A senseless conflict:

1. A particular system of beliefs built around moral ideals, a philosophy of life.

2. A state of mind expressing love for our way of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, and trust in ourselves and our fellow man.

3. A belief in one’s self, knowing right from wrong and truth from lies. It is a feeling you get when you have faith in your religious beliefs. It comes from your heart, your mind and your body. These feelings start within the family, not some outside organization.

4. A belief in a superhuman power to be obeyed and worshiped as a creator or a ruler of the universe, a god or gods.

This is what the pilgrims were looking for when they came to the New World. They came to escape religious persecution in their homeland.

Today it is religious segregation. We almost got the color barrier gone, now it is religion. Religion is segregated by labels, such as atheists, which happens to be a form of religion. Also Catholic, Lutheran, Jewish, Methodist, Hindi, Mormon, and Baptist, Christians. Each one of these religious groups has a label.

Our military forces fought side by side in two world wars and numerous conflicts to protect our flag, our country and our way of life. They fought and many of them died for their country, not for a bunch of gods. Putting “under god” into the Pledge of Allegiance was a slap into the faces of those fallen men. It should be removed from the pledge. They came home to a segregated country, segregated by labels. There are so many labels in this country that is hard to tell what is what.

There is no law that says you have to believe in a god. There is no law that says you have to be a Mormon, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or any other faith. The biggest problem is with our politicians. Today we spend more time and effort arguing about whose label is No. 1 than we do fixing our country.

Thou shall not bear false witness against your neighbors’ religious beliefs; there is a lot of this going on TV and radio.

Ask not what our politicians are doing for our country.

Ask what our politicians are doing for themselves. Get rid of the labels and get back to the old time religion. Get back to fixing our country.

 

Gene Seavey

Austin