Remember Mitt Romney’s speech on Faith in America wherein he left out the non-believers? See my previous critique.
In a recent speech
before the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, Mitt Romney made up for
his omission (or something he and his speech writers overlooked) by
acknowledging the important contributions of non-believers in America.
Below is the relevant quote.
"Several commentators, for instance, argued that I had failed to
sufficiently acknowledge the contributions that had been made by
atheists. At first, I brushed this off — after all this was a speech
about faith in America, not non-faith in America. Besides, I had not
enumerated the contributions of believers — why should non-believers
get special treatment?
"But upon reflection, I realized that
while I could defend their absence from my address, I had missed an
opportunity…an opportunity to clearly assert that non-believers have
just as great a stake as believers in defending religious liberty.
"If
a society takes it upon itself to prescribe and proscribe certain
streams of belief — to prohibit certain less-favored strains of
conscience — it may be the non-believer who is among the first to be
condemned. A coercive monopoly of belief threatens everyone, whether we
are talking about those who search the philosophies of men or follow
the words of God.
"We are all in this together. Religious liberty
and liberality of thought flow from the common conviction that it is
freedom, not coercion, that exalts the individual just as it raises up
the nation." [read more]
Ah well, better late than never.
Then again, if you continue to read the rest of Romney’s speech, he still insists that "freedom requires religion." I beg to disagree. It depends on the definition of religion. If we’re talking about dogmatic religion then how can there be freedom with dogma creeping up on believers and limiting their minds to soar?
In any case, I think it’s more accurate to say that freedom includes and transcends religion. There are people who experience freedom and liberty without identifying with any religion, or those who find total freedom by eschewing religions altogether. Religion can be a stepping stone to more authentic freedom but not a requisite.
From another perspective, even the notion of freedom can be a shackle.
"You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,
"But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.
"And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?
"In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes." – Khalil Girban, The Prophet On Freedom
Thanks to Cosmic Variance for the heads up.