{"id":4604,"date":"2018-04-14T06:58:39","date_gmt":"2018-04-14T06:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/04\/14\/no-religious-test\/"},"modified":"2018-04-14T06:58:39","modified_gmt":"2018-04-14T06:58:39","slug":"no-religious-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/04\/14\/no-religious-test\/","title":{"rendered":"“No Religious Test”"},"content":{"rendered":"

 In Article VI of the U. S. Constitution we read:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

. . . no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Does it follow that the U. S. Constitution should be so interpreted as to allow a Muslim citizen who supports sharia (Islamic law) to run for public office?  No!  For the same Constitution, in its First Amendment, enjoins a salutary separation of church\/synagogue\/mosque and state, though not in those words.  Sharia and the values and principles enshrined in the founding documents are incompatible.  On no sane interpretation is our great Constitution a suicide pact.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is important to realize that Islam is as much  an anti-Enlightenment political ideology as it is a religion.  Our Enlightenment founders must be rolling around in their graves at the very suggestion that sharia-subscribing Muslims are eligible for the presidency and other public offices. <\/span><\/p>\n

Many assume that no restriction may be placed on admissible religions for the purposes of the implementation  of Article VI.  I deny it. A religion that requires the subverting of the U. S. Constitution is not an admissible religion when it comes to applying the "no religious Test" provision. One could argue that on a sane interpretation of the Constitution, Islam, though a religion, is not an admissible religion where an admissible religion is one that does not contain core doctrines which, if implemented, would subvert the Constitution.<\/span><\/p>\n

Or one might argue that Islam is not a religion at all.  Damn near anything can and will be called a religion by somebody.  Some say with a straight face that leftism is a religion<\/a>, others that Communism is a religion.  Neither is a religion on any adequate definition of 'religion.'  I have heard it said that atheism is a religion<\/a>.  Surely it isn't.  Is a heresy of a genuine religion itself a religion?  Arguably not.  Hillaire Belloc and others have maintained that Islam is a Christian heresy.  Or one could argue that Islam, or perhaps radical<\/em> Islam,  is not a religion but a totalitarian political ideology masquerading<\/em> as a religion.  If an X masquerades as a Y, then the X is not a Y. How to define religion is a hotly contested issue in the philosophy of religion. <\/span><\/p>\n

The point here is that "religious" in ". . . no religious Test shall ever be required" is subject to interpretation.  We are under no obligation to give it a latitudinarian reading that allows in a destructive ideology incompatible with our values and principles.<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/a>What Should We Call Secular Ideologies like Marxism and Social Justice?<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 In Article VI of the U. S. Constitution we read: . . . no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. Does it follow that the U. S. Constitution should be so interpreted as to allow a Muslim citizen who supports sharia (Islamic … Continue reading ““No Religious Test””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119,139,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islamism","category-religion","category-u-s-constitution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}