FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION-PART 1 OF 3~FFRF WANTS CHICAGO HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL FIRED FOR HIS CHRISTIANITY

FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION-

PART 1 OF 3

BY DEBRA RAE

SEE: http://www.newswithviews.com/Rae/debra280.htm; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

Part 1 -“I’m Secular and I Vote” Campaign

Free thought and pride attract atheists, agnostics, and skeptics to the largest secular association in North America—the non-profit, educational Freedom from Religion Foundation. FFRF Co-President Dan Barker opines, "Much of the movement away from religion in America is being driven by Millennials, many of whom will be voting for the first time this year."[1] Hence, Parker adds, "We need secular voters to be vocal about their beliefs, or lack thereof, while rejecting efforts to push religious dogma on the nation."

This, of course, is no small effort. The Foundation boasts 23,500 members, 20 chapters across America, not to mention secular student alliances. Nearly 8,000 secular voters are reaching out to educate the public about their beliefs. FFRF awards thousands of dollars in prizes for winning student essays; and they distribute "I'm Secular and I Vote" buttons, T-shirts, bumper stickers, and educational material.[2]

What Exactly is Religion? [3]

To be freed from something requires grasp of what is being discarded. So what exactly is the illusive concept of religion? Surprising to some, whether Judeo-Christian, Marxist-Leninist, secularist, or Islamic, all worldviews by nature are religious. Each defines an ultimate point of reference that dramatically influences every possible discipline from science to the arts, ethics to law, geo-politics to economics. All speak to an ideology, or movement, that offers some overarching approach to comprehend God (god), the world, and man’s relationship to both.

“Freedom from religion” is better understood as switching religion from one brand to another. Allow me to explain. Classical orthodoxy, Christian or Jewish, broadly typifies “religion,” as most perceive it, but so does secular humanism. By definition, religion sports its own distinctive vocabulary, sacred symbolism, grand metanarrative, exclusive truth exercised by faith, code of ethics/morality, creed, rituals, evangelism, and discipleship. Logically, to discard religion is to separate from the above; secularism instead exhibits all of them.

Judicial Acknowledgment

In The Church of the Holy Trinity v. U.S. (1892), the Supreme Court ruled that our civilization and institutions are emphatically Christian.[4] In the early sixties, however, two landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases made way for secular humanism by giving the proverbial boot to traditional faith (in the form of school prayer and Bible reading). It was then that secular humanism emerged as a non-theistic religion whose organized system of beliefs is upheld devotedly by some 7.3 million humanists, and counting.[5] Both Christianity and secularism have received judicial acknowledgement.

Distinctive Vocabulary

Keep in mind humanism may or may not center on a supernatural being. Cosmic- and secular- humanism both are organized systems of beliefs and rituals upheld or pursued with zeal and devotion. Their relativistic values exalt human worth based on self-determination through reason.

By censoring God-speak and pilfering biblical phraseology, secularists craft their own lexicon. Take the word, “conversion,” meaning “a turning”—whether literally or figuratively, ethically or religiously. In the Bible, conversion is associated with repentance and faith.[6] In the secular world, Harvard Professor Steven Pinker boldly testifies, “I never outgrew my conversion to atheist at thirteen.”[7]

Honorary FFRF Board member Julia Sweeny argues, “How dare the religious use the term ‘born again’?” Sweeney reserves the phrase for fellow freethinkers who, like her, have ostensibly thrown off the shackles of religion. The Greek word for “born again,”[8] used first by Jesus and plagiarized by Sweeny, means “to beget again into a new life.”[9] More specifically, “to be born from above.”

In challenging the phrase “under God,” born-again convert to secularism Mike Newdow complained to the U.S. Supreme Court, “I am an atheist. I don't believe in God. And every school morning my child is asked to stand up, face that flag, put her hand over her heart, and say that her father is wrong.” Apparently, in Newdow’s world, affirmations other than his own are personally demeaning and, thus, universally offensive. This freethinking father knows best when it comes to a god that, in his view, doesn’t even exist.[10]

Grand Metanarrative (“Big Story”)

Defined by Huston Smith as “the clearest opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos can pour into human existence,” the religion of secularism merges symbolism with mythology and Jungian psychology espousing the “higher self.”[11] By self-identifying as “Mother Earth’s consciousness,” cosmic humanists blur the line between physics and metaphysics. Theirs is a pseudo-Christian patchwork of spirit-ism and avant-garde, “fourth-force” psychology.

