As Americans celebrate Independence Day, we must ask ourselves whether we are free as long as our society is shackled by theistic religious beliefs.
It cannot be overemphasized that the founding fathers of our country were primarily deists if not outright atheists. The American Constitution makes no reference to a supreme being. And the separation of church and state is enshrined in the First Amendment, which shows the importance that the creators of this wonderful document placed on that concept. Thus it is outrageous for religious fundamentalists to insist that America is a "Christian nation" and who accordingly want to turn the government into a theocracy. In the last 25 years or so, science and reason have been subjected to attack by Christian zealots to the point that as the result of political pressure from the creationist movement many public school districts in the U.S. have become reluctant to teach the theory of evolution, a well-researched principle for which there is overwhelming evidence and which is the cornerstone for not just for biology but for other sciences as well. This failure in education may well result in a generation of Americans who are ignorant in the origin and history of human life.
Until America achieves a secular society on par with countries such as Denmark and New Zealand, we will remain a nation with First-World trappings but with a Third-World mentality steeped in narrow-mindedness and superstition.
