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Separating Church and State By
Fred Gielow 7/15/04 The issue is not the separation of church and state. The issue is which church will be separated from state. I contend, first, that our Founding Fathers did not envision a state devoid of religious connections, even though that's where it appears some on the left wish to take us. But second, and more interestingly, I contend a state devoid of religious connections is unattainable. If we ignore all of its trappings, religion, fundamentally, is a set of values, so even the unreligious have "religion." Even the atheist or agnostic embraces principles which moderate his thoughts and actions. He practices his own kind of religion, for religion is at core a philosophy of life. And, that's the problem in the government schools. The separation-of-church-and-state soldiers have cast out all Christian elements, but the result is not a religious vacuum. The result is simply the empowerment of a "replacement" religion, such as humanism, or pantheism, or something else. And then school officials are puzzled when parents object to school programs and teachings that promote anti-Christian dogma. When Christian values are replaced with cheap substitutes, the new "values" will then establish the new religion, which will manifest itself in the curriculum and attitudes the students will consume. And of course, this has been the objective all along. As a matter of fact, it could be argued that the government schools today are more dedicated to the "values" business than they were 25 to 50 years ago. As Alan Caruba states in his article in the November 2003 DeWeese Report (page 4): "[T]he real [public school] curriculum is about instilling government-approved attitudes about a range of topics that parents often find appalling. These include environmental, spiritual, and sexual issues." The U.N.'s Biodiversity Treaty states: "Nature has an integral set of different values (cultural, spiritual, and material) where humans are one strand of nature's web, and all living creatures are considered equal. Therefore, the natural way is the right way, and human activities should be molded along nature's rhythms." This is the essence of pantheism, and it is being taught today in government schools, all across the country. Fred Gielow is the author of "You Don't Say," and is involved in property rights activities at: www.youdontsay.org.
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