Religious Freedom?

We have religious freedom in the United States; it's spelled out in the first amendment to the Constitution. But it doesn't come easy. Catholics and Jews have been discriminated against for years. Muslims are now eyed suspiciously. Perhaps they will someday, due to their growing numbers, be able to hold high office. But there is one religious group that will probably be always excluded from the corridors of power in this country: the atheist.

I am an atheist. I don't believe in God, Allah, Vishnu, Jehovah, Zeus, Odin or Osiris. I don't believe in angels or demons, heaven or hell, the resurrection or the existence of the soul. I came by this view as a teenager. It wasn't really very rebellious of me--as a family, we had stopped going to church after I was about 12. My father is a non-believer as well.

I wouldn't say I'm proud of this fact. It was an intellectual decision. There are times when I wish I could believe. Some of the holy rollers I see praying on TV seem so happy and carefree. The concept of a loving God who has your back must be very comforting. I just can't buy it.

I'm not a particularly militant atheist. When in school I declined to say the Pledge of Allegiance, since it references God (also because there is not "justice for all" in this country), but the idea of a creche in front of a city hall doesn't rankle me too much.

But it does bother me that no self-avowed atheist will ever hold high elective office in this country, or be appointed to a high court. A recent poll showed over half of the people in this country would not vote for someone who is an atheist, a shocking display of religious bigotry in the 21st century. And discrimination and ostracism still exist. For a particularly egregious example, look here.

I've heard some say, what about Pascal's Wager? Blaise Pascal was a French mathemetician, who basically said, given the option between believing in God and not, why not choose belief, since you don't lose anything and that way you won't go to hell. Well, I think that's kind of hypocritical and unprincipled. It did seem to inspire the marketing campaign for lotteries everywhere--"You've got to be in it to win it."