions like this one would receive full compensation from the school district for every provable loss, including the full costs of relocation and all economic losses associated with necessary career changes for the parents.
No doubt the major political candidates will get right on it.
Apparently we need laws restricting the free exercise of religion. For example, a law that forbids a school from inviting a pastor to provide an invocation at a school where he might express a religious idea or three.
The funny part is that people like PLaClair don’t see that as turning the Constitution upside down.
Bryan—what is the context of your concern. is that that you want to see intelligent design taught in schools, is that that you think religious instruction is at least partly appropriate, are you just concerned about government regulation in general ---
I am getting the impression—though I can’t say where—that there is a tip-of-the-iceberg thing and your actual concern is an elephant off-stage.
Thanks for the pew forum link, I’ll go through it.
I am getting the impression—though I can’t say where—that there is a tip-of-the-iceberg thing and your actual concern is an elephant off-stage.
In THIS thread Bryan argued for “teaching the controversy” about creationism in biology class. So it’s pretty clear that he wants religion to infuse science teaching and believes that public schools have every right to institute prayer, proselytization and religious indoctrination into their regular schedules.
The question I’d ask is, Where does it end? Clearly Bryan doesn’t believe that Jewish parents have any right to sue to eliminate such proselytization in their schools, so this means that any parents of minority religions must put up with public proselytization against their own religious beliefs.
Madison proposed that the Bill of Rights include restrictions on the states as to “conscience”, i.e., religion, among other rights. See HERE:
MADISON: No state shall violate the equal rights of conscience, or the freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases.
This was not ratified at the time. With the 14th amendment Madison’s preference is finally law.
Madison also wrote about one reason why he did not like the idea of a Bill of Rights: because he was afraid that a tyrannical majority would limit freedom of conscience to the majority religion. See HERE:
MADISON: I have not viewed [having a bill of rights] in an important light ... because there is great reason to fear that a positive declaration of some of the most essential rights could not be obtained in the requisite latitude. I am sure that the rights of Conscience in particular, if submitted to public definition would be narrowed much more than they are likely ever to be by an assumed power. One of the objections in New England was that the Constitution by prohibiting religious tests, opened a door for Jews, Turks & infidels. ...
In Virginia I have seen the bill of rights violated in every instance where it has been opposed to a popular current. Notwithstanding the explicit provision contained in that instrument for the rights of Conscience it is well known that a religious establishment wd. have taken place in that State, if the legislative majority had found as they expected, a majority of the people in favor of the measure; and I am persuaded that if a majority of the people were now of one sect, the measure would still take place and on narrower ground than was then proposed, notwithstanding the additional obstacle which the law has since created. Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents. ... Wherever there is an interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done, and not less readily by a powerful & interested party than by a powerful and interested prince.
Madison was quite right. Nowadays as well we are seeing “the bill of rights violated in every instance where it has been opposed to a popular current.” This is precisely the oppression that Madison foresaw, “[lying] in the majority of the Community”, who are believing Christians.
OK, but I was paraphrasing. When you put it in quotes it wasn’t clear who you were quoting.
I don’t suppose you want to deal with the accuracy (or lack thereof) of your supposed paraphrase. I invited you to explain what you meant, and I suppose that calling it a “paraphrase” means you intended it to express the meaning of the establishment clause--but that doesn’t resolve the issue of whether or not your wording appeared to equivocate on the term “respecting.” Hot potato?
Bryan - 02 March 2008 09:49 AM
I restrict it according to the level of government, not with respect to the notion that the specific denominations should not receive federal funding. Madison certainly had no conception at that time that the scope of the federal government would expand as it has. A federal department of education like we have today would certainly put his jaw on the floor, along with the corresponding encroachment on the power of state and local governments.
I don’t know what you mean by this. Are you still pretending that the 14th amendment doesn’t exist?
Fallacy of the complex question, Doug.
I don’t pretend that the 14th Amendment doesn’t exist. I point out that the Framers almost certainly did not have the 14th Amendment in mind as they penned the First Amendment. Moreover, I’d argue that the 14th Amendment 1) almost certainly was not intended to justify expanding the reach of the federal government as that was the doing of the court system decades later 2) with dubious justification from the text of the 14th Amendment. Feel free to deal with either of those points, which represent my view. The rhetorical technique of claiming that I pretend that the 14th Amendment doesn’t exist is cheap, easy, and inaccurate.
