4/19/2005
Did you know that you could die tonight? And some of us will die tonight. And some tomorrow, and so on.
So what happens after we die? Is it the end of everything… of life, of knowledge, of existence? Or, perhaps, it’s merely the end of the beginning. Or perhaps we are in a cycle of birth and rebirth, as some believe.
No matter what you believe, there is a great divide seperating those of us who do believe in an afterlife of some kind and those who do not. Know what it is?
A belief in meaning… or not.
It’s very simple really:
No God? No truth.
No truth means no meaning, no purpose, no need to worry about anything other than what is good for yourself. At least, you would be crazy NOT to put yourself first in a universe with no meaning.
If there is no truth, then the terms “right” and “wrong” are arbitrary, based only on the way a society defines them. It means that we can accept slavery IF the society which supports this institution defines it as a societal good. If means that cultural genocide is a good IF it helps the dominant culture.
I can’t tell you how many athiests have tried to assure me that, even though the absence of God means that there is no such thing as absolute truth, it really does not mean there are no “truths.”
Ummm… Yes it does.
A “truth” by definition is something that does not change. It’s a perfect measure that always gives you the same result. One inch is always one inch, a mile is always a mile.
For you athiests, there are norms, certainly. But those exist only until they change; then you have new norms.
And forget about the concept of true equality for all people. If there is no God and no truth, then there is no true freedom, no true liberty, and no hope at all of ever achieving perfect equality for all. Worse is the fact that, for those who have given up opportunities for wealth and power to serve others, as their religions may require, they may have wasted their lives for no good purpose.
If there’s no truth, then what we are seeking to do right now in promoting freedom for all across the globe is the height of naivety. Not the height of arrogance mind you. After all, we are the most powerful nation in the world. In a universe without truth, there is no such thing as arrogance for those who are more powerful, only the logical assertion of dominance.
It is naive because there is no universal human yearning for freedom, which President Bush and our very Constitution presupposes as a need that all have and long to realize. But, then again, a major irony here is that many liberals who call President Bush “evil” and the war in Iraq “unjust” are many of the same who people also would like to see faith and religion compartmentalized, which are the very approaches to life and civilization which give us our modern concepts of justice and equality, right and wrong, good and evil.
Which raises for me two worries regarding the efforts on the part of a small minority of Americans who hope to use activist judges to sterilize our society from anything which smacks of faith or religion, especially, of course, if it has to do with Christianity:
- The Soviet Union tried and failed to remove all religion and faith from their society. They rounded up people of faith and put them in jail. They closed churches, mosques, and temples. And they banned faith except where it pertained to “the state.” Communism was and is an experiment in “anti-democracy”. The result? A government which viewed and used people as cogs, as throwaway pieces on a chess board, good only to serve the needs of the state. Even now, 15 years after the fall of communism, it seems to me that they are still a people searching for their soul. THIS is what secularists want to do in this country, use government to tell those of us whose faith is central to our lives when, where, and how we can worship the God of the universe. I don’t think so.
- My second worry is this; in their zeal to save us from our “ignorant superstitions,” secularists are compromising the First Amendment, which was set up to act as a restraining order against the federal government on the part of the American people. And it was intended to work just like a restraining order in that it mandated that the federal government could not do any one of three things: 1) Respect or restrict any establishment of religion, 2)Restrict the rights of those who wish to assemble peacebly in the public square, and, 3) curtail or impinge upon the media. Here’s the problem. The framers of the Constitution wrote all of the federal restrictions into the Constitution as ONE SENTENCE.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The First Amendment restrains the federal government from interfering with our freedom of expression. And this amendment sees freedom of the press, of peaceful assembly, and of religious expression as equally weighted. So here’s the kicker; if we can now use the First Amendment as a mandate to push religion from the public square and from public institutions, we can also then use the First Amendment to push the press and our rights to peacefully assemble from the public square and our public institutions. The First Amendment was NOT constructed in such a way as to allow us to manipulate one form of expression without giving us the ability to then manipulate other protected forms of expression.
Why don’t members of the MSM see this problem? Why aren’t they attacking secularists for their desire to alter the basic tenets of the First Amendment, which undermines the very existence of a free press?
