Don't Believe in God? Part 2

A couple days ago I blogged about the "Don't Believe in God?" billboards that have been sprouting up all over America, including the part of America I am in right now, that being the Dallas/Fort Worth zone of Texas.

In that blogging I copied an embarrassingly erroneous letter that was in that morning's Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Now. I think it is wrong that that paper prints such letters from people who so clearly are, well, a bit dim.

And then I got a comment to the blog regarding that letter, saying it was an excellent letter. That comment was so convoluted I didn't feel the need to shoot the fish in that particular barrel.

Gar the Texan then commented on that comment, wondering why I didn't shoot the fish.

Well, in this morning's Star-Telegram three new letters to the editor shot the fish in the barrel for me. Below are those letters....

First Amendment freedom

Thomas T. Risher asks, “What is the world coming to when you see billboards that ask, ‘Don’t believe in God? You are not alone’ ”?

I can tell him exactly where the world is coming to; it’s coming to freedom.

Apparently those of us who recognize that the founders created a government not founded on religion will always have to remind those who want to rewrite history that “one nation under God” and “In God we trust” were not written by our Founding Fathers and are not part of our founding documents.

In 1797, many years before either of these phrases were written, a treaty was approved unanimously by the U.S. Senate and signed by President John Adams that contained the following words “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”

Risher accuses me of mocking our Founding Fathers. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I have a profound respect and an enduring admiration for our Founding Fathers, in part because they created a government that gives me the freedom of speech to put up billboards and freedom of religion so I don’t have to sit in church on Sunday next to a religious bigot.

— Terry McDonald, Dallas-Fort Worth Coalition of Reason, Grapevine

What is truly disturbing is how confused the letter writer is about history. America was not and has never been “founded on God.” The original Founding Fathers recognized the folly of using religion to create government. The one reference to religion in the Constitution is Article 6: “[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

The other great founding document is the Bill of Rights, whose First Amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech ... .”

How about a deal? If the writer will remove every religious reference from public view (which I have always found somewhat offensive), I’ll talk to McDonald about removing the billboards.

— Charlie Rodriguez, Arlington

I read a lot of nonsense in the letters to the editor, but I can’t not respond to Risher’s letter. He asks how we can allow billboards with an atheistic message.

Easy — it is the law. Not only is it not an affront to the Founding Fathers, it is the fruition of their work.

I’m sure Risher considers himself a patriot, but I consider his attitude of constitutional freedoms only being for citizens who share his beliefs to be the worst form of betrayal of our Constitution and its authors.

I am a Christian and a veteran. I served to defend the Constitution that the writer obviously does not comprehend — and his right to spew nonsense publicly, just as the atheists have the right to spew publicly.

— Eugene Chandler, Arlington