The Most Important Thing You Can Do This Year

 

 

The Most Important Thing You Can Do This Year

I have no problem with God, the concept of God or peoples’ belief in God. I, in fact, consider myself to be a very spiritual person and will forever defend one’s right to believe however they choose. But I am tired of people telling lies about the role of God in the U.S. Constitution and the founding of this country. I am tired of people using God to divide, judge, separate and disregard the rights of others who may not believe as they do. I am tired of politicians preaching that God is on their side. I’m tired of the lies and hypocritical ways people and clergy use their view of God to deceive, manipulate and coerce others. I am tired of people who espouse a particular belief in God and think that makes them better than anyone else. And I am tired of the many ways the belief in God and religion (any belief system) is being used in a way that is tearing our country and our world apart.

By the very nature of our country’s founding, each of us has a right to our private morality, but doesn’t the government, which represents a public morality have the obligation to respect the rights of all its citizens regardless of their private morality?

Let’s get back to the realization and wonderment that we are all created equal, with equal rights to believe and worship or not as we choose and that that choice doesn’t make one person right and another wrong, or one person good and another bad. Let’s get back to our roots and recognize that we are one country, one people and one world and leave religion out of it.

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

Mark Twain

 

Let’s make this New Year different. Let’s respond to facts not fear. Let’s build bridges, not walls. One of the great strengths of the United States is that we are a melting pot, like no other country in the world. That does not make us better, but it does make us different. It also demands something different from us as citizens – something more. It requires us to practice tolerance and acceptance of all people who follow the laws of this great nation, regardless of their personal morality or religious beliefs.

Let’s make 2012 a year filled with respect for one another, a year when we look for the best in people whether they be friends and family or complete strangers; whether they live and look like us or whether they have different customs, clothing and color of skin; whether they believe in the same God or don’t. Let’s look for the human similarities and goodness within and in so doing, we will connect with our own goodness, which, in fact, may be the most important thing any one of us can do this year.

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