As nations we haven’t had an easy time of it since the landing of the first boat people that are generally referred to as “pilgrims”.
The story goes they fled Europe due to religious intolerance seeking a better life, yet upon arrival on this continent the level of intolerance both religious and social they exhibited exceeded that or was comparable to what they left behind.
A discussion rages now whether or not religion should play any role in government or schools, I leave that for those who created the mess in the first place to clean up.
America is said to be a “Christian nation” and the “founding fathers”committed and practicing Christians – yet with a minimum of research we discover they were in large part Deists who believed in a “creator”, the word they employed in the Declaration of Independence.
They were, I believe, by and large, of the “humanist” persuasion, and the Constitution had it ever been adhered to would speak to that- that simple yet profound statement that “all men are created equal”.
The Creator of Deist interpretation is one who once having created the world more or less moved on and left it and those who inhabit it to their own devices. Links follow below that will serve as examples.
Few are aware the words “In God we trust” only became the official “motto” as recently as 1956.
I suspect a relationship between this motto and the onset of the cold war that followed WW2 when people had become aware of that invention of science, nuclear weapons, and were fearful of the dangers a third war could bring.
Religious beliefs serve a purpose, they always have and always will – it can be said they fill a vacant niche in a persons spirit or conciousness – a vacancy regardless of how hard it tries science will never fill – how hard it attempts to portray itself as all seeing, all knowing, and above all benevolent.
There are parallels that exist between religion and science, both claim miracles and both have authored the worst examples of butchery – religion in holy wars and science in the development of weapons of mass destruction.
The Bible speaks against the practice of magic, divination, sorcery, and the like – science arrogantly dabbles in the magic of the mysteries of life – cloning, GMOs, resurrecting long dead viruses and disease – a sorcery of their own.
Nuclear waste, some of which has a half life of 250,000 years is buried underground, kind of like a cat will do attempting to hide their own mess – we are assured no danger exists, governments insist it is so despite involving a time span in excess of what is referred to as the recorded history of humankind – a guarantee that is unraveling even as you read this.
Science exists in something of a state of flux- they declare little if anything an absolute having learned the hard way they wind up with egg on their face when doing so – so they offer “theories”, or what one scientist told me is the best answer at the time.
But this same scientist once told me science has no moral obligation, which if that is a commonly shared opinion says all I need to know about science and scientists.
I’d be the first to say science has created benefits, but I don’t believe in view of it’s other creations the scales exist in a state of equilibrium.
Everyone has a need to believe in something, even if only in themselves – belief and an unfettered intolerant zeal such as the boat people exhibited are entirely different horses, as is a sense of having no moral responsibility.
That places the majority who abide in neither the zealots nor the scientific camp in the middle, ultimately I feel that is the best place to be – no one has the right to dictate what you believe, but there is also an inherent responsibility to live in a just and moral manner within the boundaries of those beliefs.
Too many profess doing so while doing the opposite.
Do I believe in a Creator? Absolutely – one wise enough to gift people an understanding based in part on who they were, their geographic location, and the language they speak. In other words providing a message in a way they could understand and relate to.
What has followed has been a wholesale corruption with the necessary revisions to support that corruption.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism
http://americanhumanist.org/Humanism/Definitions_of_Humanism
