Agnostic Mom

I’m repeatedly hearing something from conservative talk radio hosts (ok, I love talk radio), and it’s been really disturbing me. These guys are claiming that secularism is destroying America. Have you heard that too? I hear it all the time. Because I really pride myself in being a secular humanist, and see it as a really beautiful, positive thing, it’s comes as such a shock when I hear these sweeping judgements. It didn’t bother me so much when it was just Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity, since they’re so full of spin, and are wrong so often anyway. When Rush says secularists don’t want to have morals because we want to be free of guilt so we can do whatever we want, I know he’s just full of it. But there is one host I’ve really gained a lot of respect for, and it puts that old religious fear into me when he says it. Dennis Prager is a strong-believing religious conservative, but he’s very objective, thoughtful, cerebral, fair, a good listener, and doesn’t feel threatened by a strong opposing argument like the others seem to. I really like him. So when he makes that claim, I start to worry, what if he’s right? I consider myself a very moral person, full of integrity. I’m honest, I work hard, try to keep my commitments. I like to contribute to society, I don’t use profanity, I have never and would never do a drug. But what if the only reason I maintain these morals is because of my religious upbringing? My high school best friend grew up without religion, and she is athiest, but she is also one of the most moral people I know. In fact, most agnostic and athiest people I have encountered seem to be highly moral people. Still, I can’t help but be disturbed when I hear a very intelligent man like Dennis Prager say people like me are ruining this country (in my own words). Since I’m rarely in contact with other secularists (Umm, like almost never), I start to wonder if I’m just really naive, and maybe a majority of secularists are not so upstanding as I tend to think. I just wish there were more of us so I could know. But then, if there were more of us, who knows where this country would be?