Religious Freedom and Liberty
Life and religion are intertwined, but not in the way that most religious thinkers and theologians perceive. Life is here, now, of energy. It is reality. Religiosity holds that there is greater power that we can know if we just think deeply and hard enough.. That just is not true, in spite of what the clerics tells us poor deluded laity. It does not seem important to me that one class of humans is given special attention. What is needed is to give all people the idea that there is in the teachings of Jesus, a freedom that cannot be achieved with dogma. It is the freedom to use our brains without fear.
The founders of this country hit upon a vital concept in the development of humanity. That is that for people to effectively use their minds they must be free of fear. Fear comes in several flavors. There is the fear of being eliminated without any recourse to justice. There is the fear of being different and suffering the associated criticism which is both vocal [ as with teen age kids]; and subtle [as with someone who says they "tolerate" you and your religious way of thinking, but they really look upon you as an person who "just does not understand the true meaning of God¹s word"].
The founders of this country said no to "tolerance", no to dogma" and no to state involvement in religion. Instead they said that each individual should ENCOURAGE all other individuals to exercise their religion as they so wished to do so. There is within this concept tremendous power. By giving the individual the power to worship as they saw fit, many times more people chose to become part of the religious community. Why? Because they saw is both as a place to grow and a place where their children could grow.
So in America church attendance is far higher than in any country where volunteer attendance is modulated by the dogma of a state church.
Recently the Roger Williams Fellowship has tended to become a single issue organization. It is not dealing with how true religious liberty can support the benefits of human activity, but rather how we can welcome a small segment of society into society at large. Yes this is important, but not to the exclusion of much more basic issues.
Let us all get back to our basic duty. That is to value and respect every human being as they are in life, and bring them into an understanding of the benefits of life following the WAY of the teachings of Jesus and subsequent teachers [and there are many]. We are an attitude factory, not an eternal life factory or a political enterprise. Anyone who wants eternal life can be deluded any number of eloquent religious and political practitioners. These people do not teach what Jesus taught. They teach self-preservation which is accepted by selfish people. [Just closely read the 23rd Psalm].
Jesus taught the individual - help others to know how to live beneficially and respectfully of all around them Through that all individuals will achieve the real worth of living. Eternal life will be achieved by being a real person in this life, because you will be remembered that way.
Brent Grant