A reader writes:
On the issue of atheist parents losing custody of their children, Thomas Jefferson is surely rolling in his grave. The practice of taking children from atheist parents and "Free Thinkers" was attacked by Jefferson in his 1781 essay "Religion in Virginia." In this essay, he decried the fact that relative to "a father’s right to custody of his own children … they may be severed from him, and put by the authority of a court into more orthodox hands." He denounced this practice as evidence of "that religious slavery under which a people have been willing to remain." He concluded:
"…our rulers can have no authority over such natural rights, only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say that there are twenty gods, or no God. [emphasis added] It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg….Constraint may make him worse by making him a hypocrite, but it will never make him a truer man…Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error. Given a loose to them, they will support the true religion by bringing every false one to their tribunal, to the test of their investigation. They are the natural enemies of error, and of error only."
It seems to me that this principle – which seemed self-evident to most of our Founding Fathers and upon which, among others, our Republic was founded – is the one principle that if it were grasped by the majority of Americans would render obsolete most of the present social and political discord."
I couldn’t agree more. Our core political and philosophical predicament in this country is religious fundamentalism. Until we have tackled it, as Jefferson and the founders did, our polarization will deepen.
The Dish 