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Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on naturalistic considerations, uninvolved with religion. It is most commonly thought of as the separation of religion from civil affairs and the state and may be broadened to a similar position seeking to remove or to minimize the role of religion in any public sphere. Secularism may encapsulate anti-clericalism, atheism, naturalism, non-sectarianism, neutrality on topics of religion, or antireligion. As a philosophy, secularism seeks to interpret life based on principles derived solely from the material world, without recourse to religion. It shifts the focus from religion towards "temporal" and material concerns.
Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system, or life stance that embraces human reason, logic, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism, while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality and decision-making.
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents Congress from making laws respecting an establishment of religion; prohibiting the free exercise of religion; or abridging the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights. In the original draft of the Bill of Rights, what is now the First Amendment occupied third place. The first two articles were not ratified by the states, so the article on disestablishment and free speech ended up being first.
The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular state and to disestablishment, the changing of an existing, formal relationship between the church and the state. The concept originated among early Baptists in America. In 1644, Roger Williams, a puritan minister and founder of the state of Rhode Island and The First Baptist Church in America, was the first public official to call for "a wall or hedge of separation" between "the wilderness of the world" and "the garden of the church." Although the concept is older, the exact phrase "separation of church and state" is derived from "wall of separation between Church & State," a term coined by Thomas Jefferson in his 1802 letter to members of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut. The concept was promoted by Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke.
The American Humanist Association (AHA) is a non-profit organization in the United States that advances secular humanism.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for atheists, agnostics, and nontheists. Formed in 1976, FFRF promotes the separation of church and state, and challenges the legitimacy of many federal and state programs that are faith-based. It supports groups such as nonreligious students and clergy who want to leave their faith.
"Separation of church and state" is a metaphor paraphrased from Thomas Jefferson and used by others in discussions of the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".
A Secular Humanist Declaration was an argument for and statement of support for democratic secular humanism. The document was issued in 1980 by the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH), now the Council for Secular Humanism (CSH). Compiled by Paul Kurtz, it is largely a restatement of the content of the American Humanist Association's 1973 Humanist Manifesto II, of which he was co-author with Edwin H. Wilson. Both Wilson and Kurtz had served as editors of The Humanist, from which Kurtz departed in 1979 and thereafter set about establishing his own movement and his own periodical. His Secular Humanist Declaration was the starting point for these enterprises.
The No Religious Test Clause of the United States Constitution is a clause within Article VI, Clause 3: "Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." It immediately follows a clause requiring all federal and state office holders to take an oath or affirmation to support the Constitution. This clause contains the only explicit reference to religion in the original seven articles of the U.S. Constitution.
Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court reaffirmed that the United States Constitution prohibits states and the federal government from requiring any kind of religious test for public office, in this case as a notary public.
In United States law, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, together with that Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, form the constitutional right of freedom of religion. The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause together read:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
Freedom of religion in the Philippines is guaranteed by the Constitution of the Philippines.
The Secular Coalition for America is an advocacy group located in Washington D.C. It describes itself as "protecting the equal rights of nonreligious Americans."
Fellowship of Humanity v. County of Alameda was a 1957 California Courts of Appeal case in the Fellowship of Humanity, an organization of humanists, sought a tax exemption from Alameda County, California on the ground that they used their property "solely and exclusively for religious worship." Despite the group's nontheistic beliefs, the court determined that the activities of the Fellowship of Humanity, which included weekly Sunday meetings, were analogous to the activities of theistic churches and thus entitled to an exemption.
Washington Ethical Society v. District of Columbia, 249 F.2d 127 (1957), was a case of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Washington Ethical Society functions much like a church, but regards itself as a non-theistic religious institution, honoring the importance of ethical living without mandating a belief in a supernatural origin for ethics. The case involved denial of the Society's application for tax exemption as a religious organization. The D.C. Circuit reversed the ruling of the Tax Court for the District Columbia and found that the Society was a religious organization under the Distinct of Columbia Code, 47-801a (1951). The Society thus was granted its tax exemption.
In the United States, freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right provided in the religion clauses of the First Amendment. As stated in the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...". George Washington stressed freedom of religion as a fundamental American principle even before the First Amendment was ratified. In 1790, in a letter to the Touro Synagogue, he expressed the government “gives to bigotry no sanction” and “to persecution no assistance." Freedom of religion is linked to the countervailing principle of separation of church and state, a concept advocated by Colonial founders such as Dr. John Clarke, Roger Williams, William Penn, and later Founding Fathers such as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.
Edward Tabash is an American lawyer and political and social activist. He is an atheist, a proponent of the Establishment Clause. He chairs the Board of Directors for the Center for Inquiry. Tabash has represented the atheist position in debates against several world-renowned religious philosophers and apologists, including William Lane Craig, Peter van Inwagen, J.P. Moreland, Greg Bahnsen, Mohammad Hijab, and Richard Swinburne.
Alton Toussaint Lemon was a social worker and civil rights activist best known as named lead plaintiff in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case on the separation of church and state. His was a recipient of the "First Amendment Hero" award and was the first African American head of the Philadelphia Ethical Society.
The secular movement refers to a social and political trend in the United States, beginning in the early years of the 20th century, with the founding of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism in 1925 and the American Humanist Association in 1941, in which atheists, agnostics, secular humanists, freethinkers, and other nonreligious and nontheistic Americans have grown in both numbers and visibility. There has been a sharp increase in the number of Americans who identify as religiously unaffiliated, from under 10 percent in the 1990s to 20 percent in 2013. The trend is especially pronounced among young people, with about one in three Americans younger than 30 identifying as religiously unaffiliated, a figure that has nearly tripled since the 1990s.
The Congressional Freethought Caucus is a membership organization in the United States House of Representatives established to promote policy solutions based on reason and science, and to defend the secular character of government. Representatives Jared Huffman and Jamie Raskin have co-chaired the caucus since it formed in April 2018.
References
- 1 2 "Leo Pfeffer at NNDB". NNDB .
- 1 2 3 4 "Leo Pffefer's biography on FFRF site". FFRF .
- 1 2 Pfeffer, Leo (September 29, 1985), "Speech before the 8th national convention of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Minneapolis, Minnesota", Reprinted in Freethought Today, Jan/Feb 1986
{{citation}}: Missing or empty|url=(help) - 1 2 3 Pace, Eric (June 7, 1993), "Obituary: Leo Pfeffer, 83, Lawyer on Staff Of the American Jewish Congress", New York Times
- ↑ Ivers, Gregg (1995), To Build a Wall: American Jews and the Separation of Church and State, University of Virginia Press, p. 105, ISBN 9780813915548
