Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Religion or Liberty?

Peter Schwartz wrote an article on February 20, 2007 on the website for Capitalism Magazine titled Religion vs. Liberty. In that article he listed a condition needed for individual freedom and the direction to which our government is currently going with each religion and liberty. Schwartz believes that secularism is a condition that must be present in society in order for freedom to exist. The Constitution seems to agree with his belief, as do I. Freedom includes the right of an individual to control their own lives and to pursue their own means of happiness. Many individuals would be upset if rule by religion was able to take this away. I would be one of them.

While it doesn’t seem so clear to me to say that there can be no religion in government, it seems logical to think that if our government ruled by protecting our rights, instead of making decisions based upon religion, that liberty would be better protected. However, does this mean that we wouldn’t be better off overall with a faith based government to guide us? I imagine some might think so. The true question is do we believe that we have to be at one extreme end or another, or can we find a place in the middle to meet.

No comments: