Response from a "duplicitous snake"

By Bryan Fischer

Below is an email I received from a member of the community, in response to the Idaho Values Alliance's press release regarding an atheist billboard recently erected in Boise. (You can read the release here.) The billboard was erected by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and says "Beware of Dogma."

In our press release, we said that the Constitution protects freedom of religion, not from religion, and the dogma we all ought to be wary of is the dogma of secular fundamentalists which is so widely at variance from the worldview of the Founders.

Here is the email, and my response:

Mr. Fischer,

Your press release was the topic of a fervent discussion involving some close friends and family of mine. While we all agreed that your press release was utter nonsense, we could not reach a consensus on whether you are:

1) Willfully ignorant

2) Ignorant due to lack of education

3) Ignorant due to lack of resources

4) A duplicitous snake

Please clarify.

Thank you for your time,

Michael Durrant

Here's my reply:

Dear Michael,

I'm happy to clarify for you. The first liberty the Founders secured, the one they considered the liberty that demanded highest and best protection, was religious liberty. And indeed, they used the preposition "of" to make clear that the freedom they were protecting was not freedom from religion but freedom of religion.

Our nation was founded on a profound religious concept, the "self-evident truth" that there is a Creator and that he and he alone is the source of fundamental human and civil rights. John F. Kennedy affirmed this when he declared that our rights come to us "from the hand of God."

Our rights either come to us from God or government. These are our two and only two choices.

Government's role, according to the Framers, was not to grant us our rights — God alone can do that — but to guarantee them, to protect them, in order to keep a tyrannical majority or tyrannical minority from taking them from us.

The one thing that nations who deny the existence of God share in common is dead bodies. Think Hitler and 25 million deaths; Soviet Russia under Stalin and 30-50 million deaths; Communist China and 70-100 million deaths. Freedom from religion is a recipe for tyranny, genocide and mass murder.

As George Washington said, "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens...[L]et us indulge with caution the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion...reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

I'm quite happy to stand with the Father of our country and claim the title "Patriot" for affirming with him the importance of religious liberty and religious principle as the sources of our greatness and freedom.

Whether that makes both our First President and me "duplicitous snakes," I'll leave for others to decide.

And you're welcome for my time.

Bryan

© Bryan Fischer