For these, all life is energy; composite energy is god; and the promised expectation is “life beyond the grave” by becoming god. Most often by means of meditation, achieving an altered state of consciousness enables the Imperial Self to give way to collectivist spirituality. Cosmic humanists attain to cosmic- or group- consciousness by aligning and then fusing with the universal life force. The spiritual climb upward (evolution from embryo-god to “Christhood” through multiple reincarnations) is one grand story![12]

Secular humanists embrace perhaps an even bigger story by reasoning there once existed absolutely nothing. Nothing happened to that nothing until it magically exploded (for no known reason) and thereby created everything and everywhere. A bunch of the exploded everything unpredictably rearranged itself (again, for no known reason) into self-replicating bits, which (to make a long story short) turned into dinosaurs. This constitutes yet another tall tale, or “big story.”

In comparison, the grand metanarrative of Jews and Christian is this: “In the beginning, God.”[13]

Vision for a Utopian Ideal [14]

Simply put, the overarching vision for a Christian is humanity united with (and conformed into the likeness of) God’s Son, coupled with full restoration of the universe to its rightful order under God the Father.[15] In contrast, evolutionary theory at the epicenter of secularism self-characterizes as an expression of “merciless hate.”[16] By specifically excluding “useless eaters,”[17]“miserable, degraded savages,”[18] and those deemed “unfit and defective,”[19] the progressive utopian ideal sidesteps the Golden Rule[20] and Great Commission.[21]

In the words of the Trilateral Commission’s founding director Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Marxism represents a further vital and creative stage in the maturing of man’s universal vision.” American writer and editor Whittaker Chambers once fingered communism as the “second oldest religion.”[22]Understand that “non-sustainable non-producers” relegated to the low end of humanity’s totem pole include the elderly, stay-at-home moms, and those incapacitated physically or mentally. In the Marxist paradigm, all human rights are granted, controlled, and/or withdrawn by government consisting of elitists deemed more highly evolved and enlightened than the masses.

Conclusion

Toward developing our thesis (Freedom from religion is better understood as switching religion from one brand to another.), we’ve established that secularism and religion are accompanied by judicial acknowledgement, a distinctive vocabulary, grand metanarrative (“big story”), and vision for an ideal—all of which inform voters and influence the course of a nation.

More to follow in Part 2.

Footnotes:

