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America has seen a resurgence of religion in recent years, particularly among the more conservative half of the population. If you are not religious, and you are wondering if that should negatively impact whether you align yourself with all these bible-thumpin' conservatives, you have nothing to be concerned about.

I'm not saying there won't be crazies at the extremes. Of course there are. Any group over a few hundred people is pretty much guaranteed to start picking up some crazy extremists. That's just statistics.

But are we all crazy for believing in an invisible, omnipotent, omniscient, loving being? Perhaps less crazy than you may have been led to believe.

God is function

Thousands of years ago, a man claimed the finger of God wrote His law on some stone tablets. We know of these as The ten commandments. While more laws were to come, these formed the building blocks that would eventually be the foundation of all free governments in the world, for every nation that would adhere to them.

Now, the value of some of these for society is obvious, don't kill, steal, lie, or cheat on your spouse. Do good to your family name, and be happy with what you have, that stuff seems pretty good, right? As a bare minimum, a functional society should strive for these things. It's not so crazy and extreme to expect that we not kill each other, I think we can agree on that.

What about those other ones, don't have any god but God, no idols, be respectful of God's name, and have a weekly holy day? It turns out, these are a pretty good basis for the free world too.

You see, right before these laws were given to the Israelites, they were in Egypt, where they literally said Pharaoh was a god. Well, that caused problems, and not having gods before God takes care of the godly dictator issue, and puts all people on equal grounds.

In Egypt, there were also issues with sacrifice to idols. Obviously not good. So the law takes care of that too.

Being respectful of God's name, I see that as a precursor to individual habits that build to being respectful to others.

Having a weekly holy day, again look back to Egypt. The Israelites were well-acquainted with slavery, and abolishing the 7-day work week I think is an excellent precursor to ending slavery.

In addition to the ten commandments, laws were introduced early on that effectively made individuals responsible for the mercy arm of society while their judicial system was the justice arm (liberal and conservative layers of society).

Heaven on Earth

You see, God's laws are not intended to be God saying my way or the highway (to hell), but they were building blocks for how to achieve heaven on earth. While there were laws benefiting individuals, there were also laws beneffiting society as a whole, helping it to grow and progress in the right direction. These laws weren't just obey the laws and you can have heaven later, they were by keeping these laws you can have heaven now.

That doesn't sound so bad, does it? Who wouldn't want heaven now? Even atheists want heaven now. I'm not talking about a heaven of sitting in clouds and playing harps, I am talking about a society of peace, prosperity, and security.

Do you not want peace, prosperity, and security?

The rise of Christianity

Society was pretty rough when these laws were given, but it slowly progressed and spread to other nations, and eventually came Jesus, who effectively demonstrated that those laws were building to the higher law that he was teaching.

Jesus introduced an element of mercy and compassion into the law, or rather he brought out and cemented the elements that were there already but had been somewhat overlooked and corrupted by the ruling class.

In the name of God

But haven't there been many horrible acts committed in the name of God? Of course! Through the ages there have been plenty of people that have assumed power onto themselves without any real authority to do so, and departed from God's teachings. If somebody wanted they could go shoot up a village in the name of Ghandi, that doesn't make Ghandi and his teachings any more responsible for it.

I am pretty sure that if you asked God why the crusades happened, He'd tell you there's a law against converting people with violence in His book, so it's not on Him. If somebody is doing something exactly contrary to God's teachings, why is God accountable?

Some people lie. Some people are crazy. Some people are just bad people. Get smart, get educated, learn for yourself, make some good judgement calls, use reason and truth, and question things, don't just take them at face value. Study the scriptures on your own instead of just relying on the preacher. I hope you don't take my ramblings at face value either.

God in the constitution

Have I talked about any of God's law that any sensible, good, freedom loving person would not want? Even if you don't believe in God, don't you want all these things? The founding fathers wanted them too, so they integrated God into the framework of the nation as part of the magic recipe.

Can you have the magic of the USA without God, just picking out all the tenants that were introduced through Him? I think in practical consideration that's a fine line to walk. Maybe not impossible, but very difficult, and definitely a balancing act that would cause society to swing from one side to the other while fixing all the kinks. It's hard to make a system of equality if you are not all equally ... under God..., as you are with God in the equation. Too many would try to fill that role. Not to mention, it seems a bit like re-inventing the wheel. I mean, we could re-draft God's laws and the rather succinct instruction manual (bible) outlining it all into our needlessly complicated system and run the risk of screwing things up, and end up with something suspiciously like religion anyway... or we could use the time-tested thing we already know works.

Perhaps you were coming here for a more scientific discussion about the existence of God. I do have one of those in me. It's long and boring. So for now I will simply leave you with something that functions.

God functions.

And truth is function.

And God is truth.

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