Free thought and pride attract atheists, agnostics, and skeptics to the largest secular association in North America — the non-profit, educational Freedom from Religion Foundation. FFRF Co-President Dan Barker opines, “Much of the movement away from religion in America is being driven by Millennials, many of whom will be voting for the first time this year.” Hence, Parker adds, “We need secular voters to be vocal about their beliefs, or lack thereof, while rejecting efforts to push religious dogma on the nation.”
This, of course, is no small effort. The Foundation boasts 23,500 members, 20 chapters across America, not to mention secular student alliances. Nearly 8,000 secular voters are reaching out to educate the public about their beliefs. FFRF awards thousands of dollars in prizes for winning student essays; and they distribute “I’m Secular and I Vote” buttons, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and educational material.
What Exactly is Religion?
To be freed from something requires grasp of what is being discarded. So what exactly is the illusive concept of religion? Surprising to some, whether Judeo-Christian, Marxist-Leninist, secularist, or Islamic, all worldviews by nature are religious. Each defines an ultimate point of reference that dramatically influences every possible discipline from science to the arts, ethics to law, geo-politics to economics. All speak to an ideology, or movement, that offers some overarching approach to comprehend God (god), the world, and man’s relationship to both.
“Freedom from religion” is better understood as switching religion from one brand to another.
Allow me to explain.
DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
6 comments:
23,000? out of 323 million? Wow! are you ever relevant!
Ignant bastions... You represent one in 14,000!
Let me put another way.
You are NOTHING!
Freedom FROM religion is legions apart from freedom OF religion, about which our Constitution speaks. Two very different cries.
"No free government now exists in the world, unless where Christianity is acknowledged, and is the religion of the country."
(Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 1824)
"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." John Adams
This is why the liberals want to change our Constitution.
If we are throwing out quotes relative to religion and politics lets refer to some of the founding fathers:
“Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.”
George Washington — letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792
“The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole cartloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.”
John Adams
“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”
Thomas Jefferson — in letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813
“The civil government functions with complete success by the total separation of the Church from the State.”
Founding Father James Madison, 1819, Writings, 8:432, quoted from Gene Garman, ?Essays In Addition to America’s Real Religion?
“And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.”
James Madison — letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822
“When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obligated to call for help of the civil power, it’s a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”
Benjamin Franklin — letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780
“Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.”
James Madison — Letter to Wm. Bradford, April 1, 1774
It is clear that these men advocated for the separation of church and state.
Wise words from our founding fathers.
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