Posted by:
blindguy
(
)
Date: September 21, 2021 08:19PM
Lot's wife wrote in part:
"That was one of the great, and greatly sacrilegious, innovations in the US constitution. The Founders had seen in Europe what happens when different groups all believe they are acting under divine guidance: the 30 Years War, which devastated Germany and set it back centuries, was just the most salient illustration of that. So they demoted God. They said there would be no state religion, meaning they did not accept the proposition that God directly guides humans. This was not an atheistic argument but it was assuredly agnostic; it meant that people could not know which religion was absolutely true, which God spoke to the whole world."
Actually, the U.S. Constitution goes beyond that as it does not define religion, and that has huge implications on how the U.S. government can deal with religious issues.
A 15-minute segment of last week's "On The Media,", an NPR program, deals with this issue. You can hear this segment at
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/constitution-religion-on-the-mediaHere is the description provided from the site:
"As the Biden administration rolls out its new vaccine mandate for companies of 100 employees or more, some Americans are turning to Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act, which allows employees to opt out of the vaccine over "sincerely held" religious beliefs. Those requests are on the rise, bringing with them a long list of questions. Like, what counts as a religious exemption? How can we tell if they’re sincere? And what even counts as religion? This week, OTM guest host
Sacha Pfeiffer speaks with Indiana University Bloomington professor of law and religious studies
Winnifred Sullivan about why the constitution was designed to avoid answering those questions clearly.
This is a segment from our September 17th, 2021 program,
Fire and Brimstone at
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-fire-and-brimstone?tab=summary"