Once again, it is well established law that the first amendment is binding on the states through Due Process. If your argument turns on rejection of this interpretation of the 14th amendment, it sounds like you are arguing for a return to pre-Civil War america.
Once again, your argument smacks of equivocation and ad hominem. The 14th Amendment was written after the Civil War. I’d be content with the plain language of that law unadorned with the creative mutations devised by activist judges. Favoring an originalist understanding of the 14th Amendment is a far cry from advocating a return to pre-Civil War America (with the probable intentional insinuation that I’m a racist in addition to my supposed antisemitism).
At any rate you are not arguing anything that is seriously believed by any of the participants in present legal discussions of the first amendment. You’re just out on your own.
Meh. As assertion suitably devoid of evidence in support.
And I don’t assume that the later clause is more important. I simply question your assertion that the former clause is more important. The rationale you have provided in support thus far is pathetic. Put it in a deductive syllogism and you’ll see that you’re committing the fallacy of begging the question (unless you’re just basing an inductive argument on three examples, which is also a fallacy).
There’s no fallacy there, and this is not an inductive argument. It’s an inference to the best explanation. All you’re doing in your rebuttal is using overheated rhetoric ("pathetically weak”, “making a fool of yourself") rather than actually making any coherent counterclaims. Bluster does not substitute for argument.
I note that you neither supplied a syllogism nor produced any evidence that you took my suggestion that you consider how your syllogism would look.
You’re the one trying to get by on bluster, Doug. Why is it you don’t realize that an inference to the best explanation is an inductive argument (inevitably probabilistic unless you succeed in eliminating the other possibilities entirely)? Far from being “overheated rhetoric,” you are simply getting my calm and rational assessment of your argument. You don’t have anything (three examples gets you to an inference to the best explanation? Puh-lease).
Now, as to your prior argument, you actually did claim HERE that forbidding proselytization in any context violated the first amendment.
I encourage you to use my exact words, since you appear to manifest a difficulty with the art of paraphrase ("The state cannot respect an establishment of religion”).
In order to make that argument, you must assume that the latter clause takes precedence over the former.
No I don’t. I’ve already explained that to you. You can try to rebut my argument if you like, but simply contradicting it only reproduces a Monty Python sketch.
That is, you must assume that free exercise trumps the apparent establishment of religion by an agency of the government.
I don’t see why, when you appear to have already conceded my point: “Sometimes in the law one must violate one clause to enforce another.”
Do you remember who wrote that?
So yes, you did assume that the latter clause was more important than the former.
Non sequitur. If you will address my argument rather than the one you supply for me your illusion ought to fade (assuming rationality, not determinism!).
In fact, in any of these complex discussions one must make a decision between various competing clauses of the Constitution.
I’m guessing you’ll want to take back what you said, then (""Sometimes in the law one must violate one clause to enforce another").
I have provided a number of examples to show that in general, in law codes written at a particular time, earlier clauses are more important than later clauses.
Notably, you did not provide the law codes per se as your examples, but individual examples from three different law codes where nearby cases appear to make excellent counterexamples--and you ignore the counterexamples (except when claiming that I’m simply assuming that the later clause is more important--as if there’s any clear distinction that you’re not doing exactly what you claim I’m doing).
And with millions of laws in the world you not only try to forge a generalization out of three examples but also bristle at the notion that your argument is pathetic. Amusing.
I encourage you to construct your argument in the form of a syllogism, Doug. It may be your best chance to see the error of your ways (or, alternatively, demonstrate that I’m wrong about the argument).
You have not provided any evidence that in general, in law codes written at a particular time, later clauses are more important than earlier ones.
Why would I accept a fallacious shift of the burden of proof like that? We’re still waiting on your evidence that temporal priority serves sufficiently as an indication of priority to support your original assertion. I bear no burden of proof for the opposite assertion, for I haven’t made it.
Without that further argument, your claim supporting free exercise over establishment is, by your own lights, completely ad hoc. That is, it violates establishment but not free exercise, and you prefer to do it that way simply because it makes you happier.
How would it possibly violate establishment if any individual (regardless of religious viewpoint) has the ability to exercise freedom of speech regarding his viewpoint? It would appear to be the very model of government neutrality. Please expound on your own view of the matter.
But at any rate, as I’d argued before, there is clearly no unlimited right to proselytization.
Meh. You ignored my counterargument intended to show that your claim is overblown. I guess you prefer your argument in all of its overblown splendor.
