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October 30, 2009
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Religion and politics: hot topics explored
Oct. 27 in Stretanksy Concert Hall, during his lecture about the separation of church and state. Katskee's visit to Susquehanna, which also included discussions with political science classes, was a part of the 33rd Annual Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow Lecture program. While he first gave a brief history of evolutionary science and creationism's progression into Intelligent Design, Katskee also discussed his personal experiences in dealing with church and state as a lawyer. He also gave insight into why the nation has struggled with this issue and what our Founding Fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, could have intended with how religion would place a role in government. "Many have asked: 'Why should we want to keep religion and politics separate? Isn't that just hostility toward religion?" he said. "The establishment clause, which is the First Amendment's guarantee of church and state separation, designed by the framers of The Constitution, was designed to allow religious liberty to flourish to the fullest extent possible. It was meant to insure that we all get to practice or not practice religion free from governmental oversight and in the process have us avoid sectarian or religious based divisiveness." Katskee also said that the balance of science and religion doesn't stop with evolution, as discussing cloning and global warming in the classroom are also sensitive topics. While cloning leads into stem cell research and abortion, a small percentage of Christians are a part of a global warming denial movement. Katskee said this minority believes that the planet is heating up because we are moving closer and closer to Armageddon as described in the book of Revelations in the New Testament of the Bible. Therefore, if we reverse global warming on that view, Katskee said we are delaying the end of days, frustrating God's plan. Katskee said: "Of course they are entitled to their religious beliefs, no question about it. They are entitled to teach those beliefs to their children, they are allowed to talk about it in church, at home, in the mall, whenever they want. We are all entitled to those things -- that's what religious freedom means. The real issue is: are they allowed to use the law to impose those beliefs on everybody else?" The church and state conflict extends beyond science and into other school subjects, such as history. Katskee said that after a Dover school district was successful in getting Intelligent Design into the curriculum, the next thing on the school board's agenda was to put into the social studies curriculum a book that says that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation and the concept of separation of church and state was a myth. Dr. Randy Robertson, assistant professor of English and creative writing, who was one of many who hosted Katskee during his visit, opened the lecture with a personal story. While working at the University of Nebraska, a public university, Robertson asked to order books about atheism in Britain, a topic he said was related to one of his classes. "The librarian's face went pale, he frowned, did something odd with his face and preceded to whisk me into his office," Robertson said. "He said 'that sort of thing (atheism) has a bad odor here.'" Robertson added that the story shows that different communities share different opinions about the First Amendment and that the degree of what is religious freedom in this country. In his final points, Katskee said that compared to the rest of the world, the U.S. is one of the most religiously diverse nations in history. "We have the highest percentage of churchgoers in the world, but we also have 20 million people who identify themselves as atheists or having no religion," Katskee said. He added that there have been countries all over the world, from the Middle East and beyond, that have or are currently combat religious conflict. To close the lecture, Katskee asked the audience to think about the following quote by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor: "Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must answer a different question: why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?" |
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