The founders prohibited religion controlled by the state, because their knowledge of history told them that the state would abuse that power. It was based on their belief in mankind’s right to be master of one’s own conscience, whether political or religious. If someone had told the writers of our constitution that the first amendment would be interpreted to mean that the ten commandments couldn’t be in the Supreme Court or that it prohibited prayer in schools for that matter, they would have thought that individual insane. Belief in God isn’t a requisite for morality but it helps. The fact that all totalitarian ideologies try to stamp out religion has a point.
I do believe that the Tea Party group probably made a mistake in this case. To me atheism seems to be of two basic strains, those who simply don’t believe in God and the militantly anti-Religion strain. The latter are invariably leftist statists or they wouldn’t be so worked up about what they consider a stupid superstition. That they attack religion and the religious so vehemently say’s a great deal about them.