The point of “free exercise” was to establish unlimited freedom of conscience, not unlimited freedom of action. Once an action impinges on the freedoms of someone else (as proselytization must do) the “free exercise” clause is less binding, as I noted before with Cantwell vs. Connecticut (the Free Exercise Clause “embraces two concepts— freedom to believe and freedom to act.
Please explain how proselytizing “must” impinge on freedom of conscience. The Jehovah’s Witnesses routinely trample the First Amendment? Why haven’t we arrested the lot of them? Have you alerted the FBI regarding my several mentions of religion on these discussion boards?
The first is absolute, but in the nature of things, the second cannot be.”) So this is yet a second argument for denying the claim that when it comes to proselytization, free exercise trumps establishment.
The state, or organs thereof, cannot proselytize in favor of any religion. This is clearly forbidden by the first amendment.
We go through the whole bit of the 14th Amendment and the subsequent activism of the courts and after all of that you’re still claiming a basis in the First Amendment? Is that another paraphrase?
Brian, why don’t you try to put your arguments into a developed, coherent form rather than breaking them up sentence by sentence. You are making no sense, and haven’t answered a single one of my arguments as a result.
As for the “burden of proof for the opposite assertion”, I cited precisely the post where you made that assertion. Claiming it doesn’t exist won’t get you anywhere.
And BTW, if you think inference to the best explanation is an inductive argument, you don’t know what either of them are. That’s fine by me, one doesn’t really need to have a handle on such logical forms or their fallacies to argue successfully, but then it’s really best to leave them aside.
Back to the original article. An orthodox Jewish family was upset about the presence of sectarian religious activity in their Delaware public school. This included “the school board practice of beginning its sessions with prayer”, “Christian prayers at school potluck dinners, award dinners and meetings of parent-teacher groups”, and finally, “At [their daughter’s] high school graduation in 2004, a minister’s prayer proclaiming Jesus as the only way to the truth”. This sectarian activity amounted to proselytization in an organ of the state. One does not need to claim that all of the activity is unacceptable, but only that there is a pattern of conduct here that is unacceptable.
While the opinions of the Founding Fathers are not the be-all and end-all of discussions about US politics, nevertheless it is interesting to contemplate what they might have said about this state of affairs.
In his Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, James Madison argued that the state of Virginia should refrain from paying for “teachers of the Christian religion”, since it amounted to a “dangerous abuse of power”. It would implicitly establish Christianity as the state religion, and “Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?”
The Delaware case does not involve paying a teacher, however it does involve hiring a pastor, as well as having a school board that acted in an overtly religious capacity. Madison’s argument carries over just as well to this more limited case: who does not see that the same authority that hired a pastor to preach for Jesus may with the same ease have hired a pastor to preach for Catholicism, Mormonism or Islam in exclusion of all other sects?
In his Detached Memoranda argument against Congressional chaplainships, Madison also discussed how such religious matters will devolve into a tyranny of the majority. The problem with any public sectarian choice is that it will, of necessity, be given to the religious creed that has the most adherents: “Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers. or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor.”
These matters are specifically relevant to proselytization. Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance contains a number of arguments against allowing special privileges for proselytization, as would occur were Christian teachers to be in the pay of the government. He considers members of a couple of smaller Christian sects and asks, “Ought their Religions to be endowed above all others with extraordinary privileges by which proselytes may be enticed from all others?” They should not; rather, “Such a [just] Government will be best supported by protecting every Citizen in the enjoyment of his Religion with the same equal hand which protects his person and his property; by neither invading the equal rights of any Sect, nor suffering any Sect to invade those of another.” That is, there should be no privilege of government sponsored religious teaching or proselytization, by which one (probably major) sect may “invade” another (probably minor) one.
Now, the rebuttal here may well be that prayer does not equate to proselytization. Although clearly both were going on in Delaware, perhaps there is nothing remiss in the prayers. But Madison’s argument here went beyond simple proselytization to include “religious proclamations” by officeholders, since “they imply a religious agency, making no part of the trust delegated to political rulers.” In other words, officeholders should refrain from arrogating to themselves religious proclamations. These must include prayer, since prayer is of necessity religious.
Lastly, there is the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, which Madison described thusly: “Here the separation between the authority of human laws, and the natural rights of Man excepted from the grant on which all political authority is founded, is traced as distinctly as words can admit, and the limits to this authority established with as much solemnity as the forms of legislation can express.” It explicitly forbids forced proselytization: “Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.” In the Delaware case, attendance at public school being a necessity, and religious indoctrination a regular occurrence, both child and parent are being “compelled to frequent and support” a “religious place”.
