Welcome to Trust Reason

This site promotes the idea that nobody should be considered a second-class citizen because of their beliefs or lack of them. I am an atheist. Theoretically, I have the same rights as any other citizen in this country. However, there is a movement to change this status. This movement is called Dominionism, and it has been around in various forms since this country started. Before we became the United States, we were a set of colonies. These colonies were often set apart, in large part, by their religious beliefs. The Puritans had their own colony, the Quakers had theirs, and so on. This proved to be a very divisive aspect of the colonies, which is why when the United States was formed, Thomas Jefferson fought to keep the Constitution and the US Government secular. In his home state of Virginia, he passed the “The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom” which stopped the Anglican Church from being an official state religion. He also worked to get the “Establishment Clause” in the 1st Amendment of the Constitution. James Madison followed on Jefferson in establishing a separation of church and state. He outlines his thoughts on the subject clearly in his “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments” in 1785.

A secular government has been a mainstay of this country. Though this has been chipped away, most notably with the passage of bills in the 1950s which introduced “In God We Trust” as a national motto and inserted it on all currency, and the insertion of “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. More recently, there have been bills passed that use our tax dollars for “Faith-Based Initiatives” which amount to government funding of churches. There has also been heavy proselytizing of the US Military. All of this puts religion, especially Christianity, as a de facto special class of citizen, leaving all non-believers or non-Christians as second-class. This type of intolerance and bigotry goes against the basic values of this country.