Freedom of Religion?

It is my understanding that one of the big reasons our ancestors came over to this country was to flee from religious persecution. In this New World, they would be able to practice their own religion without any interference from those who did not agree with their theologies.

Flash forward to the present. The descendants of these immigrants to the New World are now viciously imposing their religious beliefs into the people of this country. What a turnaround. This is not acceptable.

What does it say about us that those running for political offices are required to believe in God and go to church regularly or they are not “qualified” to represent us? What do those criteria have to do with running the country? And this religious concept is just a given. It is tacitly understood that to run for high offices in this country you must believe in God. If you don’t, don’t bother running. Even if you do believe in God, it has to be the right one. The latest example, of course, is Mitt Romney – Mormon. Sorry, Mitt, wrong God. Gotta be your good ol’ basic Christian one. You lose.

Besides, can’t a person be of good moral fiber without the belief in a superior being, or maintaining a continual visit to some “spiritual” edifice (read church, synagogue, etc.) to prove that he is a “God Fearing” man? And shouldn’t he or she be able to hold office to help his constituency, even though he or she may be (shudder!) an atheist? The ultimate hypocrisy in all this is that most religions advocate some sort of “be kind to your neighbor” attitude. Yet, woe be unto you if you’re not of the same bent. How many great men and women throughout history have chosen not to contribute their talents and expertise to our society because of this religious duplicity?

Just who do these religious zealots think they are attempting to impose their moral standards on the country? It continually amazes me that these self-righteous cretins dare to think that their interpretation of religion is the only way, and we must adhere to their narrow-minded, bigoted sense of morality or else.

I’m not even going to go into the pure hypocrisy of the fundamentalist leaders who use poor people’s donations in order to live the high life and supposedly serve as their “messenger” to God and Salvation, meanwhile maintaining impious, sleazy lifestyles (Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard, and who knows how many out there who have yet to be caught in flagrante delicto.). That’s a separate blog altogether.

Our country has a puritanical mindset. Way more conservative than other industrialized nations. How did it come to this? Logic would dictate that those coming here to the New World would hand down the story of how religious bigotry drove them here, and one must tolerate all types of spiritual thinking. I guess one must conclude that the immigrants came here not to escape the persecution from the Old World but to impose their own persecution to others in the New World. I’m sure there are scholars out there who have extensively researched this subject. This is just my layman’s take on the whole mess.

Voltaire said, “If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent Him.” My contention is, “Find your own path to peace and spirituality, and enjoy this one life we have to its fullest without forcing it on others.”