The counterargument here will be that the minister, school board, etc. have to remain “free to profess, and by argument to maintain, [their] opinions in matters of religion”. That is true, but this Act does not state or imply that they have the right to do such professions at every place. The Christian teachers who Madison believed should not be employed by the state of Virginia had every right to argue their opinions, but they should not be in the state’s employ while doing so. So too the minister has the right to make such arguments, but not under state hire at a public function.
Why make such public distinctions? As Madison says, “Because it will destroy that moderation and harmony which the forbearance of our laws to intermeddle with Religion has produced among its several sects. Torrents of blood have been split in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious disscord, by proscribing all difference in Religious opinion.” And we have a particular example of this discord here. This Jewish family was forced to move “After the family received threats” from Christian anti-semites in the local community. This is precisely the sort of sectarian strife that is caused when the state ends up implicitly or explicitly supporting particular religious views. Or in other words, social strife results when secularism is put aside in favor of public sectarianism.
I don’t have anything to add here at the moment. I just wanted to thank you, Doug, for that piece. It certainly goes beyond banal argument and instead argues precisely with well reasoned references. The way it is presented is pretty far beyond what I’m used to seeing on forum boards and motivates me to perhaps try a bit harder.
Brian, why don’t you try to put your arguments into a developed, coherent form rather than breaking them up sentence by sentence.
Because then it wouldn’t be clear that I addressed every single point you attempted to make. That’s why.
You are making no sense, and haven’t answered a single one of my arguments as a result.
I have trouble understanding how it fails to make sense to you. I provide the context of what you say (all of it, via quotation) and address precisely what you say. But, I’ll try another format if that will make you happy, Doug.
For my part, I would say that your method of not answering sentence by sentence has resulted in you not answering my arguments--and I can provide the text that I wrote along with the reply you composed that fails to address it.
I doubt you could do anything approaching the same. Your pattern in this conversation is to make assertions and avoid supporting them (with your sentence above just the latest of many examples).
As for the “burden of proof for the opposite assertion”, I cited precisely the post where you made that assertion. Claiming it doesn’t exist won’t get you anywhere.
I asked you to quote me since your ability to paraphrase has been subject to doubt following your attempt to encapsulate the separation clause of the First Amendment (seems you steered me directly to another example of your tendency to make unsupported assertions and avoid addressing my arguments).
Here’s what I wrote:
I’d say the point is that the minute Congress OKs a law that forbids proselytizing they’ve violated the First Amendment.
And here’s the by-now-legendary Dougish attempt to paraphrase (with a healthy dollop of misguided logic thrown in):
In order to assert (as you did) that forbidding proselytization in any context violates the first amendment, you must assume the converse: that the latter clause takes precedence over the former. That is, you must assume that free exercise trumps the apparent establishment of religion by an agency of the government. http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewthread/3756/P15/#34218
Now, you could search my posts for the rest of your natural life and you won’t find the assertion from me that the later clause is necessarily more important than the preceding clause (neither in general nor in this specific case), but somehow that doesn’t stop Doug from asserting it anyway:
“As for the “burden of proof for the opposite assertion”, I cited precisely the post where you made that assertion.”
What about my several sentences of argumentation making clear that my statement doesn’t have the logical implication that Doug saw? Well, those constitute a third example of argumentation by me that Doug has simply chosen to ignore.
And BTW, if you think inference to the best explanation is an inductive argument, you don’t know what either of them are.
There’s Doug with another of his unsupported assertions.
I’ll show you how it’s done again, Doug.
In contemporary thought a valid deductive argument is an argument in which the conclusion is necessitated by the premises. For example, the conclusion “Fido has four legs” is necessitated by the premises “ All dogs have four legs” and “Fido is a dog” Thus it is one in which the premises cannot be true and the conclusion false. A strong inductive argument, on the other hand, is an argument in which the premises make the conclusion very probable but do not necessitate it. Thus, inductive arguments are probabilistic, hence not deductive, arguments. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/induction.html
That’s fine by me, one doesn’t really need to have a handle on such logical forms or their fallacies to argue successfully, but then it’s really best to leave them aside.
Heh.
I’ll get to work on putting my earlier reply in a different format.
Ugh, Bryan, the pomposity and dripping sarcasm really don’t become you. None of the things you quoted had anything to do with inference to the best explanation, which is otherwise known as abduction in philosophy of science. They were all talking about deduction and induction, which are not the same thing as abduction.
