I've been reading Huston Smith's Why Religion Matters? (Review to follow in a week or two) and he quotes an author named Stephen Carter who I feel makes a pretty good point. He says it in the form of a statement, but I will rephrase in the form of a question: Is the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment of the Constitution intended to guard religious liberty or to guarantee public secularism? In other words, does the oft-misquoted "separation of church and state" mean that Religion has no place in Government or that Government has no place in Religion? I think that most secularists would answer "yes" to both questions and militant atheists would answer "yes" only to former question. Certainly, even if a militant atheist did answer "yes" to both it would only be because they know they would be judged as biased otherwise.

However, if we consider what the authors of the time were going through, I think it's clear that the Establishment Clause refers pretty singularly to Government not telling its constituents what religion they may or may not practice. I always learned that the American founders were Protestant refugees from Europe who were seeking asylum from a dictatorial Catholic church-state. If this is true, then my reason for believing the intent of the Establishment Clause is clear. If it isn't true... well... then somebody ought to talk to the Ohio State Board of Education about their curriculum!

To add to my case further, consider this: The framers of the Constitution (as any "Constitutionalist" or "Libertarian" will tell you) were interested in having a system of government that allowed for liberty... that is, freedom. With this in mind, we clearly can rule out the Establishment Clause is anything but a protection of the right to practice whatever religion you want (and that includes ruling out the idea that Religion can not influence Government).

Now, having said that, I think there still exist some issues. While I believe that Government may not dictate what religion you should practice, I also agree that certain laws that have been or are trying to be passed by the Religious Right are imposing Christianity on society.

How do we find the right balance?

I don't pretend to have the answer to this question. If I did, then surely someone would have come up with it before me and enacted it. However, I can certainly say that the wrong way to answer this is with flipping the Establishment Clause on its head as secularists/atheists have done and making it akin to a crime to practice religion.

I think the best example of this backward interpretation of the Establishment Clause is in the realm of Creation vs. Evolution. Personally, I don't believe that the Universe was created in six days as is described in Genesis. However, I also feel that the story (call it a "myth" if you want) of Genesis is no more a myth than the story of String Theory. The real difference is that the Genesis story was created using words and the String Theory story was created using mathematics. Neither story has been proven (and, in my opinion, will ever be proven) empirically. I know a lot of people will disagree with that last statement, but I charge them with finding a way to prove me wrong! That is, prove to me that String Theory can be proven. It's a silly argument and clearly it has no place here.

But I digress....

There has been a strong push to remove any mention of Creationism from public schools. I certainly agree that schools should not be forced to promote Creationism as the sole theory for the existence of the universe. But to claim - categorically - that Evolution (or more specifically String Theory) should be the only thing taught in schools is making the mistake of choosing one unverifiable myth over another!

This is another example of Scientism creeping into the mainstream consciousness. We believe so readily, so fully, and - indeed - so blindly in Science that we truly believe it has the answers when, in fact, not even the best of String Theorists can tell you, for sure, what caused the Universe to begin.