Obama’s speech – Who exactly are the non-believers?

For the most part Obama’s speech was excellent in forging a message of participation and stalwartness needed for the recovery of a morally and economically bankrupt era.

But please tell me he was reading an early draft of the inaugural speech. How was it that this passage was left in: “For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers.”

I found President Obama’s definition of our nation’s patchwork heritage problematic, taking particular umbrage with his use of the term “non-believers” as it puts our heritage in a purely religious context. In trying to bond and unite us I found this passage polarizing.

Obama's phrasing here portrays him as a Christian believer who asks tolerance of other religious viewpoints, while placating the fears of the Christian Right. He is bringing us together. Fine.

But it sounded like, “We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and those ones going straight to hell.”

Our country, is made up of more religions than the 4 mentioned and to say “non-believers” after such a list implies all other religious practice might not be up to snuff but that's just grammatical.

Still, for those who don’t subscribe to any brand of the top 4 (I thought the US had more Catholics than Hindus) it seems, as non-believers, we are somehow deficient.

Yes, I've read many are trumpeting “non-believers” as a phrase of inclusion but it's like including liberals at a GOP convention by calling them pinko commies. There is an inherent put-down lodged in the word non-believer as it implies that there is a proven belief with the non-believer active in his non-belief.

The term non-believer, promulgated by religious orders to keep their faithful in line, implies a Godless, amoral person —a heretic, a witch to be burned at the stake, to be tortured and cast out. Or someone who just has a mind of their own.

Well, I certainly don’t buy into the notion that a pope, a book, priests, clerics, or pastors are speaking the direct word of God. I find religion to be as twisted as a bloated bureaucratic government and as dogmatic as the Chinese Communist regime.

So, I must be a “non-believer.” But as a non-believer, I have faith in forces greater than our puny human minds and petty ambitions. As a non-believer, I believe in the greater good, in the equality of man. I put faith in justice and fair play as a road to peace. I believe in community, and family. And, I believe in the sanctity of life. So I don’t consider non-believers to be necessarily amoral, as I don’t find religious leaders to be necessarily moral or straight (I could list here many fallen Evangelical and Christian leaders).

Is the term secular citizens (or secularists) better than non-believers? Not sure. Secularism is defined by its exclusion of religious philosophy (as well as other philosophies). As a movement, Secularism asserts governance should be free of religious beliefs and that, I think, is one of the basic tenets of our own government so we might have religious freedom and choice as well as freedom of thought. So this term does suit me better though I reject any connotation of profane.

While Obama was trying to raise our consciousness with a higher spiritual calling he instead raised the specter of Joe McCarthy’s Un-American doctrine by suggesting some “otherness” dwelling among the God-fearing consumers of the top corporations of religious doctrine.

Too, bad. The new president could have just referred to us as your Average Joes.