There’s an impressive post at the American Chronicle today. It covers the history of secularism, George Bush’s faith-based initiatives, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Christopher Hedge’s “I Don’t Believe in Atheists”, and the future of secularism.

It’s quite long, but well worth the read. I’ll just give some highlights here:

Jefferson, George Washington, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin and other leading revolutionaries leaned toward deism in their own beliefs, distrusting churches and holy texts, prayers and miracles, and believing essentially in a deity who had supposedly created everything and then gone on break. They were not atheists, but theists who distrusted all religions, even their own. And their tolerance extended to tolerance of atheism: “Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear,” wrote Jefferson.

In one of these cases, the DOJ defended the Salvation Army’s right to take public money to run social services and still fire employees who do not agree with its religious creed. In another case, the DOJ filed a brief in a Florida case arguing that banning religious school vouchers would violate the U.S. Constitution, a claim the U.S. Supreme Court has never endorsed.

MRFF reports having been contacted by more than 5,000 active duty and retired soldiers who say they were pressured by their commanding officers to convert to christianity.

McCain’s vice-presidential running mate, who would be a very uncertain heartbeat away from the presidency of a nation capable of destroying the entire planet at the push of a button believes the planet was created in six days and that she can simply choose not to believe the evidence of global warming. We now have government programs run by religions, which are called “faith-based groups” instead of religions. We have candidates promising to defend discriminatory marriage policies in obedience to religion. And we have christian proselytizing in the U.S. military. This trend in the direction of state religion has swamped a small current in the opposite direction that in 2007 saw Congressman Pete Stark become the first Congressman in U.S. history to dare to admit he was an atheist.

In a recent article called “The Dangerous Atheism of Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris,” [Christopher Hedges] failed to include any indication of what he thinks is dangerous about their atheism. Hedges thinks these other writers have horrible political opinions, but does not explain how those relate to atheism.

While President Bush may have spoken frequently with “God”, he also spoke frequently with his top advisor, Karl Rove, who had long been reported by numerous sources not to “believe in God.”

Of course, without theism, people could hate and kill others on the basis of race, class, ethnicity, and various other excuses. Atheism does not make any individual or population decent or good. Atheism doesn’t make anyone think in any particular way. But theism, by its very nature, encourages obedience to authorities, and belief that such authorities should be trusted even if their ways are mysterious. The bizarre American reaction to 9-11 in which Rudy Giuliani and George W. Bush were so comically turned into figures of authority was facilitated by religious thought. If so many people were not in the habit of turning to a lord or savior in times of fear, Hedges and all those trying to talk some sense into them would have a much easier task. If people were less like sheep in search of a shepherd, governments could not persuade them to kill each other at all