©2002 Ed Buckner, Council for Secular Humanism, www.secularhumanism.org
This is an easy one, even though I’ve had it presented to me as if it were unanswerable evidence of our allegedly Christian heritage. When presented with this one, ask your critic if he worships the Sun god or the Moon god or the Germanic god Tiu or Norse gods Woden and Thor or the Norse goddess of love or the Roman god of agriculture or the Roman gods Janus or Mars. If he says “No,” insist that he stop referring to the days of the week as Sunday (named in honor of the sun god), Monday (after the moon god), Tuesday (the goddess Tiu’s Day), Wednesday (Woden’s Day), Thursday (Thor’s Day), Friday (Freya’s Day), Saturday (Saturn’s day). He’ll have to come up with new names as well for January (named after Janus) and March (after Mars). (It’s not hard to find other examples among names of months—and even place names can be relevant, since many who use the name of the largest city in California don’t believe in angels and probably no one worships Europa, princess of Greek mythology.)
The main point is simple: conventional forms of dating have nothing to do with religious commitment or belief, and everything formal in 1787 was dated “in the Year of our Lord.” The framers also included a more recent conventional dating form, one that has not persisted as perhaps they hoped: they added, “and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth.” The absence of religious reference in the body of the Constitution (other than the very positive “negative” about religion found in Article VI: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States”) matters more. And the prescription for religious liberty found in the First Amendment is what really counts.
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