The full-page ad by the
Freedom from Religion Foundation in the July 4th edition of many national news
media, including The New York Times (where
I saw it) does a great job of reminding us that our founding fathers were not
religious men; and that to the extent that they did have religious beliefs,
they tended towards deism, which rejects revelation and faith as the essence of
religion in favor of reason and empiricism.
With so many right-wing
politicians falsely claiming that Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Paine,
Franklin and the others were devoted bible-thumping Christians, it’s good to
see what they actually said in print. The FFRF ad demonstrates that, in fact,
the founding parents questioned the existence of god, disdained organized
religion and believed neither in miracles nor in the truth of the Bible. FFRF chose an auspicious day—July 4th, a
favourite time for wrapping the American flag tightly around the Bible.
The headline of the ad says
it all, “Celebrate Our Godless
Constitution.”
The call to action in virtually
all issues advertising is to send viewers to the website. Here FFRF disappoints
by telling us an extended fib in its mission statement:
The history of Western civilization shows us that most
social and moral progress has been brought about by persons free from
religion. In modern times the first to
speak out for prison reform, for humane treatment of the mentally ill, for
abolition of capital punishment, for women's right to vote, for death with
dignity for the terminally ill, and for the right to choose contraception, sterilization
and abortion have been freethinkers just as they were the first to call for an
end to slavery.”
What? Most social and moral
progress brought about by atheists?
Was Gandhi free of
religion? Was Martin Luther King free of religion? St. Thomas Aquinas? The
Quakers in the abolition movement? Erasmus? Epictetus?
Believe me, I’m no fan of
organized religion, which has been used to inflict a lot of harm on people and
countries. But that does not mean that
people with religious beliefs have not made major contributions to ending
slavery, having a secular government, giving women and minorities the vote,
curtailing discrimination, enfranchising LGBTs and all the other steps we humans
have made towards moral and ethical perfection.
Both atheists and the
religious have contributed to our moral progress, and in implying otherwise,
FFRF overplays its hand.
The second and more
disturbing overplay is to use the term “free-thinking” in opposition to
“religious.” FFRF wants us to be free-thinking, by which they imply that only
people free of religion can be “free-thinking.”
But free thinking refers to
a mode of thinking that atheists, agnostics and the religious can all have. To
my mind, the free thinker can see into the minds of others; take the point of
view of others; look for new ways to solve a problem when old ways aren’t
working; appreciate new music, cuisine and other entertainments; and have
opinions that continually evolve as opposed to being set in stone at the age of
21.
A free-thinker often thinks
situationally, as do the many Catholics who condone abortion if a woman is
raped or if it’s a 13-year-old girl with mental disabilities.
While it may be more likely
for a religious person to have a rigid thought process, I have known more than a
few atheists who have been such rigid thinkers that they could not see the
value that ritual plays in organizing the lives of people simply because
rituals usually reflect a religious context.
Don’t get me wrong. I
applaud the efforts of FFRF to make sure that our government spends no money
promoting any religion. But while protecting the separation between church and
state, FFRF does not have resort to distorting the role of atheists or the religious
in pursuing social change.
Instead, FFRF should tell
us what it does best. The website features
an impressive list of accomplishments in defending the public and public spaces
from the intrusion of religion. Listed among FFRF wins are:
- Winning the first federal case challenging “faith-based funding” of a pervasively sectarian social agency
- Winning the first court order to a U.S. Cabinet revoking federal funds to a pervasively sectarian agency
- Halting federal funds to a bible school offering no academic classes
- Ending “parish nursing” faith/health entanglements at two state universities
- Halting a government chaplaincy to minister to state workers
- Winning a legal challenge ending 51 years of illegal bible instruction in Rhea County (Dayton, Tennessee) public schools
- Winning a federal court decision overturning a law declaring Good Friday a state holiday
- Barring direct subsidy to religious schools, in a federal lawsuit upheld by an appeals court
- Declaring unconstitutional the creation of a state post to “assist clergy” to save marriages
- Stopping public financing of an annual nativity pageant at a state capitol
- Ending commencement prayers at a Top Ten University
- Halting religious postal cancellations
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