BELIEVE ME

Glenn Beck, the pompous know it all "know nothing" conservative commentator, has turned to preaching as if he were the second coming of a messiah sent by God. And he pushes his religious convictions into American politics by cajoling non-believers: "The Founders were all religious believers, the country was based on Judeo-Christian beliefs--boy, I'm tired of hearing that term--and without God we would have no rights ("Where else would they come from?").

Why oh why oh why oh why oh why is it so difficult for God believers to see these truths:

1. Religious beliefs are not knowledge...one doesn't KNOW there is a God, one BELIEVES it. Is the distinction between those two words not clear?

2. Since they are only BELIEFS, yours are no better...no more true, no more right...than ANYONE else's. Is that not clearly clear?

3. Because of #2, believers like Beck promote, endorse terrorism. Today's Muslim terrorists base their terrorism and wanton killings on BELIEFS. Throughout recorded history, religious beliefs have been used as the basis fir murderous violence. If your argument for doing right, doing good, Mr. Beck, is based on your unproven subjective beliefs, then how can you say that what the Muslim jihadists are doing is wrong, is evil? Their beliefs, their God, is allegedly commanding them to kill nonbelievers. What makes their beliefs any less reliable, less appropriate, than your beliefs? NOTHING.

4. Believers are frequently heard to claim that God alone is the source of our rights. Nonsense. There are hundreds of religions, hundeds of thousands of different religious beliefs, and each belief system sponsor its own list of rights, and each list would be as valid...or invalid... as any other.

5. I have written before about where your rights come from.

When a cat tries to fly like a bird off the roof of a 10-story building, it is not God that punishes him (to answer those believers who blindly claim that without God there would be no punishment)...it is his nature. The cat can't fly like a bird. You cannot escape the reality of your nature and the punishments (mental and physical) which it inflicts when you seek to evade or deny it. Quite the contrary to believers' protestations: it is the belief in a God that frees you from punishment. Just pick the belief that suits your fancy and your evil ways.

Freedom is not a right given to us by God; it is given to us by our nature. Humans are not programmed by instincts or anything else to do the right things to sustain and nourish our lives. We have to make choices using the facilities nature has given us...our thinking mind, our 5 senses to learn about and KNOW the world we live in...so that we can make good decisions that further our lives.

Are you not yet sure where your rights come from? Take that "fly off a 10-story building' test and find out.

6. In line with #5, political policies are not right because the Founders believed them. I enormously admire their contributions to civilization, but they were not always right (remember slavery), THEY WERE NOT GODS. And even if they were all believers...they weren't...it is not their BELIEFS that made them right when they were right. It was the fact that they recognized man's natural state, and needs. See #5 again.

7. America was not formed on Judea-Christian beliefs but, in part, on a separation of Church and State.

Mr. Beck believes you should act not on knowledge but on beliefs. That is why I refer to him as a "know nothing".

Correction: He wants you to act not on beliefs but on HIS BELIEFS.