PART 6:

THOUGHT PROVOKING QUESTIONS THAT WE HAVE RECEIVED; WITH OUR RESPONSES

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Interesting Emails discussed in this essay:

Posting a church notice in a public school classroom:

Incoming Email: "I need some help on the Equal Access law. I have mounted a poster about my church's Easter drama on my public school classroom wall. Another teacher told me this is illegal."
Our response: Interesting question. But what you have done is unrelated to the Equal Access law.

A main reason why the U.S. has enjoyed an absence of religious wars, mass murders and genocides, even though it has been described as the most religiously diverse country in the world, is that it enforces a separation of church and state. The Supreme Court derived the principle from the First Amendment of the Constitution. It requires governments (and public schools) to avoid three things:

1. Promoting one religion over another.
2. Promoting a religious lifestyle as superior to a secular lifestyle.
3. Promoting a secular lifestyle over a religious lifestyle.

Your poster about your church's Easter drama is quite legal in a shopping center, church, poll hall, etc. However, in a public school, it violates:

However, according to a number of court cases regarding the Ten Commandments, one way in which you could display your poster might be to post it as one item in a collection of items regarding special days of significance during springtime. For example, you could place a poster describing the Wiccan celebration of one of their eight Sabbats, the Vernal Equinox on (typically) March 21. This is sometimes called Alban Eilir, Eostar, Eostre, Lady Day, Ostara. That would probably overcome Item 1. But then you would have to add a corresponding number of secular posters to the collection to overcome Item 2: One might be the celebration of the Equinox by the American Atheists. Another might be a poster recommending that people change the batteries in their fire alarms on the Equinox. Such a display of two religious and two secular posters would probably be considered constitutional by most courts.

There might be a second alternative for the Christian poster. The Equal Access law requires that any public school that receives federal funding and which has as few as one extra-curricular student-organized and student-run club, must allow a Bible study club (or for that matter, a Buddhist Club or Wiccan Study Group) to organize. Such a club must be given equal opportunity to publicize their activities. So, if the astronomy club is allowed to put a poster on a central bulletin board advertising their club meeting, then the Bible club must be permitted to post a notice about their meetings as well. Now, it might be a bit of a stretch for a Bible club to post a church's poster, unless it had a very strong connection to the club itself -- perhaps wording saying that the Bible club would be observing their Easter week meeting by attending this church's drama. I have never seen reference to a court challenge of the right of a Bible Club to post a community church's poster. It would be an interesting case.

Of course, you could continue to post the church ad. Since you live in an area of the U.S. which has a strong Christian culture, few if any students or adults will complain. But it would be unconstitutional. It would send the message that Christianity is superior to all other religions, and to secularism. It would probably make some of your non-Christian students feel distressed. This option does not seem like a positive one.

Should we tolerate falsehoods?

Incoming Email: "Your metaphysical errors are of graver a deficiency than any electronic errors. Religious tolerance? Should one tolerate falsehood? You'd probably say yes."

Our response: Yes. We should tolerate falsehood.

According to the Times News Service, the recent Encyclical by the Pope, Dominus Iesus implies that "Churches such as the Church of England, where the apostolic succession of bishops from the time of St. Peter is disputed by Rome, and churches without bishops, are not considered 'proper' churches." Non-Catholic religious groups are in falsehood.

According to many conservative Christian churches, Roman Catholics, liberal Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, etc are false religions. Some are even considered forms of Satanism.

According to many Muslims and Jews, Christianity is a false polytheistic religion that is does not recognize the monotheism of Allah or Yahweh.

Not tolerating other religions leads directly towards the recent situations in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Cyprus, Nigeria, Sudan, Middle East, Iraq/Iran, Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka, Philippines, etc. It ends up in the gas ovens of Nazi Germany and the 911 terrorists.

So, we recommend religious tolerance. We should allow persons of other religions to coexist in freedom without oppression or discrimination, even if their beliefs seem quite strange to us. In that way, we can expect us to coexist, even if our beliefs are quite strange to them.

Why doesn't this web site take a stand on abortion?

Incoming Email: "I was doing research on abortion and stumbled on your website. Why don't you decide whether you're for or against it and go with it."

Our response: I think that you misunderstand the nature of our web site.

Unlike about 99% of the religious web sites on the Internet, we do not promote one point of view. We are a multi-faith group which diverse beliefs concerning deity, humanity and the rest of the universe. Our group have diverse personal beliefs about women's abortion access. We try to explain all points of view accurately, clearly, and concisely.

On topics related to Bible passages, we explain at least the conservative and liberal Christian position. Sometimes, we toss in the beliefs of the early Christian church from the 1st and 2nd century CE. Often the three belief systems are quite different.

On topics related to homosexuality, we explain the beliefs of religious conservatives; we also explain the beliefs of human sexuality researchers, therapists, gay, lesbians and religious liberals.

We are not promoting our own beliefs here. We are acting as reporters, explaining the beliefs of others.

There are literally tens of thousands of pro-life abortion sites out there which promote the pro-life position. They tend to be not particularly accurate. There are many hundreds of pro-choice abortion web sites as well. Many of them are not particularly accurate either. We feel that there is a need for a web site to present all sides to each topic. We hope that people can use the information on this website to make their own decisions.

This essay continues below.

How can a Christian disbelieve any major part of the Bible?

Incoming Email: "...explain to me how a  Christian would discount anything in the Bible. I don't mean picking and choosing parables as literals but not believing something to be the foundation of humanity."

Our response: We get a lot of questions of this type. Most are related to the visitor's definition of the word "Christian."

Suppose we temporarily assign a new meaning to the term "Christian" than the one you may be used to -- just for the purposes of this dialog. Suppose we define "Christian" as anyone who sincerely, devoutly, prayerfully, seriously, and thoughtfully believes themselves to be a follower of Christ and his teachings. This term "Christian" would then include Fundamentalist
Protestants, other Evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, liberal Protestants, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox followers, Mormons, Unificationists, Christian Scientists, a small percentage of Unitarian Universalists, etc.

A major difference among these various groups is their concept of what the Bible is. The following is a gross over-simplification, but may give you some idea of the dynamics involved.

The Bible contains hundreds of inconsistencies. For example, the synoptic gospels -- Mark, Matthew and Luke -- clearly teach that there are two ways to reach heaven: by treating other people kindly and with love, or by emulating Jesus' lifestyle of a poverty stricken itinerant preacher. The Gospel of John clearly teaches that one goes to heaven if you accept Jesus to be the Son of God. The writings of Paul clearly state that one goes to heaven if you recognize Jesus' resurrection. For another example, many passages in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) clearly teach that the universe has many gods. They are described in anthropomorphic terms -- deities who are large, extremely powerful, human like creatures with bodies.  It is only the later prophets who made the transition to consider Yahweh as the only God, and to accept the belief that God is a spirit.

In conclusion:

Copyright © 2003 to 2007 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally written: 2003-APR-11
Latest update: 2007-OCT-28
Author: B.A. Robinson