Should that Islamic Mosque be allowed? A patriotic atheist’s view on the whole damn thing.

OK, let me convolute my stance on things a bit. For quite a few of my blog posts I have been pushing back at the religious majority and venting some of my atheistic angst that I have been feeling more and more over the past few years. So why am I saying that I am about convolute things?

The new hot buzz right now is the building of the Islamic cultural center and mosque near the ex site of the World Trade Center twin towers. People are up in arms over it. They want the government to step in and stop it. There are "patriotic Americans" that want the construction halted or the location moved elsewhere. Being an atheist, where do you think this places me on this whole fiasco? Well, not only am I an atheist, I am a strong supporter of the Constitution and particularly the Bill of Rights. I am a patriot and I love this country. I totally dig the founding fathers and what they set up.

Those amazing and wonderful bastards wrote the Bill of Rights and they were amazingly simple and do not leave that much room for interpretation. I am targeting the first amendment in particular…

First Amendment - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Wow, those short 45 words say quite a bit. Now I will target the part I highlighted and that will be the crux of our little debate. In simple language, that highlighted part states that the government cannot make ANY laws in respect of religion. It cannot prohibit the practice of religion. It cannot back or officially endorse a religion. The government cannot do ANYTHING in regards to religion. ANYTHING. This is where the separation of church and state comes from. It means that religion cannot influence our laws. It means you can worship as you want too. If that means you want to be a practicing Catholic, you are allowed. If you want to be Muslim, that's OK too. If you have had true enlightenment and realize like me that there is actually no God or any other supernatural power running the show, that is absolutely fine as well. This country, as some like to claim, was NOT created to be a Christian country. Our fore fathers left the old country to get away from the oppressive dogma being forced upon them and came here to practice how they wanted to, IF they wanted to. It appears that dogma is creeping around here now and starting to oppress as well.

Now as much as I would absolutely want this to be a religion free country, it is not. It is free religion country and it is one of the basic freedoms guaranteed since day one. Also, as much as I think the Islamic cultural center and mosque going up a couple blocks away from the ex site of the World Trade Center taken down by Islamic EXTREMISTS is in extreme bad taste, it needs to be left alone. If an Islamic group wants to build this mosque, it is their right and nobody can do anything about it. Nobody. Not even the government. Period. END OF ARGUMENT. And you know what? That is fine with me. I love the freedoms that this country gives us. That means I can also use my intellect and reason to NOT practice superstition.

I would like to think that the people behind the mosque are not trying to stir the pot but I strongly suspect that is not the case. I feel they are trying to get a reaction and it is working. However, if anybody interferes with this, it goes against EVERYTHING this country was founded on and I cannot condone that. As much as I hate and pains me to see yet another religious building go up when that money can be going to better things like education, research and the like, this is absolutely allowed to happen. It is a fundamental right. Now if everybody that has their red, white and blue undies in a bunch and actually read the Bill of Rights like good patriots they claim to be, they will understand this as well. DO NOT GIVE the extreme religious nut bags a reason to call us hypocrites. All this will do is to reinforce the hatred the extremists have against us. Taking the right away to build this mosque near (not at) ground zero puts us on a very slippery slope. That will pretty much allow the government to nullify the Bill of Rights and it will be all downhill from there. I do not think anybody wants that to happen.