Don’t Base Laws on Faith
by Bob Collins
This letter to the editor was published in my local hometown paper the Grand Haven Tribune today. February 13, 2007.
Don’t Base Laws on Faith
Our future must be considered based on science advice, not religious advice. Morality has its origins in our human nature and ancestry which has been codified in our country’s secular-based laws.
Our US constitution is an outstanding example and is in no way based on the 10 Commandments or Bible.
The Declaration of Independence, as seminal as it is, contains four references to a transcendent nature or principle, but they are clearly deistic references derived from enlightenment thinking. Our country’s enlightenment founders were extremely well-read in the classics.
Even well known behavioral observations of our “simpler” animal ancestors reveal a clear hierarchy and moral principles in a simple social wolf pack. Do we proceed into our future based on scientific observations about global warming, abstinence-based sex education, stem cells, evolution based on dynamic explorations into the natural world or defer to sacred, unchallengeable beliefs in ancient doctrines or today’s popular fictional “End-Times” novels?
Get real; laws based on religious faiths are not faithful to our true human and animal nature. Even hierarchically arranged religious institutions follow natural laws and religion is subject to scientific study! Religion speaks to the doctrinal past, not the future.
Our current President of the USA has been an unmitigated disaster with his faith-based assumptions and faith-based offices. This political domination by religious faith must never be allowed to reoccur.
Listen to our scientists, they are a largely secularist and moral lot. They know our human and animal nature. Ben Franklin astutely observed that, “The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.” John (20:29) states, “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” Doctrinal-based faith is blind and a poor guide for our future.
Robert W. Collins
Spring Lake, MI
