America's 26 Deadly Sins - Day #1. Atheism

http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/read/40/1275747.html

"There is a rumor going around that I have found god.  I think this is unlikely, because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist."

- Terry Pratchett

Christianity, was only one of many living religions in the U.S., back in 1776.  Although primarily Christian-based, Americans during this time had been of the Puritan and Angelican faiths.  We as a people haven't, of late, or ever, decided on Christianity as our national religion.  A good portion of our founding fathers were religeous maybe, but there were atheists among those as well.  Ben Franklin.  George.  Because of that, I'm sure, did we actually decide that it would be whatever it is WE decided it would be.  What each of us believes, individually or as a group. Freedom of Religion.  It just so happens that we ended up having more citizens of the Christian belief than most of the others, since our primary influx happened to be mostly of the Great Britain, as well as other European, varieties.

During the time that defined our "Independence", the First Great Awakening, a movement which all but eliminated Angelican and Puritan tendancies we held dear from the motherland, England, was beginning to take place.  As we Americans swept West, the religeous views we brought over the ocean began to dissipate with it.  In our youth as a nation, when discussing our majority religion, Christianity has branched off (in our country as well, but in others, originally) to other sub-Christian categories, i.e.: Catholicism, Lutheran, Methodist, Evangelist, just to rattle off some of the main ones at its core.  In case you haven't noticed, however, each initial break-off also branched off into about a 1000 or so different little subsets too...and some of these aren't even subsets; but completely different takes on Christianity altogether.  The thing that bothers me though, that even though we seem to have so many different facets of our majority religion, we seem to be moving more and more towards Atheism.

Government, it was decided, shall not be part religious, nor shall religion be governmental.  The separation of church and state, if you will, is truly a novel idea.  Or is it?  It seems to work pretty well for Italy and it's primary branch of Christianity, Catholicism.  And, as a relative of mine noted, "In God We Trust", as well as "One Nation Under God" were add-ons we stuck into our schools (and onto our cash) when religion (namely Christianity) was at its peak in our country; mostly in the 50's, when we actually were more of a God-fearing nation.  Teaching it as something we need to know, these days, so that we can incorporate it into our lives - well, we just don't do that much anymore.

There are a lot of reasons for this, to be sure.  There are SO many different branches of Christianity; its as good as hopeless to think we could teach religion as a general class and cover it all.  There'd have to be a Religion II, III, IV...probably well into 100 classes.  OK, this is a granted then.  I get you.  Let's also note, that Christianity, albeit our majority religion, is not alone, in any sense.  There's Buddhism, Judaism,  Muslim, Mormon, and a host of others.  If you only teach Christianity, well, you're going to get a lot of input from other religions to contrast, as well as differing opinions in only the Christian way of thinking...and unless you're versed in each one, as a teacher, you're going to spend a lot of time in class arguing each and every one; so maybe it's best that it's out.

You may choose to argue, however, that if you knock religion out of the classroom altogether, you may encourage personal choice, sure, but the problem with this is, that this is where a lot of us learned life basics that shaped us.  Morals, general behavior, and social interaction, all which are taught best in classes concerning religion.  Well, although you might argue this, there is, actually a place where these ideals ARE taught..at our churches.  And I don't just mean a service, I mean a lot of churches have instructional classes meant to give us a good moral compass.  And, of course, if you don't feel this is doing enough for your kids, well, there's always private school, a lot of which are Christian in nature.

I'm thinking there are good reasons for the move to Atheism.  With the constant bombardment of so many conflicting religions, let alone facets or subsets of those religions, how does one choose without consequence?  So much consequence, even, that it just might be "Life" threatening.  Each one says the others are wrong...and they're right.  You're going to heaven...oh and you're not.  This law is right, if you follow it, you're good...if you break it, you're doomed.  I'm not surprised, when people (like myself, by the way) just throw up their hands and say "SCREW IT!!  Now, we're NOTHING!!"

Now, I'm no Atheist.  Nor am I Agnostic.  I am, however, of the opinion that there is only one built-in alarm system that's going to work for me.  My conscience.  This is what's in charge of my right and wrong meter.  If I do something right (or as America has instilled it in me, where right and wrong are concerned, anyway), I pat myself on the back and feel fabulous.  When I do something wrong, I beat myself over the head, all the while feeling as crappy as I can, until I either confess it or fix it.  As for "God", I'm scared to death to believe in any one, mostly because I'm afraid I'm going to be wrong.  So I believe in "The One", no name.  I have to.  There is somebody or something that did all this; being a world traveler, I just have to believe that.  When asked whether I prefer the evolution or the creation stories, I vote for creation.  By which "One", though, I think I'll leave that to be answered by the fanatics.  One of those, I'm sure, have it right.  I'll just ride the fence on it.  I feel that, if you are a good person, and do the right thing, well, you should be all right, whoever might be the "One" in charge.  Tossing good people out of Nirvana just because they chose to believe in something or someone else would be like throwing out good onions because you hate onions.  There's no good reason to do it.  I say, if nothing else, give them to someone else to use.  If they're bad, on the other hand, toss 'em, for sure!

Upon doing some research, I was able to come accross a few maps, dotted here and there, that map out our religeous preferences.  I chose to go with those that were provided by The Glenmary Research Center, back in 2000.  You cannot access their website any longer, for reasons unknown, but it appears that they were definately a better source for accurate religeous census back in that year.  The "Census", our governmental census, that is, evidently didn't delve deeply enough in their telephone interviews to accurately calculate these things, but, I think I'll let you decide.  Wiki, which was never acceptable as an accurate source when I attended Composition classes in 2010, shows the biggest concentration of actual Atheists as occupying the majority of the Northwest states in our country.  I believe those figures, no matter what the source, are inaccurate and under-rated at best.  Upon viewing the actual U.S. Census (2010), there are 11,815,000 people that refuse to answer any religious question posed to them.  That's a pretty big chunk o' undecideds if you were to ask me.  Also, the ASARB evidently has taken over researching religious affiliates across the U.S. from the Glenmary Research Center, and is more an authority of these figures these days.

Here, I'll give you the links to both the U.S. Census report concerning religion, as well as the site that now sports the Glenmary maps, as well as the ASARB's website:

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0075.pdf

http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/read/40/1275747.html

http://www.rcms2010.org/

Whether or not Atheism is a good thing can only be decided, based on one fact.  We believe.  We believe in things, and we believe in people.  We believe in our government (why, is still beyond me), and we believe in a lot of other different things.  We should not, however, not opt to believe in a God.  Believe in something or somebody, America.  If you don't, your thinking may just take a pretty dark path you might not like very much.  Gather enough Atheism in one place, and you may just start making up your own rules. Chaos will indeed reign.  No, I believe our moral compass has a "due North" showing on it somewhere, or it wouldn't be a compass at all.  If we don't follow it, we may just get lost.  Because of this, Atheism is most certainly, if not now, at a later date, the top of America's Deadly Sins list.  And not only because it begins with an "A".

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