Atheists & Agnostics

The three Abrahamic faiths aren’t the only faiths around, of course. What about ancient Greek religion? If a discriminatory RFRA comes into effect in your area, why not worship Dionysus, the god of fertility and wine? You can imagine the sort of obligatory activities this god would demand of you. You could deny service to those who burden your religion by declining to share your wine or bed. And what about worshipping Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty? Why not profess yourself to be her votary, and refuse service to obese Evangelical dullards or Mormons with their ugly underwear? And what about scientologists? Shouldn’t they be able to deny service to anyone caught repudiating their inner thetan? United States law, after all, recognizes scientology as a religion on a par with Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which says a lot. For more information, see under “undeserved respect.”

And why be Eurocentric? Hindus may wish to deny service to Christians, who generally drink alcohol and eat meat, which Hinduism forbids. Followers of Rati, the Hindu goddess of love and lust, might refuse service to the unlovable and un-lust-worthy. And so on.

Or maybe those in states with discriminatory RFRAs would prefer to tailor their bigotry and hop from faith to faith, depending on the people of the day they’d like to deny service to. Nothing stops a person from being a Christian today, a Jew tomorrow, a votary of Rati the day after. If you believe in one magic book, switching to another should pose no problem. What you rarely find these days is an atheist converting to a religion. Once you see the light, your eyes have a tough time adjusting to the dark.

Such are the farcical dilemmas and rank absurdities with which religion threatens to swamp us if it infests our judicial system and trumps secular law, as any RFRA legalizing faith-based discrimination would do. The ghastly morass to which RFRAs will one day probably lead speaks to nothing but the ahistorical ignorance of their drafters. The Founding Fathers never meant for religion to play a role in our affairs of state. If the First Amendment isn’t proof enough of this, doubters might check out other things they wrote.