God and Liberty - Part III

The following is part of a five-part series discussing the inextricable link between God and Liberty in the context of challenges to religion on the fallacious notion that our Founding Fathers intended a secular nation.  The consequences of a Godless society are considered and the historical precedence for religion in U.S. politics is explored.

Part I discusses the true origin of liberty and I don’t mean the liberty afforded byour government – I mean true liberty. 

Part II compares government under religious and irreligious extremes to understandthe importance of God’s influence in establishing just governance.

Part III addresses the question of which religion can be used to form a logically coherent and objective basis for morality.

Part IV looks at the history of the infamous phrase, “a wall of separation betweenchurch and state,” and examines the efficacy of its current interpretation.

Part V shows the direction we must go as a nation to preserve liberty and provides recommendations for achieving it.

Part III – Who’s Religion?

A legitimate question to ask at this point is, “Who’s Religion?”  In other words, why should we believe one religion over another; why do we adopt the Judeo-Christian worldview instead of the Buddist worldview, for instance?  Evaluation of the logical consequences of several religious categories’ core beliefs can answer these questions.

First, the atheist religion is easily eliminated from consideration.  Atheism requires the origin of the universe and everything in it to be of completely random, naturalistic mechanisms.  There is no possible explanation for the abstract, non-inheritable aspects of humanity such as morality, conscience, and philosophy in general.  A direct logical consequence of atheism is that everything must be entirely meaningless – clearly this cannot be a rational source for deriving unalienable rights nor proper law.

Second, we can eliminate all polytheistic religions (e.g. Shinto, Mormonism, Mayan Religion, Jainism, Hinduism).  Under such a regime there could be no unified source of morality, much less logic.  We could never know to which deity we belonged; therefore, we could not understand our purpose, or even surmise the existence of purpose.  A universe under the control of many competing deities would be as bungled as our federal government.  At best, natural laws derived from such a system of religious belief would be arbitrary and constantly changing.

Third, we can eliminate all religions that teach any form of self-actualization or self-as-god (e.g. Bon, Christian Science, Druze, New Thought, Scientology).  The logical consequence of these religions is somewhat similar to polytheistic religions, only worse.  If we are all god-like individuals then how could there ever be any consistent paradigms under which to evaluate morality?  Likewise, we might be able to self-claim purpose, but everyone else’s purpose would be relative to our own; extending this rationale to each individual in existence creates massive circularity with no possible resolution.  Any sense of morality stemming from these religions is completely arbitrary and exists only to fill the blatantly obvious shortcoming of this philosophy.

Fourth, religions that teach God or gods exists but with no interest in humanity (e.g. Deism, Islam, Epicureanism) cannot be used because without an interest in humanity, there is no way to know God.  If God does not care about humanity then he most certainly cannot have purpose for our lives.  If we do not have meaning or purpose for God then how can we claim unalienable rights to life, liberty, and property as explained in Part I of this series?  Even if there were a purpose, a disinterested god would never reveal that purpose to us; thus, we would be no better off than under a atheists regime.

Through logical evaluation of the many varied religions of the world it is evident that only Judeo-Christian religion can offer the basis for unalienable rights and a foundation for the formation of proper law.  We must have a God with purposeful intent for his creation, one consistent source of objective morality, and a means of receiving information about God in order to understand these things.  The Judeo-Christian worldview is the only one that meets these criteria: a loving God with a personal, consistent interest in his creation; God is also the source of just, objective morality; and the Bible is the revealed word of God.  Consequently, God is necessary for our liberty and the continued well being of our nation.  Those who try to remove God from our government unknowingly (and sometimes knowingly) doom our nation to eventual despotism.