As President Obama considers nominees to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, a debate bubbles as to whether religion should play a role in his choice.
This is a no-brainer. The religious views of the next justice of the high court must absolutely be a decisive factor.
Though the court without Stevens will be left with six Catholics and two Jews, the open seat should not go to either domination. Nor should it go to a Presbyterian, a Lutheran, a Methodist, a Muslim or even a Zoroastrian. If it did, that would make nine people who all have one religious principle in common: a belief in religion.
Clearly, the next person to take the bench should be an atheist.
On every front, one atheist would be a vast improvement over Justice Stevens: Nat Hentoff.
Okay – let’s nominate Eugene Volokh. I can live with that.
Ooohhh, I much prefer Doug’s choice. Good call.
Yep, an atheist who reads the Constitution works for me. A non-believer who understands “living document” to mean “The words mean what they say and must have impact” rather than a theist who thinks it means “it will say what my feelings tell me.”
What’s the difference between an Atheist and a Roman Catholic/Methodist/&etc;. who doesn’t treat Holy Scripture with any kind of seriousness?
Don
How about a justice who lets neither their faith NOR their lack of faith inform how they interpret the Constitution?
6. Scott K:
My post would seem to support the direction of your question but what I really am getting at is, do we want a(nother) justice who like Pontius Pilot asks, “What is truth?”? Any good Atheist would hesitate to serve on the court. I knew a good Atheist.
Any lousy Atheist or Theist is quite willing to pledge upon the Bible that which does not reside in his heart.
Don
“a belief in religion”
As someone in the secular field of Religious Studies (yes, I’m a committed Christian!), I find this statement hilarious. My freshmen students would also be quick to point out how ridiculous it is.
Of course these people believe in religion — and so should every person alive. So do Atheists in fact! Look around, religion is everywhere. Religion is a cultural and social phenomenon in human history. It’s medieval cathedrals, buddhist temples, copies of the Koran on a shelf. It’s people feeding the homeless or protesting the death penalty or abortion. It’s jihad and it’s Quakers refusing to go to war. It’s choral evensong in London and throat singers in Tibet. It’s Native American tribal dancing and pilgrims at Lourdes. It’s the deism of Thomas Jefferson that resulted in him cutting up the scriptures and the ceremonies at Shinto shrines in Japan.
As any alert teenagers would say, I’m pretty sure we all believe in religion, just as we believe in trees or rocks or buildings.
What makes those other Supreme Court Justices alike isn’t that they believe in religion, it’s that the believe in God.
I agree with #1 – Nat Hentoff (Insisting on Life)
“… the open seat should not go to either domination(sic).” I assume Cooper thought that was cute, but don’t they have adult editors at the LA Times?
When Stevens leaves that will leave six Roman Catholics and two Jews. Interesting if unrepresentative mix.
I’m delighted to see my friend Doug LeBlanc weighing in here, as he all too rarely does. I guess helping edit [b]The Living Church[/b] keeps him too busy. But somehow I don’t think Nat Hentoff was the sort of atheistic jurist that Marc Cooper had in mind…(wink)
On a more serious note, interpreting the Constitution skillfully is as difficult, complex, and controversial an art as the interpretation of Holy Scripture. While I favor a stance that leans toward the consturctionist side (and Antonin Scalia is my personal favorite among the justices on the High Court), I recognize that in the famous words of the first Chief Justice, John Marshall, what they are charged with interpreting is a [b]Constitution[/b], and not merely a law code. And any Constitution worthy of the name and that shows enduring value must be to some extent a living, dynamic document that lays down basic principles that can be applied to new circumstances that were unforseeable over two centuries ago.
For those who haven’t read it, I highly recommend Jaroslav Pelikan’s masterful Kluge Lectures at the Library of Congress, published by Yale Univ. Press in 2004 under the title, [b]Interpreting the Bible and the Constitution[/b]. As always with Pelikan, it’s simply brilliant, often profound, and always stimulating.
So to put it another way, whether Catholic, Protestant, agnostic, Buddhist, or whatever, I’d prefer to see the replacement for the liberal activist John Paul Stevens be someone who has a demonstrated track record of great skill in treating the original intentions of the Founding Fathers with respect, and not in the cavalier fashion that Stevens did. But given a Democratic President and Senate, I’m not holding my breath.
David Handy+
FWIW, that’s my 4,000th post here at T19!
Perhaps there are regional differences, but where I happen to be (and the atheists are thick), support for things such as gay marriage and abortion rights are often presented in the name of religion, due to the overwhelming leftism of clergy. For example, many of us have seen that “fish” symbol like this O( on cars. One local church (formerly known as Congregational, something like United Church nowadays) has that symbol on its front entrance, but inside the fish is the rainbow flag, to indicate that Jesus would approve of gay causes.
Indeed, an atheist might be an improvement. Some claim that the American founders were, despite language such as “Providence,” actually atheists. We could do worse.
Jefferson was definatly a Deist, which isn’t exactly the same. I can’t speak with certainty about the rest, but to the best of my knowledge, the only one associated with the American Revolution that was 100% athiest was Thomas Paine, and he was never a “Founding Father.”