And, once again, when you talk about religion with "true" believers it's best to leave logic at the door and make your drink a double.

Our Founding Fathers may have Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or even Satanists - it doesn't matter!! When they wrote our Constitution and other vital documents they purposely and explicitly constructed a separation between Church and State. At no point do they say America will be a Judeo-Christian country.

This point is inarguable. If the Fathers favored a religion, you'd have seen it written up. Since we have Freedom of Religion in this country let's have a statue of Ganesha or of Satan - certainly Judge Moore can't have a problem with that.

With that in mind, what exactly is meant by "Freedom of Religion" - is it a requirement to believe in a religion, any religion? If so, does it have to be an organized religion?

Certainly if Freedom of Religion is a requirement to support a religion, then it's not a freedom. It's societal pressure. It's what our Founding Fathers sought to avoid.

Let's focus on that maligned concept: Freedom.

I contend that there are two types of Freedom: Societal and Spiritual. To demonstrate the difference consider this scenario: You are alone on the planet. Just you - no one else. You'd have complete Societal Freedom. You could do whatever you want without fear of the police or anyone calling you to task for your actions. You could leave the toilet seat up, burn down the neighbors house, or go into a movie theater and yell "Fire!" You could travel anywhere, read anything, eat anything, watch anything. Your actions are your own without consequences from any authority.

Maybe. You might not have Spiritual Freedom, that though you could burn down the neighbor's house (there is no more neighbor), somehow it isn't the right thing to do. Similarly, come a Sunday, you could skip going to church but somehow it wouldn't be right. Or on Friday you could skip lighting Shabbat candles. Or you could skip fasting during Ramadan. Or, or, or...

(Would you stop praying? Would you pray in an empty temple? Would you fast?)

For an Atheist spiritual freedom and societal freedom are deeply linked. The Morality of the Atheist focuses solely on his relation to other people. In our scenario removing the societal pressure grants complete societal and spiritual freedom!

In our scenario if we add in one person as a neighbor consider how that would affect you. You wouldn't have complete freedom. Your behavior could result in conflicts. And how would you feel if your kindly neighbor started telling you how to think, started questioning your beliefs.Your societal freedom is immediately impacted. If your spiritual freedom is affected, you'd likely get angry or upset. If you don't like your neighbor looking at you askew because of your religious beliefs how would you feel if your government did the same?

Freedom of Religion, I believe, is not intended to be a requirement to believe in a religion. That would be overstepping Societal Freedom and infringing on Spiritual Freedom. Our Government ideally does not do this. This type of infringement is what we fought against (in part) when we warred in Afghanistan. This is why our Founding Fathers called for a separation of Church and State, to separate Societal Freedom from Spiritual Freedom.

By necessity Freedom of Religion MUST include Freedom from Religion. If I belong to a mainstream Roman Catholic Church and that's acceptable to the notion of Freedom of Religion, then belonging to a branch of that Church must also be acceptable. If belonging to a branch or a sect is acceptable then certainly it must be acceptable if that sect consists of myself and at least one other person. If that's acceptable, why can it not be acceptable that the sect or branch consists of only myself? Can an organized religion consist of a single person? Arguably yes if you're focussing on Spiritual Freedom. Arguably no if there's a societal requirement i.e. you must have more than one person involved. If Freedom of Religion includes Freedom from Religion the question of the religion being organized becomes moot. More importantly it restores Spiritual Freedom to the individual.

Certainly if I'm free to believe in any religion, I'm also free to not believe in any religion. Our great country may have been founded by Judeo-Christian believers but they recognized that their or anyone else's personal religious beliefs do not belong in Government.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

ABC showed this film on Sunday night, a 2-hour film. My family watched it - the kids liked it despite the commercials. My wife and I both thought that few scenes were chopped out. Monday while in Walmart we bought the DVD for $9. It's a 2.5 hour film!! We were shocked when we watched it. ABC chopped out at least 40% of the film, including the great song P.O.S.H. - those bastards!

My wife and I started talking about CCBB and it's relation to other films. Bear with me.

Ian Fleming wrote the book as well, of course, the James Bond series. "Cubby" Broccoli directed Jamed Bond and CCBB. Gert Frobe (Auric Goldfinger) and Desmond Llewellyn (Q) are both in CCBB. During the hovercraft scene in CCBB I expected the James Bond theme to kick in.

The Sherman Brothers did the music for CCBB and Mary Poppins. Dick Van Dyke was in CCBB and Mary Poppins. Sally Ann Howes looked like Julie Andrews and tried to sound like her with her voice of loving consternation in CCBB - OK, not a good connection.

Roald Dahl wrote the CCBB screenplay and the Willy Wonka series. Candy and a candy factory are important in both films. Both films have a candyman of sorts. Both films have families missing either a father or mother, and include a singing and "dancing" grandfather. Both films end with views from a flying vehicle.

Julie Andrews' husband Blake Edwards made the classic comedy "The Great Race" which in part has scenes in Castle Neuschwanstein as does CCBB. In the Great Race the castle is located in Pottsdorf! Both films have car races as important plot elements. Both films involve castle rescues.

Any more connections?

Of course one thing really bothered me in CCBB. In the beginning when Chitty is wrecked and when you see the kids playing in her, the car's front end is collapsed. Yet, when the car is delivered to Potts it's intact. Plus that didn't look like Desmond Llewellyn delivering the car. OK, enough nit picks. Time to get on with life.