For all those who whine about a surge of puritanism in the US today which seeks to “roll back the clock” on freedoms we enjoy today, both in public and private life, it is NOT the religious you should fear. It was Christian thought which shaped the entire American Revolution. A diverse group of people who were members of various faiths, who understood that, if God created all people, then all people are indeed special, no matter their faith.
But what do secularists believe? I’m sure some of those who read this post will want to tell me; and I welcome your thoughts and comments, but the only evidence I have of secular influence on a governmental scale is what I see from the former Soviet Union, Communist China, North Korea, Cuba, and even Iraq under the rule of Saddam Hussein.
I hope you understand that this does not give me the greatest faith in secular philosophies when it comes to views of our common worth. They have no truth, therefore, they go about creating whatever standards conform to their desires of the moment, and the rest of us have to either live by those standards or suffer the consequences.
No thanks.
I choose to defend the First Amendment as it was originally written. I would rather live and work in a nation of many faiths, with people who peacefully live their faith both at home and in the public square. We’ve always been a nation of diverse faiths; never more than today, but members of a minority faith are now attempting to impose their worldview on the rest of us and to, at the very least, marginalize what we believe. Those are the secularists. Their priests are lawyers and their temples are the courts, where they hope to spread their influence.
Secularists have the right to believe what they believe, but they have no right to tell me where it is appropriate for me to pray, or to praise God, or even to study the Bible. Secularism is not “the voice or reason” or even of science, it is simply another voice that should be heard. And thats it.
David Flanagan
Viewpointjournal.com
7 Comments
The Anti-First Amendment Movement
Secularist efforts to change the meaning of our First Amendment freedoms threaten all forms of free expression.
Trackback by Blogcritics — 4/19/2005 @ 9:52 am
As alwasy a good thought provoking post David!
Comment by 'Frenzy — 4/19/2005 @ 8:55 pm
Thank you.
David
Comment by David Flanagan — 4/20/2005 @ 11:17 am
Slavery is the perfect counterexample for your argument, thanks for bringing it up.
We reject it now in spite of the bible, not because of it.
Comment by john kratz — 1/3/2006 @ 1:23 pm
John:
Actually, you know little, then, of the anti-slavery movement in America. Some of the earliest and strongest opponents of slavery were Christians. In England, it was William Wilberforce, an evangelical Christian, who decided to make it his life’s work to end slavery.
Between 1787 and 1807 Wilberforce campaigned tirelessly for a legislated end to the British slave trade, a part of the economy financially analogous to our defense industry today. He introduced the measure again and again, and repeatedly his “perennial resolution” was defeated by moneyed interests that supported political leaders.
But in 1807, the vote went in his favor 287 to 16, an event historian G. M. Trevelyan called “one of the turning events in the history of the world.”
The fact is, the Bible does not condone slavery, it does acknowledge its existence and, for ancient Israel, required the mandatory freeing of all slaves every seven years, the year of “Jubilee.”
So, let me ask, what has athiest thought been over the decades or centuries regarding the practice of slavery? Were there athiest organizations that, like so many Christian organizations, actively opposed slavery?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Thanks,
David
Comment by David — 1/3/2006 @ 6:32 pm
“what has athiest thought been over the decades or centuries regarding the practice of slavery?”
How about buddhism?
Atheists have to put up with God being on our money. Is that fair? C’mon, it is you guys who are pushing stuff down our throats all the time! Ten Commandments in government buildings? No thanks.
I don’t want the Quran shoved in my face, let alone your bible.
Comment by tony martin — 1/14/2006 @ 1:11 am
Tony,
Athiests make up about 3% of the population of this country. The vast majority of the US population believes in some kind of deity. Furthermore, we’ve had God as part of our nation since before it was a nation. It is part of our national heritage, with many Christian principles enshrined in the Constitution itself.
The First Amendment is there to prevent the federal government from setting up a “Church of America” scenario similar to what had been done in England during the time that the American colonies were forming. Christians who refused to follow the official religion of England could be thrown in jail, so the framers of the Constitution, in their wisdom, had enough sense to do whatever they could to restrain the federal government from going down this path.
Other than that, however, the framers were perfectly comfortable with religion, even the ones who didn’t really follow Christianity all that closely. So, unfortunately for you, you are going to have to live with some of the symbols of God around you.
I think you’ll be able to bear up.
Thanks,
David
Comment by David — 1/14/2006 @ 6:28 am