To Worship… Or Not
This is a good ad.
Made by First Freedom First.
Our freedom to believe includes the freedom not to believe. That there is no god, or no distinct god, is just as sacred a view as any one which says there is.
And the fact that all views are protected–not just views that say god exists–is what has kept this country free for people of all beliefs. Take that away, and you deny freedom to all but the controlling few. And that is not what Democracy is about. That is not what America is about.
The lack of god in government or the public square is not a condemnation of god, it is a celebration of the freedom to worship… or not. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to shove their belief system down your throat, and does not deserve the monopoly on belief they are trying to run off with, even if they do still deserve the freedom they are trying to steal from you.
Increasingly, I am thinking this is THE issue: Separation of Church and State/Religion from Civics.
1) It is the essence of modernism, which is the separation of task and specialization in a task. Civics is Civics, Religion is Religion, Engineering is Engineering, Sales is Sales and so on. A good saleman doesn’t have to be, and probably isn’t a good Engineer, sufficient to own a well made car. A doctor doesn’t have to know law. Instead we specialize and trade these things. Now there is an important issue in modernity concerning fields that overlap, but the essense of modernity, of capitalism, of the rise of the west, and increasingly the far east, is the ability to cope with, deal and make use of the phenomina of specialization.
Islam is the problem child of world religions because it is designed around the opposite notion of cohesion and concentration. There is one God, one prophet, one community, one law, etc… and it rules over everybody and everything. In the pre-modern world this gave Islamic society a competitive edge. WHEN Islam gets around to accepting the idea that religion and politics can be separated (something Mohammed couldn’t imagine because he couldn’t imagine freedom of religion – or maybe he could imagine, sometimes I hear quotes from Islam saying ‘there should be no complusion in religion’ but wasn’t able to imagine how to manifest the idea) AND Islam limits the notion of ‘jihad’ to only the internal struggle to be a virtuous man (not external struggle to extend the Islamic community – because in a world of relgious freedom Islam is no longer threatened) – only then will Islamic based societies stabilize.
So, when we start to blur the line between religion and state, we reinforce the fears of Islamic based societies that keep them stuck in a pre-modern frame of mind, and we undermine our own ability to have competent government (you know, a government that is proactive about environmental issues, like drought in Georgia, not a government that relies on prayer to solve the problem): either in the U.S. or abroad.
2) You cannot have a free society and democracy without freedom of religion and you can’t have freedom of religion without separation of Church and state.
3) Separation of Church and state is fundemental to Christian religion. Jesus commanded his followers to separate church from state. Where Islam is dominated by the concept of cohesion, Christian is dominated by the concept of centrifuge: One God is centrifuged into a trinity; religion is separated from state and so on.
Europeans and East Asian Democracies are far more modern societies now than the United States. Up until 2000, the Europeans had been waiting and relying on the United States to lead it and the rest of the world to a peaceful and prosperous place that Moderism can provide. This movement has been derailed because of the handy work of a small group of economic elites and their Neocon movement.
Conservative Economic Elites in the United States, have been working since FDR was elected in the great depression, to undo the new deal and dominate American society. They adopted Leo Strauss’ neocon philosophy of using Religion to manipulate society towards their end. They found a ready waiting sheep in segregationist whites in the old south. So they are using Christianity in an unchrisitian way (relying more on the old testament and revelations than the gospels), using unchristian means (not separating church and state) to achieve unchristian ends: permanent plutocracy and punishment of the poor and hatred of people of a different color.
Conclusion:
People should be forced to swear allegiance to the concept of separation of church and state. If they can’t do this, they are essential at war against the constitution and should be either jailed or banished from living in a modern society which they instinctively and intrinsically wish to destroy.
Increasingly, to me, everything hinges on separation of church and state. Everything.
Exactly! And that is why my denomination has historically supported (except for several generations after they first came to America in 1620, when they treated others as they had been treated in Great Britain) freedom of, and from, religion. It has caused problems with some of our members when we supported not praying in schools and not posting the Ten Commandments, etc., but total religious freedom is more important that those trappings.
Thanks for the link. I have bookmarked it.