Mailbag: No Place for Atheists, Part 2
Subject: A Protest against the Atheists on the American soil !
Perhaps do you know, the US has this foundation on the faith in God from the firstly immgrants. America was not grounded from the Atheists or from the Liberals from Europe. The firstly immgrants with the Bible in the arms put down this rock in this new country: IN GOD WE TRUST ! PLease go you in all American institutions and you will see this inscription : IN GOD WE TRUST !
As we saw yesterday, "In God We Trust" is very important to Victor - so important, that he uses it continually as though it "proves" that America is a Christian nation. Here we see it again, but as an adjunct to the claim that the first American immigrants came to create a nation based upon faith in God.
Now, it is certainly true that many early immigrants came here to create places where they could worship freely - and, at the same time, prevent others from doing the same. There were also those, however, who came because they wanted religious freedom for everyone... and plenty of people who came for business opportunities, not religion.
What this means is that while some colonists were interested in creating a theocracy, not all were - and in the end, the American Constitution specifically eschews a theocracy - partly via the First Amendment and partly through the prohibition on any religious tests for public office. However religious some of the first colonists were (and there is a lot of evidence that church attendance was quite low for a long time), that doesn't mean that today there is no place for atheism in America.
If Victor's argument had any validity, then it would work equally well to say that there is no place for Jews, Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists in America because so many of the first colonists were Christian. Of course, I wouldn't put it past Victor to try and argue exactly that.
On this foundation it was developed the US as country and as nation. The Liberty in the US has this border : the word of God in the Bible.
Well, there you go: American liberty extends as far as God and the Bible allow it, which does suggest that those who don't believe in the Bible or the god of the Bible shouldn't enjoy much liberty. I wonder, though, just whom Victor trusts to properly tell the government how to interpret "the word of God in the Bible."
After all, there have been a multitude of Christian groups through history who have interpreted the Bible differently - which Christian tradition and which Christian group would Victor give authority over everyone else? Does liberty in the US have a border that includes or excludes slaver? Does liberty in the US have a border that includes or excludes abortion?
The only educational source for a ethical and a moral society in USA. OK ! A society without the presence of God in the prayers, that society would be in a moral dissolution. I lived the experiance of the atheism in a communist country in the East Europe. And you have right : It's a hypocrisy, if a man or a woman don live that faith. We can make mistakes as human person but without the presence of God in your life we can be as Sodom and Gomorrah. I didn't see a moral atheist 100% , but I saw a Saints in Christianity.
Personally, I've never met any Christian saint - or atheist saints, for that matter. Instead, I've met regular human beings. Whether atheist or theist, Christian or Muslim, they all had their virtues and their vices - none was 100% good or 100% bad.
It should be pretty clear from both history and most people's personal experiences that there is nothing about theism, religion, or Christianity that is going to make a person more moral or more virtuous. There are certainly aspects of those ideologies that encourage morality and virtue, but there are also aspects that encourage immorality and vice.
Moreover, people are quite adept at ignoring either - some ignore the good portions in order to do bad things that please them while others ignore the bad portions in order to do the good things they approve of. Both groups are picking and choosing what they want most; neither is more "true" to their religion than the other.
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Comments
The founding fathers were, for the most part, agnostics and deists; they were certainly not Christian.
Also, I should mention that it’s annoying to hear theists claim we live in a “Christian nation” then claim to want to teach “both sides” in science class. I think that the people who come up with these claims know that they aren’t true, and that it’s some sort of means-to-an-end thing, but often the regular Christians repeating it have fully convinced themselves it’s true.