The American Flag And Federal Judges
I often refer in this blog to the First Amendment and in particular, the misuse of the free speech clause. The Supreme Court , in two narrow 5-4 decisions, has ruled that burning the American flag constitutes free speech and is protected by the First Amendment. In so doing, the Court was required to stretch the meaning of the word "speech" to include various forms of "expression," which is synonomous with "behavior."
I am, of course, interested in the protection of American flags, but that’s only part of the picture. The larger goal is to point out, whenever possible, ways that the American judiciary uses the law and the Constitution in particular to promote personal social and political agendas.
We have two recent examples of how judges at the Federal level have misused the First Amendment to further their own biases against Christians. In both cases they have used the Establishment Clause which simply states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…" The original intent was to prevent Congress from creating an official state religion, not to stifle religious expression or to endorse one religious view over another.
The first case involves a ban imposed on the Indiana House of representatives by U.S. District Court Judge David Hamilton. Judge Hamilton ruled in late November that the traditional prayer invocation must be non-sectarian. It has been a 188-year tradition to open legislative sessions with prayer and here’s the kicker: Even though various religious leaders have regularly been invited to lead the prayer including Muslim Imams who have invoked the name of Allah, Judge Hamilton very specifically ruled only that the name of Jesus Christ may not be invoked.
If his intention was to be even-handed, why did he specifically refer only to Jesus Christ? Why didn’t he offer a list of religious dieties so as not to target one particular group?
The second case was all over the news just a few days ago. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III ruled that schools within the jurisdiction of the Dover Area School Board, Pennsylvania, may not teach Intelligent Design in addition to Evolution. Even some religious leaders are saying that given the circumstances of the case, there is little else the judge could have done. There was good evidence that several of the School Board Members had religious reasons for promoting the Intelligent Design curriculum.
But then Judge Jones revealed his true bias skewering proponents of Intelligent Design in a 139-page decision. Jones said "The overwhelming evidence is that Intelligent Design is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism and not a scientific theory. It is an extension of the Fundamentalists’ view that one must either accept the literal interpretation of Genesis or else believe in the godless system of evolution."
I think it would be helpful if Judge Jones himself would voluntarily submit to cross examination concerning his scientific credentials. I say that because everything he said in the above statement is wrong.
Intelligent design is a movement within the scientific community, not the religious community, that has grown out of the relatively young field of molecular biology and it’s leading proponents are scientists who teach at major universities.
Simply put, in recent decades, molecular biologists have discovered that all the machinery of life takes place at the molecular level and that it is unimaginably complex. But that’s not all. Within those very complex systems, they have found many examples of irreduceable complexity. And irreduceable complexity does not square with Darwin’s theory. There is a serious scientific discussion to be had here but this judge wants nothing of it.
Most of the scientists who specialize in evolution have known for years that Darwins theory has major problems and is in trouble from a purely scientific standpoint. The problem however, is not science but a philosophical viewpoint.
The scientific community in general holds to a naturalistic philosophy, meaning that nature is all there is and there aint no more. There is no room for the notion that there really might be a God and especially a creator-God. It can’t be stressed enough that the naturalistic world-view is not based on science but is in itself, a religion.
That’s why, despite the almost total lack of evidence to support Darwin’s theory, many scientists (but not all scientists) along with their loyal followers like Judge Jones are absolutely convinced that evolution is true. It must be true because the alternative is a creator-God and afterall, that’s not scientific.
If you would like to read about the science behind Intelligent Design, pick up a copy of Darwin’s Black Box by Michael Behe, who is a molecular biologist at Lehigh Universtity. He manages to explain some very complicated stuff in a way that makes it understandable and interesting. And if you want to read a scholarly examination of Darwin’s theory, get a copy of Darwin on Trial by Phillip Johnson who, at the time of writing, was a law professor at Berkeley.