1. http://ffrf.org/ (Accessed 3 April 2016)2. 'I'm Secular and I Vote' nationwide campaign launched by Freedom From Religion Foundation to engage millions of non-religious voters. (Accessed 3 April 2016)3. Scripture describes us as body, soul (i.e., mind/ feelings) and spirit (i.e., that which yearns for, and relates to, God). On the other hand, “religion” generally speaks to ritual—a means by which man seeks to please God and, thus, win over His favor by self-effort. In contrast, Christianity is a loving God’s reaching out to man. “We love Him because He first loved us,” the Bible says. Christ came to “seek and save” the lost, not to reward ritual. Many Christians (myself included) do not identify with being “religious” (representing man’s lame attempts at reaching God). We are, instead, “spiritual” in that we respond to His unconditional favor as we yearn for and relate to God “in spirit and in truth.” The Christian God initiates relationship through His son, Jesus. In a word, it’s all about Him, not human effort, although good works naturally follow faith (James 2:18).4. 143 US 457-458, 465-471, 36L ed 226, United States Supreme Court, 29 February 18925. Walter R. Martin. The Kingdom of the Cults (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, Inc., Publishers, 1977). 18-23.6. Acts 3:19 & 26, 11:21, 20:21, 26:207. http://ffrf.org/about/ffrf-honorary-board (Accessed 3 April 2016)8. http://biblehub.com/greek/313.htm (Accessed 3 April 2016)9. The classic biblical passage references a conversation Jesus had with a prominent Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin, whom Jesus instructed to become “born from above,” John 3:1-21.
10. http://ffrf.org/about/ffrf-honorary-board (Accessed 3 April 2016)11. Huston Smith. The Religions of Man (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1965).11-12.12. The process of mystical (cosmic) evolution holds promise for humanity to awaken to esoteric knowledge. Presumably multiple reincarnations with upward mobility (called transmigration) provide opportunities needed for the modern mystic to ascend from embryo god to pantheistic oneness with divine essence.13. Genesis 1:114. “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law, happy is he,” Proverbs 29:18. "Vision" prophecy denotes the revelation of God's will. Teaching a higher than mere human morality, prophets stood as witnesses to the power of truth. Its absence is marked by confusion, disorder, and rebellion. Uncontrolled, people fall into grievous excesses, which nothing but high principles can restrain (Pulpit Commentary).15. Introduced in Genesis 1:26, the Plan of God destines believers to spiritual maturity, wholeness, and completion (Ep. 4:13) with Christ Himself being formed within yielded vessels (Ga. 4:9) until self-life gives way to the Christ-life; and supernatural works, as His, are accomplished in and through them (Jn. 14:12; Ga. 2:20). Although, in God’s Plan, believers partake of the Divine nature (2 Pe. 1:4), God’s awe-inspiring Deity and humankind’s frail humanity remain indisputably separate. Jesus Christ receives all the glory although He honors His Bride as one whose light is like unto a stone most precious (Re. 21:11). Indeed His Name will be in their foreheads, describing well the singularly focused thought life of His devoted, loving Bride (Re. 22: 4), “whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:21).16. In a 1905 speech, the great statesman, William Jennings Bryan claimed “the Darwinian Theory represents man reaching his present perfection by the operation of the law of hate, the merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak.”17. Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger presumed blacks, immigrants, and indigents to be “useless eaters,” "...human weeds,” and “reckless breeders,” “spawning ... human beings who never should have been born," Pivot of Civilization.18. On 17 December 1832, as part of his world tour aboard H.M.S. Beagle, Charles Darwin arrived in Tierra del Fuego at the southernmost tip of South America. Here he got his first view of the native inhabitants, whom he described as “miserable degraded savages,” a phrase he repeated often in his journal concerning these people. (Accessed 29 January 2013)
19. Dean Pernkopf (“National Socialism and Science”) used the phrase, “unfit and defective,” while addressing university faculty and students of Vienna, stronghold of the new Reich (from selected essays of Gerald Weissmann, 1998).
20. Luke 6:31—“And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.”
21. Mark 16:15—“And he said to them, ‘Go you into all the world, and preach the gospel (good news) to every creature.’”
22. Animal Farm Revisited with "Heavy 100" Radio Talk Host, Chuck Morse, on TRUTH Talk Beyond the Sound Bite with Debra Rae. (5 April 2016).
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SEE ALSO:
http://christiannews.net/2016/05/31/atheist-activist-group-wants-illinois-principal-fired-for-promoting-christianity-to-students/
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FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION
PART 2 of 3

SEE: http://www.newswithviews.com/Rae/debra281.htm; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

“I’m Secular and I Vote” Campaign

Any religion, by definition, sports its own distinctive vocabulary, sacred symbolism, grand meta narrative, exclusive truth exercised by faith, code of ethics/morality, creed, rituals, evangelism, and discipleship. As is true with any worldview, secularism by nature is a religion. Logically, to discard religion is to separate from the above, but secularism instead exhibits them all. Hence, “freedom from religion” is better understood as switching religion from one brand to another.

In Part 1, we established that judicial acknowledgement, a distinctive vocabulary, grand metanarrative, and vision for the ideal accompany secularism and religion. All inform voters and influence the course of a nation.

The late journalist Christopher Hitchens reasoned, “Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.”[1] Of course, one could counter, “Since it is obviously inconceivable that all secularists (or progressives) can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.” But I digress.

Belief Claiming Exclusive Truth

Naturalists reproach biblical apologists for fortifying dogma by inserting “the God of the gaps”; however, in a letter to Dr. Asa Gray, their hero Charles Darwin admitted, “Imagination must fill up very wide blanks.” Despite these blanks, naturalists embrace “settled science” as exclusive truth.
Having studied under the famous scholar, Gamaliel, the Apostle Paul had legitimate claim to knowledge of truth.

Because experience shows God’s unfailing strength as perfected in weakness, Paul deemed God’s grace to be sufficient and chose wisely to “boast” in his own weaknesses so that “the power of Christ might rest upon him.”[2] In Darwin’s world, to the contrary, the weakest links are expunged as “maladjusted morons and misfits.”[3] In shunning lesser human specimens, secular elitists worship at their own makeshift altar of exclusivity.

• Exclusive Truth: Settled Science

Mind you, Darwin hated his time at school and applied himself minimally. He left Edinburgh without a degree; and, at Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he studied theology, he earned what was regarded as an “ordinary” degree. Darwin’s body of work was not wholly original, as one might expect. Instead, its borrowed tenets were lifted from a poem written by Charles’ grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin. The latter practiced an 18th-century pseudo-science (Galvanism) that involved running electrical currents through corpses of dead animals to bring them back to life.

