Freedom in Religion or Freedom from Religion

the long version

The first decade of the twenty-first century finds the American people divided along a great, half-century-old fault line. On one side stand Traditionalists who understand human existence and glory (joys and sorrows) as defined by a western religious heritage, an existence circumscribed by tragedy. On the other side stand Secularists who reject the western tradition and its moral absolutes (even though they continue to espouse values that arose out of the West) and look forward to a world of ever-expanding personal freedom from societal restraints and old human weaknesses, a world wherein mankind will finally achieve total well-being.For fifty years, Traditionalists and Secularists have been arguing over religion and their very different understandings of the meaning of freedom. Does the old religion, the western tradition as manifested in the United States, sustain and strengthen freedom or does it circumscribe freedom so much that religion destroys freedom?