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"The worldly wise do not believe in the resurrection of the
dead. It is really quite absurd. So everything from the Easter morning to
the Ascension had to be made up by the groveling enthusiasts as part of their
plan to get themselves martyred."
"A general belief in God is one thing, it is quite another
matter to embrace the miracles of the Virgin birth of Christ, His raising the
dead and His own ascension from the grave. Yet it is ‘irrational’ to reject
miracles a priori. One can be sophisticated and believe in God.
Reason and intellect are not to be laid aside where matters of religion are
concerned. What is irrational to reject [is]…the possibility of miracles and
the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is precisely what the worldly wise
do."
"We must pray for the courage to endure the scorn of the
sophisticated world. We are fools for Christ’s sake."
–Justice Atonin Scalia, April 9, 1996, addressing a prayer breakfast in
Jackson, MI, sponsored by the Southern Baptist-affiliated Mississippi College
School of Law’s Christian Legal Society
"It is not irrational to accept the testimony of witnesses who
had nothing to gain from their testimony, of the occurrence of Christ’s
resurrection. What is irrational is to reject…without any investigation
of the possibility of miracles, and Jesus Christ’s resurrection in
particular."
"Even if a miracle occurred under their [the media’s] noses, they
would not believe. To be honest, that is the view of Christians, at least
of traditional Christians, taken by the sophisticated in modern society."
"[You should] have the courage to reject the sophisticated
world."
–Justice Antonin Scalia, October 14, 2001, addressing the Cathedral of the
Immaculate Conception in Fort Wayne, IN
“The ‘wall of
separation between church and state’ is a metaphor based on bad history, a
metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly
and explicitly abandoned.
–Justice William Rehnquist (dissent), Wallace v. Jaffree (1985)
“What matters for purposes
of the Free Speech Clause is that we can see no logical difference in kind between the
invocation of Christianity by the Club and the invocation of teamwork, loyalty, or
patriotism by other associations to provide a foundation for their lessons.”
–Justice Thomas, Good News Club v. Milford Central Schools (2001)
“[The Court’s opinion] bristles with
hostility to all things religious in public life.”
–Justice Rehnquist (dissent), Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe
(2000)
“Government
policies of accommodation, acknowledgement, and support for religion are an
accepted part of our political and cultural heritage, and the Establishment Clause
permits government some latitude in recognizing the central role of religion in
society. Any approach less sensitive to our heritage would border on latent
hostility to religion, as it would require government in all its multifaceted roles to
acknowledge only the secular, to the exclusion and so to the detriment of the
religious.”
–Justice Kennedy (dissent), Allegheny County v. Greater Pittsburgh ACLU, 492 U.S. 573 (1989)
“[W]here the
government’s act of recognition or accommodation is passive and symbolic, any
intangible benefit to religion is unlikely to present a realistic risk of establishment.”
–Justice Kennedy (dissent), Allegheny County v. Greater Pittsburgh ACLU, 492 U.S. 573 (1989)
“The fact that the creche and menorah are both located on government property, even at
the very seat of government, is likewise inconsequential.”
–Justice Kennedy (dissent), Allegheny County v. Greater Pittsburgh ACLU, 492 U.S. 573 (1989)
“In holding that the Establishment Clause prohibits
invocations and benedictions at public school graduation ceremonies, the Court…lays
waste a tradition that is as old
as public school graduation ceremonies themselves, and that is a component of an
even more longstanding American tradition of nonsectarian prayer to God at public
celebrations generally. As its instrument of destruction, the bulldozer of its social
engineering, the Court invents a boundless, and boundlessly manipulable, test of
psychological coercion…. Today’s opinion shows more forcefully than volumes of
argumentation why our Nation’s protection, that fortress which is our Constitution, cannot
possibly rest upon the changeable philosophical predilections of the Justices of this
Court, but must have deep foundations in the historic practices of our people. ”
–Justice Scalia (dissent), Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992)
“But the
longstanding American tradition of prayer at official ceremonies displays with
unmistakable clarity that the Establishment Clause does not forbid the government to
accommodate it.”
–Justice Scalia (dissent), Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992)
“[T]here is simply no
support for the proposition that the officially sponsored nondenominational invocation
and benediction read by Rabbi Gutterman – with no one legally coerced to recite them –
violated the Constitution of the United States. To the contrary, they
are so characteristically American they could have come from the pen of George
Washington or Abraham Lincoln himself.”
–Justice Scalia (dissent), Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992)
“Given the odd basis for the Court’s decision, invocations and
benedictions will be able to be given at public school graduations next
June, as they have for the past century and a half, so long as school authorities make
clear that anyone who abstains from screaming in protest does not necessarily
participate in the prayers. All that is seemingly needed is an announcement, or perhaps
a written insertion at the beginning of the graduation program, to the effect that, while all
are asked to rise for the invocation and benediction, none is compelled to join in them,
nor will be assumed, by rising, to have done so. That obvious fact recited, the graduates
and their parents may proceed to thank God, as Americans have always done, for the
blessings He has generously bestowed on them and on their country.”
