A Secular Nation? Better or worse?

The paper today has an article about the horror of a secular nation.  Before debating this I should say I was born and raised Catholic and my ancestor on my dad’s side started several Baptist churches… so I’m not really bias either way… We do have friends that are of many religions and some that are of no religion.  We also have friends that are persecuted by some religions.

The argument the author was making seemed to be that the nation has always been based on one nation under God, even though it was separation of Church and State….  He seemed to feel that God is being pushed further out of the government more recently and this is a bad thing.

My argument would have to fall in the area that:

1. When this nation was founded the founding fathers said All MEN are created equal.  What this meant was not WOMEN and not slaves.  There were later amendments to give women the right to vote, and amendments to free slaves. Slaves were considered property….

2. How do you decide which religion?  It’s all great to say we are going to be a religious nation, but what religion?  Tenn. voted to make the Bible the state book, I never noticed which version – but there are a LOT of versions.  What if we were to say Mormon, or Jewish, or Baptist, or Catholic, or Quaker…. or….. you name it…..  I’m sure there is even a religion that worships the trees.

3. Many secular people I know are more tolerant than many of the religious people I know.  Why is the author assuming that by going secular the nation will fall into a heathen society?  Is that just because that is the author’s view of what secular people do?  I would almost bet that the author knows several secular people that aren’t wearing signs….. and don’t fit the authors mold… so they aren’t identified as such.

4. Having children that are unique, I fear a society where one group takes over and decides who the ‘right’ are….  Can anyone say genocide?  Anyone read the book about when left handed people were considered evil?  It really wasn’t that many years ago.  Speaking of which, I just read recently a story about a mother advised by a  family friend to get her autistic child an exorcism as the behavior was probably a genetically passed down curse inhabiting the child!  Seriously you can’t make this up.

5. Most wars have been caused because of religion…..  Here we are looking at the 4th of July Monday, Celebrating our freedom from Great Britain….  A large part of this war was freedom from taxes, but why did the colonist come to the New World to start with?  They came for religious freedom!

So the top question is: Who gets to choose the religion if we become a religious country?  What happens to people that aren’t religious?  How are they prosecuted?  Are they publicly stoned?  Are they executed?

I seem to remember this happening in the past…. If you aren’t the correct religion then you are shipped off to a camp….  Is that really the way of the future?