The war against religion

We are in a cultural war, and at the center of it is a major
offensive against Christianity. Anyone who does not believe this is in
denial. It is in-your-face obvious to those who read the paper, listen
to the radio, watch television, or go to the movies -- and think about
what messages are being delivered.

The latest evidence of Christian bashing is the wise-off comment by
Minnesota Gov. Jesse "The Mouth" Ventura in the current issue of
Playboy. Flexing his monstrous ego, Ventura blurted out this bit of
bigotry: "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded
people. ... It tells them to go out and stick their nose in other
people's business."

He expressed an intolerant, divisive view that has become the
prevailing view of America's self-professed intellectual elite and the
left-wing radicals who control the Democrat Party -- as well as a strong
majority of the mainstream liberal media.

Ventura attempts to conceal his anti-religious bigotry by declaring
himself "neutral" on moral issues. But there is no such thing as being
"neutral" on moral issues. There is an old saying that the only thing
required for evil to prevail is for good men and women to do nothing. To
paraphrase another verity, if you do not stand against evil, you stand
for it; you are either with Him, or you are against Him.

This is not an academic argument. It has to do with the survival of
any government "of the people." It has to do with the relationship
between religion-based morality and self-government.

Thomas Jefferson asked the question, "Can the liberties of a nation
be sure when we remove their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds
of the people that these liberties are the gift of God?"

John Adams put it this way: "We have no government armed with power
capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and
religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious
people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

In Volume 1 of Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville observed
that "... liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality
without faith."

Will and Ariel Durant, in their classic book, "The Lessons of
History," asked themselves this question: "Does history warrant the
conclusion that religion is necessary to morality -- that a natural
ethic is too weak to withstand the savagery that lurks under
civilization and emerges in our dreams, crimes and wars?"

This was their answer: "There is no significant example in history,
before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life
without the aid of religion."

If religious principles are so fundamentally a part of our heritage,
why are they under such violent attack?

Two basic reasons underlie the attempt to separate America from its
spiritual roots. First, the liberal goal of state socialism is
incompatible with a citizenry who look to themselves and to God, rather
than the state, for the satisfaction of their needs. Socialism requires
that citizens do obeisance to the state as the Source from which all
blessings flow. The supreme State can have no other God before it.

The second reason for outlawing religion derives from the lobbying of
those who wish their sins declared virtues. They seek the validation of
the law, in the futile belief that the legal right to be wrong makes
wrong right.

The rationale of the anti-religious bigots in our society is that
moral values such as are practiced by most mainstream religions, for
example, Southern Baptists and Catholics, are, if you can believe it,
un-Christian. This ill-begotten idea that Jesus wants us to forego
distinctions between good and evil and right and wrong is so ludicrous
as to be laughable.

While heathens are selling the idea that Christian love means
stupidity, legal charlatans are using the First Amendment to protect
public obscenity, pornography and flag-burning. They have no problem
with anti-Christian hate speech framed as art and hung in the
taxpayer-funded Brooklyn Museum, but are appalled at the idea of
religious speech and expression, particularly in government schools,
where children might be listening.

They are advocates of a separation of state and religion and a
marriage of state and anti-religious smut.

The people are told by arrogant judges that moral discernment is
equivalent to bigotry. They are advised that the Constitution does not
grant people the right to establish the rules of civility and set the
standards of decency by which they wish to live.

The Constitution no longer protects us. It has become, in the hands
of unaccountable, power-corrupted judges, an instrument of our
oppression.

It is time for all good men and women to come to the aid of their
country.