Without freedom, choice and equality among genders and races not everyone would have the chance to make money. Restrict people's freedoms and you restrict opportunity.
Our colonies were not founded by people seeking wealth. They were founded by people who sought religious freedoms among other things. Freedom inspires people to achieve.
The countries that came here for wealth murdered the native people and used them to search for gold. That desire for money continued to wipe out native populations and today we are polluting our environment in the name of more money, more power and more stuff.
A balance is required if we want to keep our lands clean, not over populate, and have enough jobs for those who already exist. People should have the right to worship whatever god they choose, get an education or job skill, have basic mental and physical health care, be supported in old age, etc. If a person can work they should. Law abiding citizens should be able to own a gun. Laziness should not be rewarded.
Government should not endorse any religion or it has to endorse them all (as in the case of our military chaplains), but regardless of our founding father's collective beliefs in a creator (our framers and signers were Catholic, Protestant, Deists, and some had no affiliation) we have a duty to protect freedom for all not just those beliefs we personally value. If Darwin's naturalism had been around back then, undoubtedly some may have been agnostics or atheists IMO.
They wanted a government different than that of most countries especially England which was ruled by a king and because Kings were presumably given authority to rule by God, our founders made it clear that our nation was to be kept secular. The Declaration was a radical departure from the idea of divine authority.
Jefferson wrote, "Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced an inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth." - "Notes on Virginia"
John Adams wrote, "As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?"
-letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816
Regarding G. Washington....Historian Barry Schwartz writes: "George Washington's practice of Christianity was limited and superficial because he was not himself a Christian... He repeatedly declined the church's sacraments. Never did he take communion, and when his wife, Martha, did, he waited for her outside the sanctuary... Even on his deathbed, Washington asked for no ritual, uttered no prayer to Christ, and expressed no wish to be attended by His representative." [New York Press, 1987, pp. 174-175]
The 1796 treaty with Tripoli states that the United States was "in no sense founded on the Christian religion" and this was written under the presidency of George Washington and signed under John Adam's presidency.
My point is simple. Keep our nation free from ideology and religion and people will flurish. Guide people with proven ideas and reasonable discussions not dogma or personal preference. Belief in a god is fine, but it hasn't proven itself to be anything more than a belief. It produces good will in some and inspires others to kill.
To be motivated by wealth, religion and ideology has brought our people many ills. It's time we stand up for our freedoms by choosing free thinking, rational discussion, and principles that work.
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