Official Statist Bible Thumping

Statist Bible thumping politicians, those guys herding the sheeple in the great State of Louisiana, the ones who aren’t content to practice their religion in private at home, or at church, are poised and ready to designate the Holy Bible as Louisiana's official state book.

They’re going to make Christianity the official government religion of the Bayou State and they don’t give a damn about any First Amendment objections.

Of course, his bill isn’t offered as a state-endorsement of Christianity or a specific religion, insists State Rep. Thomas Carmody, R-Shreveport. "It's not to the exclusion of anyone else's sacred literature," he declared. "This is not about establishing an official religion of the state of Louisiana."

Oh, no; the Bible – his sacred literature -- has nothing to do with religion, does it?  It’s just a history book, right?

"I think we're going to open ourselves up to a lawsuit. You can't adopt the Bible and not adopt Christianity," admitted State Rep. Wesley Bishop, D-New Orleans, a preacher’s son who loves the idea, but realizes that it just might violate the First Amendment prohibition of mixing church with state.

Another enlightened opponent of the law observed that adopting the Bible as the state's official book might be offensive to people who live in the state but who aren't Christian. "You're OK with offending some of the citizens of this state?" she asked.

 "It's not meant to be offensive," Carmody replied. "There's no requirement that they would have to follow this particular text."

Well, of course it’s not meant to be offensive. The fact, however, that it will certainly be offensive to a minority of the sheep in Louisiana is of no concern to him. After all, he’s not forcing anyone to go to church or worship Jesus. He’s merely proclaiming officially that Christianity is the State religion in Louisiana as far as he’s concerned, and the Holy Bible is the State Book, that’s all.

What’s wrong with that?

You see, many Christians think that the United States of America is really a Christian nation at the core, therefore the government ought to promote Christianity as long as it doesn’t force the people to be Christians. They will tell you that the First Amendment Establishment Clause requires freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

That’s exactly what Bill O'Reilly, the conservative religious king of Fox News Channel thinks, for example. He’s absolutely certain that America has changed dramatically and gone downhill as a nation largely because more and more people lately are objecting to the government promoting Christianity.  

He agrees that the Constitution prohibits the imposition of any religion upon the people, “however, it was quite clear that the founders based the justice system in the New World on Judeo-Christian tenets. That's why a sculpture of Moses holding the 10 Commandments adorns the Supreme Court building in Washington.”

But wait a minute. Our founders didn’t base our justice system on Judeo-Christian tenets. Far from it; it’s based primarily on the Magna Carta and English common law.

And Moses plainly isn’t the only “law giver” whose visage is sculpted on the walls at the Supreme Court. Hammurabi, Menes, Lycurgus, Solon, Draco, Confucius, Octavian, Justinian, Muhammad, Charlemagne, King John, Louis IX, Hugo Grotius, Sir William Blackstone, John Marshall and Napoleon, are right up there with him.

That’s right; Muhammad, The Prophet of Islam, is depicted in sculpture at the U.S. Supreme Court holding the Koran. Lots of other non-Christians are there – in fact the majority of them are non-Christians. What would Mr. Bill have to say about that?

O'Reilly constantly whines that “The Secular Progressives” are responsible for America going downhill, as if there were such a thing as a secular progressive. Most conservatives are secularists too. I’ll wager that Bill O’Reilly himself down deep in his heart is a secularist. America was conceived by the founders as a secular nation. So they were secularists. I’m sure he would both admit and agree with that. Does that mean he’s a secular conservative?

Mr. Bill has a chronic problem confusing political progressives, i.e. liberals, with secularists. They’re not the same thing. He’ has a bad habit of confusing secularism with atheism -- again, not the same thing.

O’Reilly does that to disguise the fact that he’s trying his best in a losing cause to justify the government sponsoring, promoting, and endorsing his religion, and his religion is Christianity. He’s guilty of exactly the same statist motives as the Louisiana lawmakers who want the Bible as their State book.

So he actually maintains that public schools should be allowed to display large pictures of Jesus on the walls of hallways and classrooms. He actually claims that the public schools should be teaching the philosophy of Jesus Christ to the little school children, and the fact that this is no longer done in America is the reason why America is going downhill.

O’Reilly says that “there is a big difference between philosophy and religion,” therefore it’s OK to teach the kids Jesus’ philosophy. This guy really wants us to believe that the religion can be taken out of the philosophy of Jesus, you know – just like there is no religion in “In God We Trust,” and no religion in “One Nation Under God.”

But I have some news for Mr. Bill: All religion is philosophy but not all philosophy is religion. And all – that’s right all – of the philosophy of Jesus is religion.

He’s not fooling anyone.

Like many other American Christians though, he demands official statist Bible thumping.