Atheists Need Religion Too

[MrsSmith]

Atheists Need Religion Too

 
Mitt Romney spoke about the relationship between religion and politics again last week, continuing and clarifying the argument he made in December while still a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. The occasion for his recent remarks was his receipt of the prestigious Canterbury Medal awarded by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.  The award is given to recognize “Courage in the Defense of Religious Liberty.”

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The Romney speech echoed some of the points he had previously made, but paid special attention to a people-group inadvertently left out in December - NON-believers.  Noting that he had received some criticism about this, Mitt told the audience listening to him at the Metropolitan Club in New York City that he “had missed an opportunity…an opportunity to clearly assert that non-believers have just as great a stake as believers in defending religious liberty.”  He further argued that: “Religious liberty and liberality of thought flow from the common conviction that it is freedom, not coercion, that exalts the individual just as it raises up the nation.”

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Freedom of religion is a very good thing.  Freedom FROM religion, though promoted by some as the wave of the future, is not.

A simple look back at the eighteenth century gives us a case study.  It was the “age of revolution.”  Here in America, very much in the spirit of Becket, we rejected tyranny.  Over in France they tried to do the same thing. 

It worked out very well here.  Not so much for France.  For all the cries of “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity” – they instead wound up with a period of violent chaos only somewhat resolved when that despotic secularist Napoleon took over.  Hello short man, good-bye freedom.

What made the difference?  Well, an often overlooked factor is that it was RELIGION that may have made the difference – particularly something that happened here in the years immediately leading up to 1776 and beyond.  It was called THE GREAT AWAKENING.  Inspired by men such as George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards, there was a period of deep religious reflection in the land – one that ultimately served to temper human passions – even those inflamed by injustice and revolutionary fervor. 

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But a nation without religious influence will…well…let me let John Adams, our 2nd President (quoted by Mitt Romney in his speech last week) say it for me: “Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean Hell.”

Freedom of religion is a very good thing.  Freedom FROM religion, though promoted by some as the wave of the future, is not.

[jinxmchue]

Yeah, the whole "freedom from religion" bit is a load of b.s.  There is absolutely no constitutional right not to be exposed to someone else's religious expression in the public square.

[Lord Undies]

What are the phony "freedom from religion" folks going to do about religion dictating wardrobe?  I just ran into some mooselimbs at Braum's.  I was offended by their inappropriate religious clothing.  For land's sake, it's 90 degrees outside and the woman was dressed for Siberian winter.