Atheism

@Thomas,

I interpret it to mean that a religious person cannot be disqualified simply because of religion. I don't see that it references atheists at all, except in that atheists are included as being unable to disqualify the religious.

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@Thomas,

Well, they could have but the fact they specified that believers couldn't be disqualified tells me that folks may have been trying to do just that. I don't think that it gives them preferential protection over anyone else from being disqualified. Kinda like the assurance that T. Jefferson was giving the baptists that the government wouldn't dictate their practices in his now famous letter.

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@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

I don't see that it references atheists at all

But that's the point! By not referencing them at all, the Pennsylvania constitution declines to protect disbelievers from being disqualified for public office. Its protection applies to believers only.

I'm not sure what more to say to you and JPB. With all due respect, this is a really simple exercise in text comprehension. Just compare what the Pennsylvania Constitution actually says:

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No person who acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this Commonwealth.

... with what the same article conceivably could have said, had the framers wanted to say what you interpret the text to mean:

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No person shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this Commonwealth.

What difference does it make that the framers of the Pennsylvania constitution inserted, after "person", the words "who acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments"? The only difference it can possibly make is to withhold protection against being disqualified from disbelievers in god, heaven, and hell. Disqualify a believer from public office, and you violate the Pennsylvania constitution. Disqualify a disbeliever, and you don't. Come on people -- this is not a complicated sentence!

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Thomas wrote:

Disqualify a believer from public office, and you violate the Pennsylvania constitution. Disqualify a disbeliever, and you don't. Come on people -- this is not a complicated sentence!

Ah, these devious Pennsylvania religionists!

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Isn't the beef in the word "acknowledge"?

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@spendius,

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Isn't the beef in the word "acknowledge"?

ooo miss charlotte i do declare you are correct

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Well, it does not specifically exclude non believers from participating.

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@edgarblythe,

According to what I have read acknowleged atheists are excluded by the voters.

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@spendius,

That's generally true for higher office, but in North Carolina where the state constitution bars atheists from being elected("The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God.") a crisis was averted when it was pointed out that

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state law allows officeholders to "affirm" rather than "swear" the oath of office, which exempted Bothwell (the winner) from the state law that would have required him to "lay his hand upon the Holy Scriptures" and say, "so help me God."

In any case, Article VI of the Constitution states "No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

I imagine in the UK there are more avowed atheists winning office than here.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Come on people -- this is not a complicated sentence!

apparently you've got the ability to make it complicated

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

What difference does it make that the framers of the Pennsylvania constitution inserted, after "person", the words "who acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments"? The only difference it can possibly make is to withhold protection against being disqualified from disbelievers in god, heaven, and hell. Disqualify a believer from public office, and you violate the Pennsylvania constitution. Disqualify a disbeliever, and you don't.

In the main, I think that's correct. It seems odd to me that an atheist could be disqualified "on account of his religious sentiments," but if "religious sentiments" include "irreligious sentiments," then I suppose it's possible. No doubt the clause was first placed in the constitution to protect non-conformist types, like the Quakers, who didn't belong to the Church of England, so it was a means of enlarging the pool of people qualified to act as public servants, not limiting it (which is how we might interpret it now). As you pointed out before, though, Pennsylvania couldn't utilize this clause to disqualify atheists from public office today.

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@joefromchicago,

I think Thomas is manifesting some of the intolerance he generally ascribes to "religionists". Could it be that professed atheism does not confer immunity to the failings of human nature?

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

I think Thomas is manifesting some of the intolerance he generally ascribes to "religionists".

I can't imagine why you'd say that.

georgeob1 wrote:

Could it be that professed atheism does not confer immunity to the failings of human nature?

What?

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@joefromchicago,

Thanks for clarifying, Joe! I do realize that Pennsylvania couldn't use this article to disqualify atheists from public office. Even so, I think the removal of restrictions like this is a worthy ambition.

An analogy here could be Mississippi ratifying the 13th Amendment in 1995. This, too, was of no legal consequence, But it terminated a shameful message the state of Mississippi had been sending throughout the 20th century: that as far as its legislature was concerned, the state still approved of slavery. Or at least, that it disapproved of it less than of the constitutional amendment ending it.

