Taking Our Freedom for Granted

Taking Our Freedom for Granted

Our country was founded on the idea of freedom: freedom from a king, freedom to believe in whatever one wants to believe in and freedom to openly express these beliefs with others. Through careful examination of what the authors during this period of history were expressing, I have found a greater respect for our freedoms. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine are all familiar names to high school students in the United States. However, their principles are not familiar and I was shocked to learn that I had not previously read a majority of the works these men created to provide a foundation for our country’s belief system.

Due to these works, I realize how much I have taken our freedom for granted. These men had radical ideas: the government can’t impose a religion on us, religion has nothing to do with the church and questioning one’s beliefs is vital to their faith. While learning where our country’s religious roots were first planted, I’ve also learned just how important it is to question and probe everything we’re told. Why do I go to church? Because I’m supposed to, because my parents do, because that’s the “rule” set by my religion. If I were to stop attending church, I would be a bad Christian. However, isn’t it true that if I attend church yet do not truly believe in what I’m doing, this is just as bad? Paine wrote, “When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime” (644). I believe Paine is saying that to tell yourself that you do believe in attending church when you know deep inside you are having doubts and...

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... would be found deeply embedded in freedom and equality. The British government’s hostile ways in forcing a religion upon the people can be seen as horrible and yet, it was the very thing that allowed our country to strive so purposefully towards the freedom to believe anything one wants. Certain situations that seem bad can also “…bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered” (966), as Paine wrote. And without these discoveries, we would be a people bound to a leader and dependent on everything that is told to us. Instead, we have become a people of great diversity, in both culture and belief, appearance and demeanor, and we refuse to give up this freedom that our founding fathers established. For, as Paine wrote, “…he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death” (969).