Tuesday, September 6, 2011

The Church of the United States

When the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, keeping religion out of government was deemed so important that it was codified as the First Amendment.  Which begs the question, what is religion? 


One definition found in Webster's dictionary is  "the service and worship of God or the supernatural."  The definition I am more interested in, however, is "a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith."  Essentially if a belief requires its adherents to have faith that it is true (i.e., it cannot be proven), I would suggest that it really should be considered religious in nature.

That being the case, it seems to me that while the Democrats have fought so hard to keep the Religious Right at bay, they themselves constitute a Religious Left, a sort of anti-religion religion, and all of the beliefs that they so passionately espouse are themselves religious in nature and should be as separate from government as any policy of the Religious Right.  

Let me give you an example: while the Religious Right opposes abortions, the Religious Left is not satisfied for the Supreme Court to have simply permitted them.  No, the Left requires the Federal Government to pay for abortions with public money, a portion of which is necessarily taken from members of the Religious Right!  Could there be any clearer violation of the First Amendment?  

But abortion is not the only issue that has crossed the divide.  Schools spend as much time teaching social policy, which is simply beliefs, as they do mathematics.  Services historically provided by the Church (e.g., feeding and caring for the poor) now are now the domain of government.       

All of these issues involve questions of belief.  And beliefs are religious in nature, whether in the service and worship of God or not.  Freedom of religion means not only that no one imposes their beliefs on you, but that you don't impose your's on them.  However if your Religion, like the Left's, is Government, its not surprising that the rights of everyone else get trampled.  

The pilgrims left England to escape the Church of England.  How disappointed they would be to find a new Church of the United States in its place.  

2 comments:

  1. Pacifists pay for wars, and Christian Scientists pay for medical research. Taxpayers pay for roads into areas they would prefer to see undeveloped.

    Whenever you buy a product advertised on garbage TV, you subsidize garbage TV. Whatever state and local taxes you pay are a result of your free choice not to relocate.

    If you live with other people and get the benefits of the market you will wind up paying for things you wish did not exist.

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  2. You know, your comment regarding free choice to relocate is very interesting. That was the original idea behind a very limited federal government and less restricted states--if you didn't like your state's policies you could move to another. The problem with an unrestricted federal government is that that choice is really taken away unless you make the drastic one to move to a different country.

    Why should taxpayers in Alabama pay for roads in Massachusetts? I bet even Pacifists would pay for their own DEFENSE. And why should the government pay for medical research in the first place? Where is that in the Constitution?

    Insofar as buying advertised products, as long as your not compelled by the government to do so, what's your point? Wishing things don't exist is different than having to pay for them. That's just part of life.

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