RELIGION AND THE CONSTITUTION - CLASS 10

As a reminder, audio recordings are provided solely for excused absences and accommodations. Do not transcribe or otherwise share the recording. I may delete this recording after two weeks.

At the beginning of today’s class, I asked us to consider how “we” (our class, lawyers, the legal profession, American society) think about claims of fact, truth, faith, belief, and science. I suggested that we typically slot those claims into one of three categories (which I drew on the board as columns):

• [Column 1]: Reasonable, Believable, Sincere, Not Crazy, Might be True

• [Column 2]: Unreasonable, Possible, Maybe Not Sincere, Weird, Seems False

• [Column 3]: Beyond Unreasonable, Unbelievable, Insincere, Surely False, Legally Insane, Crazy, Alternative Reality

Of course, as I noted, the categories are more porous than rigid. The audio of the first part of today’s class will help explain and situate these observations.