In a response to my blog: “IN GOD WE TRUST AD: Very
misleading and expensive” Hobby Lobby, the company sponsoring the ad, said it was
saddened that some of the responses to their ad was “pure venom”.
The full page ad ran in many if not most, newspapers in the
country so it was bound to attract some commentary, some maybe not so nice because
the blogosphere gives many a voice that they probably would never use in
public.
The Hobby Lobby response was well written and had some
interesting points.
They are correct in stating that when the First Amendment
was written, the country was basically a mish mash of Christianities, many at
each other’s throats; they were escaping religious persecution in Europe but
were willing to persecute other denominations here in the land of the free…so
much for brotherly love and other so called Christian virtues.
The First Amendment was designed to keep these
Christianities from taking control of state governments and making states
exclusively Catholic or Methodist, etc. best way was to make sure government(s)
never sided with any specific religion; Separation of Church & State.
The Founding Fathers did however have a healthy distrust of
organized religion and the damage it has done throughout history, especially in
Europe; they were determined that would not happen here.
Please remember that in the Treaty with the Barbary Pirates
(Muslim), Congress specifically stated that the United States was not a Christian
nation and therefore not an enemy of non-Christian nations.
The Hobby Lobby makes a point of saying that at our
founding, most people were some sort of Christians and Christian values
predominated in the birth of this nation and that many today feel we are moving
away from those Christian values.
These values such as honesty, purity, faithfulness and
morality, they posit must be based on an authority other than our own and here
ladies & gentlemen, is the rub.
Many today, feel that values and virtues are not the
exclusive property of some God; they feel that we as humans, living in our
social groupings are the exclusive masters of the values and virtues we hold
dearest and we practice morality as something expected of fellow humans and as
such humanists, we owe it to the rest of our brothers and sisters to behave in
a humane fashion and not because we are commanded by some God to behave that way
under penalty of eternal damnation.
The Hobby Lobby feels that we have slipped morally as a
nation because we have removed God from the public square. I feel that God does
not belong in the public square but in a private square where those who wish to
practice their beliefs can entertain God in their midst only and not where God
is not wanted.
This is exactly what the Founding Fathers meant when they
created the policy of the Separation of Church & State; they wanted God in
only places where he is wanted and not forced on the public at large.
The foundation of this country is strong and will remain
strong only if we don’t allow any one group to take control of the public
square and yes that includes the rabid Christians who feel they know how
everyone should behave; au contraire, many so called Christians are some of the
worst offenders of our societal rules of accepted behavior.
Please also note that the non-believing or non-religious
population of this country is growing rapidly and to force them to accept
Christian practices like prayers to a Christian God is not only
unconstitutional and a violation of our freedoms but is harkening back to the
days of darkness that saw religious persecution running rampant across Europe
forcing many to seek refuge in the land of the free; the United States of
America; lets not go backwards.
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