If you want to learn more about abduction, you can start, e.g., HERE. Unfortunately the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy hasn’t yet written their chapter on abduction, although it will eventually be written by Peter Lipton.
Well, I should thank Bryan for getting me to write it up ...
You might, at that:
Seriously, if you had a good argument relying on the law itself wouldn’t it be a good idea to stick with a strong presentation of that argument without all the cheesy window dressing? http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewreply/34214/
I have the impression that Doug has chosen to bail on his earlier approach. I’ll make response to Doug’s serious attempt a higher priority than re-formatting the reply I posted that Doug asserted “mak(es) no sense.”
Back to the original article. An orthodox Jewish family was upset about the presence of sectarian religious activity in their Delaware public school. This included “the school board practice of beginning its sessions with prayer”, “Christian prayers at school potluck dinners, award dinners and meetings of parent-teacher groups”, and finally, “At [their daughter’s] high school graduation in 2004, a minister’s prayer proclaiming Jesus as the only way to the truth”. This sectarian activity amounted to proselytization in an organ of the state. One does not need to claim that all of the activity is unacceptable, but only that there is a pattern of conduct here that is unacceptable.
In what context is degree of need established and why (supporting reference(s) would be ideal)?
While the opinions of the Founding Fathers are not the be-all and end-all of discussions about US politics, nevertheless it is interesting to contemplate what they might have said about this state of affairs.
In his Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, James Madison argued that the state of Virginia should refrain from paying for “teachers of the Christian religion”, since it amounted to a “dangerous abuse of power”. It would implicitly establish Christianity as the state religion, and “Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?”
The Delaware case does not involve paying a teacher, however it does involve hiring a pastor, as well as having a school board that acted in an overtly religious capacity. Madison’s argument carries over just as well to this more limited case: who does not see that the same authority that hired a pastor to preach for Jesus may with the same ease have hired a pastor to preach for Catholicism, Mormonism or Islam in exclusion of all other sects?
In his Detached Memoranda argument against Congressional chaplainships, Madison also discussed how such religious matters will devolve into a tyranny of the majority. The problem with any public sectarian choice is that it will, of necessity, be given to the religious creed that has the most adherents: “Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers. or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor.”
These matters are specifically relevant to proselytization. Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance contains a number of arguments against allowing special privileges for proselytization, as would occur were Christian teachers to be in the pay of the government. He considers members of a couple of smaller Christian sects and asks, “Ought their Religions to be endowed above all others with extraordinary privileges by which proselytes may be enticed from all others?” They should not; rather, “Such a [just] Government will be best supported by protecting every Citizen in the enjoyment of his Religion with the same equal hand which protects his person and his property; by neither invading the equal rights of any Sect, nor suffering any Sect to invade those of another.” That is, there should be no privilege of government sponsored religious teaching or proselytization, by which one (probably major) sect may “invade” another (probably minor) one.
Now, the rebuttal here may well be that prayer does not equate to proselytization. Although clearly both were going on in Delaware, perhaps there is nothing remiss in the prayers. But Madison’s argument here went beyond simple proselytization to include “religious proclamations” by officeholders, since “they imply a religious agency, making no part of the trust delegated to political rulers.” In other words, officeholders should refrain from arrogating to themselves religious proclamations. These must include prayer, since prayer is of necessity religious.
The proper rebuttal, IMO, is that the Virginia law about which Madison wrote provided financial support directly to a set of denominations. That was the particular example of “special privileges.” Review the first paragraph of your post, Doug, and try to identify the “special privileges” dispensed in this case (good time to provide substantiation of the assertion that a pastor was “hired").
Lastly, there is the Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, which Madison described thusly: “Here the separation between the authority of human laws, and the natural rights of Man excepted from the grant on which all political authority is founded, is traced as distinctly as words can admit, and the limits to this authority established with as much solemnity as the forms of legislation can express.” It explicitly forbids forced proselytization: “Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.” In the Delaware case, attendance at public school being a necessity, and religious indoctrination a regular occurrence, both child and parent are being “compelled to frequent and support” a “religious place”.
The first paragraph talked about school board meetings for which attendance is not mandatory. Likewise the other examples (potluck dinners and parent meetings). Graduation is the strongest example among them, but attendance at graduation isn’t typically required.
The counterargument here will be that the minister, school board, etc. have to remain “free to profess, and by argument to maintain, [their] opinions in matters of religion”. That is true, but this Act does not state or imply that they have the right to do such professions at every place. The Christian teachers who Madison believed should not be employed by the state of Virginia had every right to argue their opinions, but they should not be in the state’s employ while doing so. So too the minister has the right to make such arguments, but not under state hire at a public function.
