Can we be as good as our Fathers

In North Carolina, Lawsuit Is Threatened Over Councilman’s Lack of Belief in God

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — City Councilman Cecil Bothwell of Ashville believes in ending the death penalty, conserving water and reforming government, but he does not believe in God. His political opponents say that is a sin that makes him unworthy of office, and they have the North Carolina Constitution on their side.

Conservative advocates, cite a little-noticed quirk in North Carolina’s Constitution that disqualifies officeholders “who shall deny the being of Almighty God.” The provision was included when the document was drafted in 1868 and was not revised when North Carolina amended its Constitution in 1971.


David Morgan, the head of a conservative weekly newspaper, The Asheville Tribune, said city officials had shirked their duty to uphold the state’s laws by swearing in Mr. Bothwell.

Mr. Bothwell cannot be forced out of office over his atheist views because the North Carolina provision is unenforceable, according to the supremacy clause of the Constitution. Six other states have similar provisions barring atheist officeholders.

One opponent, H. K. Edgerton, is threatening to file suit against the city to challenge Mr. Bothwell’s swearing in. “My father was a Baptist minister,” Mr. Edgerton said. “I’m a Christian man. I have problems with people who don’t believe in God.” Mr. Edgerton is a local civil rights leader and founder of Southern Heritage 411, an organization that promotes the interests of black Southerners

So Edgerton's father was a Baptist minister? How does that reconcile his views?

The great thinker and moralist, Robert Ingersoll in his book, “Some Mistakes of Moses”, said it best. “If we are, in any way, bound by the belief of our fathers, the doctrine will hold good back to the first people who had a religion; and if this doctrine is true, we ought now to be believers in that first religion. In other words, we would all be barbarians.

You cannot show any respect to your parents by perpetuating their errors”. “If you wish to reflect credit upon your parents, accomplish more than they did, solve more problems that they could not understand, and build better than they knew. Why would a son who has examined a subject, throw away his reason and adopt the views of his mother? Is not such a course dishonorable to both”? (P.37)

Just something else to think about.