By Mike Dishnow, July 14, 2008

Morality is not dependent on belief in a deity. The fallacy is not to be found in the benefits and values of morality, vis-a-vis God or otherwise; it is in the thesis that belief in a deity is a necessary foundation for same.

George Washington was a “warm deist” at best, more likely an agnostic. To see benefit in his countrymen finding morality in religion was pragmatic in the political arena of the time. Many tyrants have forged their chains with the approval of religious authorities; modern free societies are often secular in nature. The United States is not alone in being a modern Western-style democracy.

This “enlightened atheist” is simply lamenting the “holier than thou” attitude of our present American government when dealing with foreign nations. The most blatant example is our unwillingness to support population control, when we disagree with the philosophies or religious views of the providers, in a world that is suffering greatly from overpopulation. The basis of morality is as easily attributed to a belief in the unalienable rights of man as first trumpeted by those non-deistic minds of the 19th century, including most of our forefathers, as it is to the Bible or other religious tracts.