Do we have any evidence at all that the pastors or ministers were hired by the state in these cases?
Why make such public distinctions? As Madison says, “Because it will destroy that moderation and harmony which the forbearance of our laws to intermeddle with Religion has produced among its several sects. Torrents of blood have been split in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious disscord, by proscribing all difference in Religious opinion.” And we have a particular example of this discord here. This Jewish family was forced to move “After the family received threats” from Christian anti-semites in the local community. This is precisely the sort of sectarian strife that is caused when the state ends up implicitly or explicitly supporting particular religious views. Or in other words, social strife results when secularism is put aside in favor of public sectarianism.
I don’t think that it should be lightly ignored that the recriminations occurred in response to an apparent attempt to reach the law beyond what is called for in the argument you made, Doug. Do we have evidence that any Jewish folk other than those who sued received threats? It seems that the underlying cause of the violence (not to minimize the wrongs committed by those who harassed or threatened) was not any statutorily mandated practice of the government, but the attempt by the Jewish family to restrict the aforementioned freedom of expression by forcing the state to restrict religious speech through the threat of lawsuit.
I also find it interesting that Doug inferred that the harassment was conducted by “Christian antisemites.” He could be right--but the news account doesn’t say it. It could just as well be non-Christian neo-Nazis drawn to the area by the controversy, using it as a recruitment tool.
Ugh, Bryan, the pomposity and dripping sarcasm really don’t become you. None of the things you quoted had anything to do with inference to the best explanation, which is otherwise known as abduction in philosophy of science. They were all talking about deduction and induction, which are not the same thing as abduction.
If your argument employs abduction then you’re forced to concede the weakness of the argument.
Appealing to abduction instead of induction (which might have given you the avenue toward a “strong” inductive argument) is pretty much an admission of fallacious reasoning.
abduction: A heuristic procedure that reasons inductively from available empirical evidence to the discovery of the probable hypotheses that would best explain its occurrence. http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/a.htm
What was it you said, Doug? “There is no fallacy"--something like that?
If you want to learn more about abduction, you can start, e.g., HERE. Unfortunately the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy hasn’t yet written their chapter on abduction, although it will eventually be written by Peter Lipton.
It seems plain enough that it involves induction (like I said) and appears to indicate that you reasoned fallaciously (which you denied).
There’s no fallacy there, and this is not an inductive argument. It’s an inference to the best explanation. All you’re doing in your rebuttal is using overheated rhetoric ("pathetically weak”, “making a fool of yourself") rather than actually making any coherent counterclaims. Bluster does not substitute for argument. http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewreply/34273/
Abduction has fallacy built in. How does it fail to follow that the argument depending on abduction is “pathetically weak”?
I must admit that this is the first time I’ve seen “hire” used where it doesn’t mean the person gets paid.
Do you know that the pastor was not paid? It doesn’t say so in the article. At any rate, Madison’s argument does not turn crucially on payment. It turns on the special privileges granted by elected officials on religious sects. In this case, that privilege was the opportunity to proselytize with the apparent backing of the local elected school board.
Bryan - 03 March 2008 09:44 AM
The first paragraph talked about school board meetings for which attendance is not mandatory. Likewise the other examples (potluck dinners and parent meetings). Graduation is the strongest example among them, but attendance at graduation isn’t typically required.
The potluck dinners and parent meetings are background context here, but if the behavior were confined to them, I certainly admit that there would be no case. Attendance at board meetings is mandatory if you want to do your public duty by attending them. Their sort of practice is de facto exclusionary of all with contrary religious beliefs.
Bryan - 03 March 2008 09:44 AM
I also find it interesting that Doug inferred that the harassment was conducted by “Christian antisemites.” He could be right--but the news account doesn’t say it. It could just as well be non-Christian neo-Nazis drawn to the area by the controversy, using it as a recruitment tool.
Well, if the harassment were caused by some unaffiliated group, I expect that the article would have mentioned it. (E.g., by saying that this disagreement drew non-Christian neo-Nazis into the area). It does say that “Anger spilled onto talk radio, in letters to the editor and at school board meetings attended by hundreds of people carrying signs praising Jesus.”, and that “Her son, Alex, then 11, had written a short statement that said in part: “I feel bad when kids in my class call me ‘Jew boy.’”
