Religion In Our American Life

This country was first settled by people at variance with the official religion of England.  The first colonies were agitated by varieties of religious belief which were in competition with one another.  Time passed and religious issues quieted down.  Our founding fathers most of whom were none too favorable to the forces agitating for an established religion came out strongly against one in the writing of the Constitution.  People confused a belief in God with a casual notion of the omnipresence of deity.  "Oh, God our hope in ages past," as opposed to "for god's sake will you turn the television off!"  I was raised in the faith of the Episcopalian Church by a mother who was married to a man who was an atheist and attended when he was in the mood the Unitarian Church which does not accept the orthodoxy of the Confessional Code put in place as a political act by the second century emperor Constantine.  My faith in the Christian God as enunciated by the Episcopalian Church was tempered by years of study of Greece and Rome, and the understanding I gained thereby of their systems of deities which along with the belief systems of the early pagans such as Plato which came together in the early years of the so-called Christian era to function alongside of the stories of the Christ and his efforts to form a political league with his assistants, known to the world as his disciples.  I have never stopped believing in Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite,  Athena and all the rest alongside Jesus of Nazareth, Mary, Joseph, Saul who became Paul and all the other saints of the Church.  It is one of the richest conceptions of humanity, and the human dilemma and only a fool would want to dismiss if from their spiritual growth and development.  I have hesitation in accepting into my personal life anyone who believes he or she has a direct line to god, and thus knows all the answers.  I used to feel this way about Roman Catholics until they quieted down and accepted that their insistence was un-American and unseemly.  Now I have a problem with Muslims.  They claim that their religious text, the Koran, is the inerrant word of their god or spiritual leader.  Sorry, I'm just not buying that.  It's a belief not a truth, and has no greater claim to my subscribing to the idea than the notion that the poor deserve charity or that the rich will go directly to Hell when they die. This country grows more hate filled every day, and everyone is more and more intransigent.  As a once upon a time Christian I still subscribe to charity, tolerance, peace and love.  I know to many Christians that makes me sound like a fatuous goof, but I can live with that.  Rather a fatuous goof than a man corrupted by hatred and intransigence.