I know that this is an extraordinarily unpopular opinion, but I get a twinge of discomfort every time an American politician stands up and says that we need more religious faith in the Government.

People, and by people I mean other Gremlins, tell me that I am wrong to feel this way.

They tell me that I am wrong to get upset about this because people who have faith aren’t crazy, they’re devoted to belief in things greater than themselves. If these groups are feeding the poor, giving shelter to the meek and alleviating suffering, then who cares what they’re called?

The authors of the U.S. Constitution cared. They cared enough to install safeguards in the founding documents of this great nation that would prevent this kind of thing from happening.

OFBCI

I never really cared what the first order of business was for President George W. Bush. I didn’t pay any attention to him until 9/11. But guess what his first two executive orders were?

His first two orders established the Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives. The doctrine of the OFBCI is available on their website, which you all might be interested to learn has this in its Executive Summary:

“The FBCI was not designed to be an “add-on” to existing Federal programs, but rather to fundamentally alter the way government addresses human need. This work required identifying and then removing barriers to partnership between government and grassroots non-profits.”

- excerpt from Chapter 2: Transforming Government

Personal faith is a wonderful thing, that can drive people to do unbelievably self-sacrifical acts and lift communities up with their example.

Organized faith will be the downfall of Western civilization. This is because demagoguery and dogmatic adherence to millennia old doctrines is the exact opposite of progress and growth. It is stagnation where we need stimulation. It is imagination and fairy tales where we need truth and reasoned discourse.

My problem with the OFBCI is not that it’s centered around a doctrine that I find to be scary. Well, that’s not my biggest problem with it, at least. No, the majority of my beef with this organization is that it enforces the idea that Faith=Good, not-so-passively implying that Not Faith=Not Good.

Atheists are the least trusted group of people in Western society, and it’s because they constantly catch bad press while organized religious groups get a pass.

So, I will devote as much time as I can to finding stories about philanthropic atheists and posting it here. And I will write about the nasty things that organized religions do to its own members, as well as the intolerance they visit upon people of other faiths.

And those stories will be posted here, once a week.

Hope to see you back here.