–Justice Scalia (dissent), Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992)
“Needless to say,
no one should be compelled to [join in prayer], but it is a shame to deprive our public culture of
the opportunity, and indeed the encouragement, for people to do it voluntarily. The
Baptist or Catholic who heard and joined in the simple and inspiring prayers of Rabbi
Gutterman on this official and patriotic occasion was inoculated from religious bigotry
and prejudice in a manner that cannot be replicated. To deprive our society of that
important unifying mechanism in order to spare the nonbeliever what seems to me the
minimal inconvenience of standing, or even sitting in respectful nonparticipation, is as
senseless in policy as it is unsupported in law.”
–Justice Scalia (dissent), Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992)
“Moreover, I think that the
Court’s task, in this as in all areas of constitutional adjudication, is not responsibly aided
by the uncritical invocation of metaphors like the “wall of separation,” a phrase nowhere
to be found in the Constitution. What is relevant to the issue here is…the history of the religious
traditions of our people, reflected in countless practices of the institutions and officials of our government.”
–Justice Stewart (dissent), Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962)
“Thus, if the Louisiana
Legislature sincerely believed that the State’s science teachers were being hostile to
religion [by not teaching creationism], our cases indicate that it could act to eliminate that hostility…”
–Justice Scalia (dissent), Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987)
“[W]e have held that intentional governmental advancement of religion is
sometimes required by the Free Exercise Clause.”
–Justice Scalia (dissent), Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987)
“The people of Louisiana, including those
who are Christian fundamentalists, are quite entitled, as a secular matter, to have
whatever scientific evidence there may be against evolution presented in their schools,
just as Mr. Scopes was entitled to present whatever scientific evidence there was for it.”
–Justice Scalia (dissent), Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987)
“Senator Keith and his witnesses testified essentially as set forth in the following
numbered paragraphs:
(1) There are two and only two scientific explanations for the beginning of life
evolution and creation science. Both are bona fide “sciences.”
Both posit a theory of the origin of life and subject that theory to empirical testing.
Evolution posits that life arose out of inanimate chemical compounds and has gradually
evolved over millions of years. Creation science posits that all life forms now on earth
appeared suddenly and relatively recently and have changed little. Since there are only
two possible explanations of the origin of life, any evidence that tends to disprove the
theory of evolution necessarily tends to prove the theory of creation science, and vice
versa. For example, the abrupt appearance in the fossil record of complex life, and the
extreme rarity of transitional life forms in that record, are evidence for
creation science.
(2) The body of scientific evidence supporting creation science is as strong as that
supporting evolution. In fact, it may be stronger. The evidence
for evolution is far less compelling than we have been led to believe. Evolution is not a
scientific “fact,” since it cannot actually be observed in a laboratory. Rather, evolution is
merely a scientific theory or “guess.”
It is a very bad guess at that. The scientific problems with evolution are so serious that it
could accurately be termed a “myth.”
(3) Creation science is educationally valuable. Students exposed to it better understand
the current state of scientific evidence about the origin of life. Those students even have a better understanding of
evolution. Creation science can and should be presented to
children without any religious content.
(4) Although creation science is educationally valuable and strictly scientific, it is now
being censored from or misrepresented in the public schools. Evolution, in turn, is misrepresented as
an absolute truth. Teachers have been brainwashed by an entrenched
scientific establishment composed almost exclusively of scientists to whom evolution is
like a “religion.” These scientists discriminate against creation scientists so as to
prevent evolution’s weaknesses from being exposed.
(5) The censorship of creation science has at least two harmful effects. First, it deprives
students of knowledge of one of the two scientific explanations for the origin of life and
leads them to believe that evolution is proven fact; thus, their education suffers and they
are wrongly taught that science has proved their religious beliefs false. Second, it
violates the Establishment Clause. The United States Supreme Court has held that
secular humanism is a religion. (referring to Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 495 , n. 11 (1961
Belief in evolution is a central tenet of that religion. Thus, by censoring creation science and instructing students
that evolution is fact, public school teachers are now advancing religion in violation of
the Establishment Clause.
Senator Keith repeatedly and vehemently denied that his purpose was to advance a
particular religious doctrine. At the outset of the first hearing on the legislation, he
testified: ‘We are not going to say today that you should have some kind of religious
instructions in our schools. . . . We are not talking about religion today. . . . I am not
proposing that we take the Bible in each science class and read the first chapter of
Genesis.’ At a later hearing, Senator Keith stressed: ‘[T]o . . . teach
religion and disguise it as creationism . . . is not my intent. My intent is to see to it that
our textbooks are not censored.'”
–Justice Scalia (dissent), Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987)