As America has become more secular, it has become less free
By: Dennis Prager
The author is right. There is a direct connection between a belief in God and the freedom we have as citizens. Today as Americans move away from God, freedom wanes. Those who believe man grants other men “rights” instead of God being the source are quick to cavalierly seize these rights and restrict them in Orwellian fashion. It is almost always a Godless regime that imposes dystopian nightmares upon its population. God is all that the Declaration of Independence states Him to be. The creator, the one who gave us our inalienable rights, He who sees us as equal creations in his sight, the one we appeal to for the justness of our cause. Without God and a belief in Him there is no freedom.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Here is something any honest person must acknowledge: As America has become more secular, it has become less free.
Individuals can differ as to whether these two facts are correlated, but no honest person can deny they are facts.
It seems to me indisputable that they are correlated. To deny this, one would have to argue that it is merely coincidental that free speech, the greatest of all freedoms, is more seriously threatened than at any time in American history while a smaller-than-ever percentage of Americans believe in God or regularly attend church.
The United States became the freest country in the world, the sweet land of liberty, the recipient of the Statue of Liberty, the country whose flag freedom fighters around the world have often waved. This freedom was rooted in the deeply religious nature of its founding ideals. America was founded by God-centered individuals to be a God-centered country. The claims that America’s founders were mostly deists and that America was founded to be a godless secular society are not true.
Some of the Founders were not orthodox Christians, i.e., they did not believe in the Christian Trinity or in the divinity of Christ. But none of them were deists (with the possible exception of Jefferson). Deists believed in a creator God who was not only uninvolved with his creations, but he also did not even know them, let alone care about them. After creating the world, the deists’ God abandoned it. The deists’ God was Aristotle’s “unmoved mover.”
Every major Founder (again, with the possible exception of Jefferson) believed in the God of the Bible who heard prayer, acted in history, judged people in the hereafter, demanded ethical behavior, and without Whom morality did not objectively exist. Most importantly, they all believed that in order for a functioning democratic republic not to descend into tyranny, it was necessary to link freedom with God.
Whatever Jefferson’s view of God was, he was as influenced by the Bible as every other Founder. He and Benjamin Franklin proposed that the great seal of the United States depict Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt: Moses raising his rod to divide the sea; Pharaoh, in his chariot, overwhelmed by the waters; and the divine pillar of fire that led the Israelites by night. The seal’s proposed motto: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” Jefferson and Franklin believed that freedom and obedience to God were synonymous. No God, no freedom.
The Founders linked freedom inextricably to God. That is why the inscription on the Liberty Bell is from the Bible: “Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants thereof.” The verse comes from Leviticus, the third book of the Bible. The Founders knew their Bible. The present adult generation of Americans is more ignorant of the Bible than any in American history. And most young people know even less. I suspect that most students at Harvard could not identify Leviticus, let alone cite any of its verses.
The bell was named “the Liberty Bell” by the abolitionists. Their opposition to slavery was based entirely on the Bible. Their motivating principle, “All men are created equal,” came from the Bible. They did not get it from the ancient Greeks, who would have scoffed at such a notion.
Freedom permeates the Old Testament: The Bible begins with the story of Adam and Eve, a story about man’s assertion of his God-given freedom … freedom even to disobey God. The primary story of the Old Testament is the Exodus, a story about God liberating slaves.
For the Founders, the most obvious reason freedom was dependent on faith in God was that only if God is regarded as the source of freedom could men not rightfully take it away. If men are the source of the freedom, men can rightfully retract it. This is precisely what is happening today. Freedom is being destroyed primarily by those who scorn the idea that freedom comes from God.
The rule that the end of religion means the end of freedom does not mean that secularism would not be a welcome replacement for totalitarian theocracies such as Iran. But eventually that, too — a secular Iran — would lead to tyranny. Wherever God is delinked from freedom, freedom ultimately withers. When Christianity died in Europe, it was replaced by fascism, Nazism and communism.
Freedom is central to the Bible. This is especially apparent in America, which until now has linked its unparalleled commitment to freedom to God and the Bible. But freedom is peripheral to leftism. That is why freedom in America is threatened as never before: The foundations upon which freedom rests — God, the Bible, Judeo-Christian values — are threatened as never before.
Every American coin bears two inscriptions: “In God We Trust” and “Liberty.” Every generation of Americans prior to the 1960s understood why. Most Americans today, including secular conservatives, do not.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in May 2019, is “The Rational Bible,” a commentary on the book of Genesis. His film, “No Safe Spaces,” was released to home entertainment nationwide on September 15, 2020. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.
COPYRIGHT 2021 CREATORS.COM
Tags
Who is online
86 visitors
BECAUSE of THE BRAVE
I guess you didn't get the memo that your orange god considers us suckers and losers.
Because he’s not God and he didn’t say that.
This line, by itself, shows just how much bullshit the seeded article is.
Most of the founding fathers were Deists, not Christians.
this seed is an example of what happens when someone is taught to believe that 60 minutes of sitting on a woodbench with a bunch of other nicely dressed morons will cleanse them of all their transgressions from the week before. an individuals right to be free from any religion probably should have been made clearer to those hiding behind the first amendment and using it as a shield to promote an unamerican theocratic ideology. the thumper cult fringe are the most protected minority in america today, which will soon end.
And how do you propose to end our freedom of religion and free exercise there of clause any time soon.
It is very pro American to believe in and express said belief in God.
Obviously, that is not true. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.
Millions of Russians are devout Christians. Is it pro Russian "to believe in and express said belief in God"? Or, maybe, pro Mexican? There are lots of devoutly religious Mexicans. Are you being pro Russian or pro Mexican when you "believe in and express said belief in God"?
[deleted personal insult and no value]
Especially when those anonymous people's religious education goes no further than Sunday school. And when those anonymous people have never actually read their own religion's textbook.
"Whatever Jefferson’s view of God was, he was as influenced by the Bible as every other Founder. He and Benjamin Franklin proposed that the great seal of the United States depict Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt: Moses raising his rod to divide the sea; Pharaoh, in his chariot, overwhelmed by the waters; and the divine pillar of fire that led the Israelites by night."
That great seal would have been based upon many a yarn lost in translation. Yam Suph as an example is Reed Sea not as the Greeks translated into Red Sea. Then there is Moses who may well have been the Pharaoh Akhenaten who believed in one God.
It would have been an awesome great deal.
God Bless America
It is worth pointing out that the headline of this article is totally counterfactual. In fact, the more religion plays a role in society, it often leads to restrictions in freedom. The most immediate example is the Texas anti-choice bounty hunter law, which adopts the mores of a particular religious sect to the detriment of the freedom of the women of Texas. History is replete with examples of the imposition of restrictions based on religious tenets. From American history, "blue laws", banning business and other activities on Sundays, in furtherance of sectarian religious principles, is another example. There are many, many more.
That statement is patently absurd. Everyone knows non-believers who are just as free as the most devout believer. It is, however, a clear appeal to theocratic dominionism. Claiming that belief in a supernatural being is the only source of freedom inexorably gives rise to the supremacy of theocracy in the minds of religious dominionists. It is truly a danger to everyone's freedom.
The headline and the statement are exactly right.
The headline and the statement are, to put it plainly, a crock of shit.
Everyone knows it, and you know it, too.
Bwahahahahahahahahahaha