State constitutions, too, send messages, whether they have immediate legal consequences or not. When a state's constitution permits the government to disqualify nonbelievers from public office, that's a powerful message of discrimination, even when the federal constitution keeps the state from acting on it. This needs to stop.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

I think Thomas is manifesting some of the intolerance he generally ascribes to "religionists".

What intolerant things did I say?

georgeob1 wrote:

Could it be that professed atheism does not confer immunity to the failings of human nature?

Of course it doesn't! Nobody said it did.

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Those with even a cursory knowledge of English Literature know that anyone who seeks office is unfit to hold it. One assumes the framers of the Constitution were fairly familiar with the genre.

They, to mangle Dr Johnson a little, "discourse like angels and live like men".

But someone must seek office I suppose so our choice is between those who we think will only pick our pockets and those who will break into our houses and steal the contents.

It is reasonable to assume that one who believes he will have to answer to Minos, or St Peter, will adopt the milder methods. Those who don't believe in such things will proceed with whatever is serviceable to their purposes. And if they proclaim such a philosophy we can only take it as a warning.

The 93-97 % of Americans can hardly be mistaken in taking the view that a monkey is preferable to an atheist as the recipient of their votes.

The easy and complacent moral posturings of the unbeliever can hardly be expected to survive close proximity to power.

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@spendius,

Quote:

The 93-97 % of Americans can hardly be mistaken in taking the view that a monkey is preferable to an atheist as the recipient of their votes.

It's a shame you can't distinguish between your own opinion and facts. You'd be hard pressed to find a study that shows that 93-97% of Americans believe that nonsense. I'm starting to realize why many here dismiss your posts as mindless prattle.
It's a shame because I think if you applied yourself we would see some worthwhile posts.

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The easy and complacent moral posturings of the unbeliever can hardly be expected to survive close proximity to power.

Unfortunately, this flies in the face of the facts. The fact being that believers are just as prone to fall from power due to indiscretions.

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@panzade,

It was somebody else pan who posted a survey result which had shown that between 3 and 7% of Americans are atheists. And it was an American commentator who made the monkey remark.

And on the "wisdom of Groups" theory, which is said to be scientific, it is hardly likely that 93-97% of Americans are wrong. Even the thought of such a possibility is astonishing.

The "many here" who dismiss my posts as mindless prattle are simply stumped for grown up ways of confuting my contributions so they allow themselves the luxury of resorting to playground assertions which, whatever they might mean to you, mean nothing to me.

And not only do they mean nothing but they also grant permission for their object to assert the same thing back and they are thus contrary to civilised debate in that they end it.

I consider all my posts to be "worthwhile". I wouldn't post them otherwise.

I'm afraid that you haven't laid a glove on the post you responded to. In fact you haven't even attempted to. I was offering an explanation for the clauses in various documents which were being discussed. Really, really old fashioned ones, from before electricity, internal combustion engines and the hysterical madness of mass media.

And that's all I was doing. If I took the opportunity to have a dig at atheists they can hardly complain seeing as how they have been having dig-festivals at the expense of believers ever since they pubesced and found the time-honoured disapproval of the effects of that event not to their liking.

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I don't have a problem with Thomas. I agree with most things he writes on a2k. Even here, I think of it as a very minor interpretation thing and I agree it would be a good thing to remove such wording altogether.

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@spendius,

Quote:

It was somebody else pan who posted a survey result which had shown that between 3 and 7% of Americans are atheists.

Yeah, that was me.

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And it was an American commentator who made the monkey remark.

Quotation marks would have clarified. As posted it looked like schoolyard smack and sounded like a playground assertion.

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The "many here" who dismiss my posts as mindless prattle are simply stumped for grown up ways of confuting my contributions

Get over yourself

I say this in a kindly manner

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I consider all my posts to be "worthwhile". I wouldn't post them otherwise.

I'm the same way

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I was offering an explanation for the clauses in various documents which were being discussed.

I guess the voters and monkeys thing threw me off balance. Interspersed between Joe and Thomas's thoughtful and succinct posts, yours was a bit off-topic.

1 Reply

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