Both wellborn-and-bred British elitists of their day, forward-thinking cousins Darwin and Galton identified with the dark side of the Enlightenment. Both rejected democratic elements, but some semblance of science suited their common cause.[4] Darwin’s legendary treatise, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, filled the bill nicely. In 1993, a number of intellectually dissatisfied scientists representing a variety of disciplines took a fresh look at Darwinism in light of ever exploding scientific knowledge. Unlike Darwin, well-studied, degreed, and highly decorated scientists found irrefutable evidence for Intelligent Design.

• Accepted by Faith

FFRF professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, Jerry Coyne, Ph.D., authored, Why Evolution is True. For Darwin’s theory to fly, faith in random genetic changes, at every turn, must provide advantage in an organism’s struggle to survive. This is not only highly improbable; it’s impossible. Even the evolutionary apologist British zoologist Julian Huxley ceded that a mutation signifies abnormality, not evolutionary advancement. Students of Darwinian thought are expected to overlook the fact that distinctive human attributes (i.e., language, posture/gait, moral/religious sensibilities, art/music appreciation) are not explicable by variations—i.e., multiple mutations or genetic shuffling. If it isn’t observable, repeatable, and measurable, and as long as scientists ask questions and apply the scientific method, science is not settled. My point? Evolutionary theory is just that: a theory.

Given the Second Law of Thermodynamics, Irreducible Complexity, and Law of Mutation, chance takes even more faith to believe than creation by an Intelligent Designer of an astonishingly ordered universe! Professor Hoyle compared the Darwinian process to the unlikelihood of a tornado’s sweeping through a junkyard and thereby producing a Boeing 747 from materials therein! Odds of this ever happening are astronomical.

Positive Impact on Society

Wrongly so, freethinkers credit persons unconstrained by religion with most social and moral progress throughout the history of Western civilization. Marketed to appeal to man’s best intentions (the common good, survival, advanced societies), evolutionary thought instead perpetuates a host of societal ills. Whether by abortion, infanticide, forced sterilization, euthanasia, or assisted suicide, “useless eaters” are targeted for extinction; and “the unfit” remain subject to human experimentalism and pharmacological abuse.[5]

Darwin’s theory validated his “good old boys” network of British elitists; and, arguably, it spawned socio-political atrocities of monumental proportion. His flawed line of secularist, elitist thinking is precisely what spawned slavery, segregation, racist immigration laws (to turn away post-war Jewish refugees), the infamous Tuskegee Project, and application of the “one-drop rule” to ensure racial purity/ hygiene. Progress? Positive impact on society? I think not.[6]

On the other hand, Dr. James Allan Francis eloquently explained, “Today Jesus is the central figure of the human race and the leader of mankind’s progress. All the armies that have ever marched, all the navies that have ever sailed, all the parliaments that have ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned—put together—have not affected the life of mankind on earth as powerfully as that one solitary life.”[7]

Sacred Symbolism

FFRF lawyers defend distribution of tracts (called “non-tracts” in the secularist’s lexicon) and activity books on display tables in public schools. Purported advocates of separation between church and state, secularists in Orlando and Denver nonetheless display pamphlets that address sex in the Bible and problems with the Ten Commandments (you know, religion). Foundation co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor assures authorities that the activity book for middle- and high school- students teaches “kindness” and, if only by limiting the satanic theme to symbols in drawings, “the basic morals that we all agree on.”[8]

Occult symbolism gets a pass, but not prayer emojis. Recently, FFRF called on Apple CEO Tim Cook to remove all prayer emojis (symbols of cruel and unusual proselytizing) from iPhones and other devices. The Foundation’s Co-President Dan Barker warns, "Apple may not be afraid of the FBI, but they should be afraid of the millions of secular consumers who can't stand these emojis."[9]

Code of Ethics/Morality

Although Paul Kurtz insists that the Humanist Manifesto is committed to reason, science, and democracy, secular humanism is really secular de-humanism. After all, Kurtz’s worldview recognizes no mandate to celebrate, facilitate, or protect life. Instead, it advances an individual’s right to “die with dignity”—whether by euthanasia or suicide. Because secularists perceive humans as mere products of time and chance, it stands to reason that life is devoid of elevated meaning. Darwinian theory defers to the paramount principle that “ends justify means.”

Freethinking poet-historian Jennifer Michael Hecht reasons, “If there is no god — and there isn't — then we [humans] made up morality. And I'm very impressed.” Claim to have created from nothing something that all can agree upon is indeed impressive—but only as a feat of fancy (a miracle, if you will). In reality, despite secular claims, basic morals that “we all agree on” don’t exist.

