-->“We live in a nation where we can believe anything we want
to believe as long as we don’t actually think it’s true.”
Ravi Zacharias
Our
beloved and much attacked 1st Amendment reads as follows:
Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of
grievances. That statement is the wisest, most remarkable statement ever
made outside of Scripture, and it’s not very far outside -- its wisdom is
extracted from the Word of God. Freedom of religious belief goes to the very
heart of why human beings exist in the first place, without freedom to choose
for or against God our purpose starts to crumble, and without purpose our
society fractures and finally collapses.
Our Constitutional freedoms aren’t just for making life pleasant – they
are to ensure that we can live purposeful, eternally productive lives.
This
freedom allows us to make the most important decision any human ever gets to
make unhindered by our government – only we ourselves are accountable, nothing
else is in the way. This freedom allows us to make the most of every breath we
take.
Unfortunately,
America has misunderstood the 1st Amendment. We’ve come to think
that because the government doesn’t have any religious beliefs to force upon
us, no one – not even God -- cares what we believe. We’ve even taken that
supposition so far as to assume that therefore our God-view doesn’t matter and
that all the available choices are 1) merely fairytales and we can cook up
whatever stew of philosophies we want to –none of it is true anyway, so who
cares? Or 2) all religions are equally true at the same time, which gets us
back to point 1.
