Religion should have no bearing on someone else’s freedoms

Friday, May 9, 2008

Smiting people just sounds silly and with the price of gas these days it would be so darn expensive to get the whole town together. It is obvious to anyone who has seen a television lately that major world events have taken place in the time since the Old Testament was written for the tribes of Israel. The all-white-meat chicken McNugget is the first thing that comes to my mind.

Jesus spoke of a new way and a new interpretation of God. In the fourth century the Roman government adopted Christianity as its official religion after the emperor, by the grace of God, was successful in a battle. Many world religions share similar historical beginnings; so many in fact, that I couldn’t possibly give each a proper historical analysis in this short letter to the editor.

Also, I am kind of biased to talking about the religions I know. The others just seem too flashy for me. It’s like going to a fancy Italian restaurant where you know you really want to try the (insert fancy Italian word here) but instead you go with the spaghetti.

And I assume that is exactly how the Old Testament followers felt when God went ahead and sent his son, with no forewarning, to tell people the new rules. They were probably thinking, ‘‘God we just got used to wearing those plain, single fiber, colorless clothes that wash out our complexion, do we really have to wear technicolor now?” In the end it was probably for the best that they got rid of those mean-spirited old laws.

Lucky for us, we live in a modern society. Not only do we not have to follow the Old Testament, but we don’t have to follow the New Testament either. We don’t have to believe in any religion, or we can dabble in many. I guess you could say that George Washington was like the Roman emperor and maybe the American Revolutionary War was like that battle the Romans won. I say thanks be to God. I hope she doesn’t mind that I am going to give her the credit for this one.

So, while religion may still play a part in our personal lives, it has no place in our civil lives. My belief in one religion should have no bearing on someone else’s freedoms and liberties to practice or not practice religion as he or she chooses.

To sum up, there will always be a straw man to tear down when we bring our own personal religious convictions into a modern civil discussion. There will always be another religion to compete with our own. I am content learning about God every day from the people around me. If someone’s God teaches that good people are sinful, I simply suggest that they find another God.

Brent Quinn, La Plata