Religion of Disbelief

One of the typical ploys of atheists, secular fundamentalists, and disbelievers is to try to suppress the mention of God and His religion in public life. The mechanism they typically use to try to achieve this is through the claim of “separation of church and state.” While this discussion will focus on this tactic in the context of the United States I am hoping that the lesson will resonate irrespective of geography.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws that regulate an establishment of a state religion, or that would prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, as well as other things. Though the exact words “separation of church and state” do not appear in the First Amendment, the establishment clause was intended to separate church from state.

When the First Amendment was adopted in 1791, the establishment clause applied only to the federal government, and prohibited the federal government from any involvement in establishing a state religion. By 1833, all states had followed suit that provided protections for religious liberty in state constitutions. Eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court applied the establishment clause to the states through the 14th Amendment. Today, the establishment clause prohibits all levels of government from either advancing or inhibiting religion. This was not meant to subvert religion, but instead to allow people to worship freely and restrain the government from forcing any single religion on the people.

The clever trick that disbelievers utilize is to claim that their belief structure and ideology is not a form of religion and therefore not bound by this restriction. So because of this, they continuously utilize the strongarm of the government to promote their destructive ideologies whenever they have the chance.