Creed (Dogma) and Catechism

Columnist for The Nation, Katha Pollitt regularly and energetically proclaims the atheist’s creed, “There is no God.” In accordance with this creed, secularists must transcend “inflexible moral and religious ideologies.” True to the secular catechism, believers celebrate, practice, and reward “plain speaking” on the shortcomings of religion. Accordingly, at the FFRF 39th annual convention in Pittsburgh (October 2016), theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss will be awarded the Emperor Has No Clothes Award.[10]

The Humanist Manifesto urges “people of good will” to work together toward “human ends,” but notable secularist, Oxford professor emeritus Richard Dawkins, characterizes the God of the Old Testament as “the most unpleasant character in all fiction.” While Dawkins claims for himself the right to freedom from offense, he denies Christians and Jews the same courtesy.

Conclusion

Both worldviews, secularism and religion, hold claim to exclusive truth accepted by faith, a creed (dogma), and sacred symbolism. Exercising an identified code of ethics and morality, each claims to impact society positively. To insist that secularism frees one from religion is incredulous; nonetheless, the Freedom From Religion Foundation accepts the one as truth, the other as fancy.

More to follow in Part 3

Click here for part -----> 1, 2, 3,

© 2016 Debra Rae - All Rights Reserved

Footnotes:

1. (Denton, Evolution, A Theory in Crisis, 24) and retrieved 29 January 2013. 2. 2 Corinthians 12:9—“And he said unto me, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee’: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”3. During the 1960 Presidential campaign, Margaret Sanger referred to Catholics as “black moles invading our buildings of democracy.” Sanger called for the segregation of “morons, misfits, and the maladjusted” and for the sterilization of races that she deemed to be genetically inferior (i.e., blacks).4. Chuck Morse. The Monkey Trial: Evolutionary Politics in the Post-Modern Age. (Boston: City Metro Enterprises, 2013).5. In 1961, Aldous Huxley, an important evolutionary thinker, lectured at the California Medical School in San Francisco where he stated: “And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. As part of a plan to help pilots, sailors, and infantry troops become capable of superhuman performance, many German soldiers were high on Pervitin (speed) when they went into battle. However, Nazis failed to monitor side effects. (Accessed 29 January 2013). 6. Angelo M. Codevilla. The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It (New York: Beaufort Books, 2010), 26-51.7. http://www.changinglives.org.au/solitary-life.html (Accessed 9 April 2016)8. Colleen Slevin, Associated Press. “Satanic Book, Bible Sex Tracts Provided at Colorado Schools” (Seattle: The Seattle Times, 2 April 2016). News A5. 9. FFRF calls on Apple to immediately remove prayer emojis from all iPhones.(Accessed 9 April 2016)
10. http://ffrf.org/outreach/convention (Accessed 9 April 2016)
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FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION
PART 3 of 3

“I’m Secular and I Vote” Campaign

“Freedom from religion” is better understood as switching religion from one brand to another. Secularism and religion sport their own distinctive vocabulary, sacred symbolism, grand metanarrative, exclusive truth exercised by faith, code of ethics/morality, creed, rituals, evangelism, and discipleship. Logically, to discard religion is to separate from all of the above, but secularism instead exhibits them.

Rituals (Superstition, De-baptism, Confirmation, Invocations and Prayer)
“Luck” smacks of superstition. Even so, Freedom from Religion Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor is named as one of the “lucky” eighteen percent of fellow members who grew up freethinking. As such, she was “spared baptism by water, fire or Sunday school.” Officially renouncing the primitive rite of baptism to which “the luckless” were so cruelly subjected, participants exchange creeds, dogmas, and alleged superstitions of one belief system with those of another. This they do by obtaining genuine De-Baptismal Certificates. (No joke!)

