The Importance of Freedom of No Religion

The first part of the first amendment is dedicated to religion.  Religion was a very important part of the lives of many people at the founding of the United States.  Even today a great many people consider their religious belief to be the guiding force in their lives.  At the same time there is a continuously growing segment of the population that does not base their life views on any supernatural deity.  This increase in non religiousness is most often parallel to an increase in education level.  As people come to understand the intricacies of how the world works they no longer need a mysterious explanation.

At the current time, the religious significantly outnumber the non religious in the United States, although judging from the wailing of the religious you would think they were an oppressed minority.  They rail at any protection benefiting those who do not want to be guided by discriminatory rules from an ancient text.  They claim their freedom is violated if they are not allowed to impose their beliefs on everyone else.

Religion's importance in the daily lives of most people has historically been used as a tool of the ruling class.  Conquerors were able to create a homogeneous religious identity in a nation within a generation or two with a convert or die policy.  No one from the general population would dare profess a lack of belief in the religion determined by the powers that be, and philosophers and other thinkers that espoused a more rationalist view were often censured or even executed.

In the Twentieth Century Atheism was also used as a tool to unite nations like the Soviet Union and China giving it a black eye in the view of Americans.  Although like religion  before it, the wrongs committed by these regimes was not the result of lack of religion, but by the immorality of their leaders.  Many people who lived through the cold war era see lack of belief as a sign of evil, but for their grandchildren there is no such sigma on rejecting mystical guidance from an invisible creator.

The devoutly religious will eventually become a minority, the percentage of people who claim no religion has tripled over the last thirty years.  How they have treated people who do not share their beliefs while they are running the country may influence how they are perceived when they do become a  minority.  The current rulers of the United States in the Republican party are attempting to maintain their power by radicalizing an ever shrinking base, and inadvertently are enlightening the country to the dangers of not having representation that respects rational thought.