The Unconstitutional State of America

It seems you can fight for your country but only as long as you are Christian.

If you are Atheist, you will apparently be prevented from advancing through the ranks on the grounds that you may not be that good of a leader despite the fact that — in my opinion — a person devoid of any religious prejudice would be in a better position to lead.

The American Constitution was formed and signed by people who agreed that the way forward was to allow individuals the freedom of speech, expression and belief. The text of the First Amendment goes like this:

"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."

Apparently in the current global political climate, democracy is once again being allowed to destroy the rights and beliefs of an individual.

Spc. Jeremy Hall was allegedly denied his Constitutional Right to freely discuss Atheism while on duty in Iraq and it appears his promotional prospects have been adversely affected because of his beliefs.

Now, I can understand how this has come about, and how difficult under the circumstances it must be to deal with. Soldiers in combat must do whatever it takes personally in order to justify killing people and they must believe they are right to do so. That must be extremely difficult.

But an attempt to prevent someone from using their own justification and beliefs is commonly called bigotry.

The problem as I see it is not between Jeremy Hall and his superiors. Rather it is in allowing Atheists into that situation. There is a choice to be made:

Either allow and support people with no beliefs as you do people with beliefs;

or

Decide that — as a nation — you are not happy having your society split in this way and extradite all the Atheists. Or Christians. Or Scientologists. Or Muslims. Or Jews. Or Buddhists. Or Rastafarians. Or Hindus. Or Sikhs. Or Zoroastrians. Or Taoists.

I could go on all day, but that's it. That's all you have to do. You really can't have a free and open society on the one hand, when it comes to someone being productive and making money for you and then — in the next breath — tell someone that they don't live in a free and open society and that they must submit to your beliefs and deny them their own.

There. I've said it.

On beliefs...

I found an interesting article on Atheist quotes which had gained a respectable number of diggs and discovered a fascinating collection of comments in reponse to the article.

I posted a reply to someone who was having a hard time coming to terms with their belief system as they were contemplating discarding it in favour of a more natural, physical system. I include my reply here:

I was religious for a while. Out of my own choice — not from any form of "education" or pressure — I chose to believe for a short period of my life and I put my trust that the world was a good, moral and constructive place in the hands of the subject of my faith.

After a year or so I started to learn that there was a lot to this place that doesn't need a god or controlling influence. Evolution, or natural selection, can — even to molecular and cosmic extremes — take care of any question you may need to ask.

The universe is endlessly evolving. You are part of it, physically related to the stars you gaze upon at night, the people you love and relate to and the atoms and forces that tie it all together.

Realise your place in amongst all of this and decide for yourself how you want to deal with it.

Read books on chaos theory, quantum mechanics, cosmology, physics, genetics, evolutionary biology or artificial intelligence. You've probably already read your holy book. They're hard to read, but that's because of the language, not the concepts they're communicating. Language can be learned and this is in itself an enlightening process.

Most importantly of all, make a balanced decision. Talk to and listen to people, not to piggyback upon their beliefs, but rather to understand how they arrive at the decisions that shape their lives. Of course, this may or may not help, but at least you'll meet interesting people along the way and become better at communication and understanding. This will all help.

Never forget that people are more important than beliefs. If anyone gets that bit wrong, they're in for a rough ride.

As for Jesus Christ, he may well have existed. However, after two thousand and seven years it is difficult to know who he was or where he came from but the identity of his father is a mystery to me.