Extracting themselves from any claims of religious affiliation or membership based on baptismal records, secularists join and pay dues (i.e., tithes and offerings) to the fellowship of Freedom from Religion. Congregants aggressively challenge prayer spaces at the University of Iowa, for example; however, following the Supreme Court’s injudicious decision “blessing” sectarian prayer, the Foundation rewards freethinkers who ask for equal time to give secular invocations.[1]

• Celebratory Music Ministry

At the Reason Rally June 2016, celebration of secularism at the Lincoln Memorial will be paired with entertainment and parties that draw hand-clapping, arm raising, closed-eyes enthusiasts eager to sway to the beat of hip-hop artist Baba Brinkman, songwriter-artist Sophia Kameron, and Keith Lowell Jensen of Atheist Christmas fame. This is one Camp Meeting secularists don’t want to miss![2]

Discipleship

In accord with the Bible, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”[3] Even as Christians serve God, secularists are busy about the work of their master, mammon—this, by vigorously contesting what they view as unsavory practices in the public forum and bad legislation.[4]

• Youth Groups

As churches target youth, so do secularists. Last year Thomas Sheedy served as event organizer for the Long Island Atheists (i.e., youth ministry). Furthermore, this high school senior was granted a student activist award of $5,000 for founding the Secular Student Alliance at Ward Melville High School in East Setauket, New York. Fifty-one students (i.e., converts) expressed interest, a teacher heeded the call to become their adviser (i.e., pastor-teacher), and goals were set (i.e., vision).

Giving Testimony; Evangelism with Promise of “A More Excellent Way” [5]

To the biblical phrase, “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God,” secularists add, “But the wise person says it out loud.”[6] Through a television ad, for example, Ron Reagan describes himself as “an unabashed atheist, not afraid of burning in hell.” In a newspaper article about his non belief, honorary FFRF Board member Daniel C. Dennett wrote, “I’ve come to realize it’s time to sound the alarm.” Heeding the call, evangelists Richard Dawkins, Mike Newdow, and Steven Pinker promote non-theism as their “critical work.”

What better way to evangelize than by campaigning through FFRF’s “I'm Secular and I Vote” Campaign? In coordination with other major free thought associations, chapters across the nation spread the word via paid digital media, national TV ads, and efforts to mobilize students on college campuses.[7]

Tax Deductible Financial Giving

FFRF is a member of Atheist Alliance International, the Secular Coalition for America, and the Richard Dawkins Non-Believers Giving Aid. As is the case with churches and their ministries, all dues and donations on behalf of “nonbelief relief” are tax-deductible.

Persecution Assuaged by Promise of a Sweet By and By

In Sheedy’s view, “Christians will not find a speck of dust on our nation's soil where they are persecuted as a group.” Many Christians (myself included) disagree.[8] Nonetheless, having abandoned his childhood indoctrination into Roman Catholicism, Sheedy sought legal aid for his struggles. In his view, every state in the country is under threat of scorn from whom he characterizes as “the losing majority.”

• Heaven/Hell

Secularists reference their own versions of heaven and hell. Indeed, FFRF conventions welcome “hell-bound atheists.” In musing about “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” freethinking lyricist Yip Harburg wishes upon a star (i.e., prays). Waking up in some ethereal place where clouds are far behind him, Yip’s troubles melt like lemon drops (i.e., heaven).[9]

Conclusion

For secularists to declare freedom from religion is folly because humanism (whether secular or cosmic) fully qualifies as a religion. As the saying goes, “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.” In America, folks are free to follow the dictates of conscience. When secularists demand a voice in the public arena, they are exercising their First Amendment right. The same right applies to Jews and Christians.

In the words of Coretta Scott King, “I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.”[10] Accordingly, Rosa Parks hoped to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free so others would be free as well.[11] For secularists to deny fellow religionists right to “free exercise” is to undercut and possibly even forfeit their own right. George Washington warned, “If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”[12] A word to the wise: Especially in an election year, even self-serving secularists do well to champion the First Amendment right for all Americans.

Click here for part -----> 1, 2, 3,

© 2016 Debra Rae - All Rights Reserved

Footnotes:

1. Secular group challenges prayer spaces at UI (Accessed 9 April 2016)2. http://www.reasonrally.org/ (Accessed 9 April 2016)3. Matthew 6:24—“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”4. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Amendment 1 of the Constitution of the United States of America (15 December 1791)5. 1 Corinthians 12:31—“ But covet earnestly the best gifts; and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.”6. Psalm 14:1, 53:1—“The fool hath said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt; they have done abominable works; there is none that doeth good.” (Curiously, the Hebrew words rendered fool in the book of Psalms denote one who is morally deficient.)7. 'I'm Secular and I Vote' nationwide campaign launched by Freedom From Religion Foundation to engage millions of non-religious voters (Accessed 9April 2016)8. Persecution of Christians in America: It's Not Just 'Over There' (Accessed 11 April 2016)9. Judy Garland Lyrics (Accessed 9 April 2016)
10. Matching Quotes (Accessed 12 April 2016)11. Matching Quotes (Accessed 12 April 2016)12. Matching Quotes (Accessed 12 April 2016)