To the editor:

On May 6th, Rhode Island Atheists will gather at the State House Bell Room at 3pm to celebrate religious freedom on the RI Day of Reason, a day that is now officially recognized via a State Congressional resolution. Guest speakers such as Secretary of State Greg Amore, legislators, and members of the ACLU will deliver their remarks.
I see this as an amazing step in the right direction towards living up to the Founders’ values of ensuring freedom of religion for all – a freedom that includes freedom from religion. As human beings and as citizens of the republic, we all have minds and hearts of our own. We, as individuals, possess the ability to conclude for ourselves what our moral code ought to be, and whether we believe in or pledge allegiance to a specific faith’s “higher being.” It is not the place of the government to show favor to or institutionalize one brand of religion, particularly when an ever-growing proportion of our population is non-religious.

Our ability to reason is humanity’s greatest tool. It brought us out of the caves and into the Agricultural Revolution, out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance. It brought us the Enlightenment, where 17th and 18th century Europe discovered the importance of science, individual rights, and skepticism of the tyrannical authority exercised by monarchs and even by the Church.

Many Enlightenment thinkers inspired the ideas of our Founding Fathers. John Locke’s writings on individual rights and Jean-Jacques Rosseau’s ideas about how governments enter into social contracts with their people molded the way Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Baron de Montesquieu’s concept of the separation of powers – a concept that is alarmingly relevant today – provided the Founding Fathers with the structure they used to build our very Constitution and the structure of our government. Adam Smith used his reason to advocate for the power of the free market – on a side note, being a free market advocate, he warned against the crippling impact tariffs can have on an economy. If only he were here to reason with the current administration today.

In an era where seething populists are weaponizing resentment, fear and grievance to tear down the system and our very way of life, it is more important than ever to step back and consider those Enlightenment values, and to remember why our system was set up the way it was in the first place.

I hope you can join our celebration. Secretary Amore will present an official citation recognizing the Day of Reason, while the House and Senate will introduce a Congressional Resolution to recognize it.

Jonathan Carney
Bristol