The first amendment to our Constitution states that - "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Aside from yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater, or leaking classified information, our free speech rights are essentially unlimited in this country. That is, unless one is attempting to exercise his OTHER first amendment right of religious freedom, which, by the way, actually appears first in the amendment.

School prayer, whether non-denominational or not, along with Christmas or Hanukkah scenes, have pretty much been banned from view--if they would appear on public grounds. The court cases involved in removing these displays argued that the establishment clause was being violated.

We may well ask how a country founded on principles of religious freedom could have morphed into a land officially advocating freedom FROM religion.

Bear in mind, also, that every group that sought to remove religious displays was, of course, exercising its own right to free speech--unpopular free speech at that. Indeed, this right to engage in unpopular expression (in issues other than religion, apparently) is the ONLY test of free speech. If no one is offended, there would never be a problem!!

Why should freedom of religion be given any shorter shrift??

Atheism has a long history, and was certainly not invented by Madelyn Murray O'Hair, even if she was active during the 1960's, when all intelligent life began. (Or so think far too many baby boomers.)

In fact, atheism has emerged recurrently in Western thought. Plato argued against it in the Laws, while Democritus and Epicurus argued for it in the context of their materialism. In the 19th century, atheism was couched in the materialism of Karl Marx and pitted against spiritualism.

One of the most important 19th-century atheists was Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-72), who put forward the argument that God is a projection of man's ideals. Feuerbach associated his denial of God with the affirmation of man's freedom. Marx drew on Feuerbach's thesis that the religious can be resolved into the human, though he also held that religion reflects socio-economic order and alienates man from his labor product and, hence, from his true self. Marx sought the abolition of religion, defining it as the "sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of a soulless condition."

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) proclaimed the "death of God" and the consequent loss of all traditional values. In Nietzsche's view, the death of God freed humanity to fulfill itself and find its own essence.

In the 20th century, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and others continued the theme that man is alone in the universe and free to determine his own values. Human freedom, according to Sartre, entails the denial of God, for God's existence would threaten man's freedom to create his own values through free ethical choice.

One need only look at any measure of the popular morality to realize that Sartre was right--although certainly not in the way he meant it--in describing the consequences of his definition of human freedom. We DO now have a human value system. Can anyone argue that we are better off?