I also consider the Christian religion (outside of the theocratic reasons) to be the most perfectly formed religion for the achievement of freedom and a just society. It is no accident that the Greco-Roman world merged with Christianity.
Well said and worthy of a repeat.
I too have concluded the same thing, after a recent research into various philosophies. The search for religion is universal in man, it is tied to the 3 questions we want to ask: Where we came from (creation); who we are and who we should be (morality); and where are we going (purpose of life, life-after-death, etc). We are always seraching for meaning. The nihilists who deny meaning have confused a process of truth-finding (skepticism) for a result. they end up holding a philosophy that is impossible to hold in 'real life'.
There is some error in Western civilizations' realms of faith and reason, in the duality of it. Yet our synthesis of Greek-derived reason-based philosophy and Christian faith-based religion into a world view that gave us the framework (logic) to learn and the motivation (moral imperative) to do so. Without *either* faith or reason we would not be modern society; without the mind-set to consider both subject to human understanding and advance, we would not have advanced.
You need look no further than the Buddhist-run societies to see the stark constrast; Buddhist moral vision is compelling (suffering exists, so overcome it by overcoming desire) yet impaired by the inward-looking-ness of it all. I see Buddhism as the only other religion close to Christianity in its completeness of moral vision. (Confucius was more practical than idealist; Islam is flawed.) But it takes you out of the world, whereas the example of Christ is one of going *into* the world. Can modern man deny all desire? Yet a culture that encourages this is a culture that creates incredible passivity and lack of change. Which is why Tibet is not New York city.
Now this does leave aside the question 'is it true?' and yet consider the lesson of doubting Thomas, and the Greek philosophic tradition, carried on by scholastics and western philosophers: They tested faith with reason, reason and natural experience with faith, and tested and considered both in their own realms. The beginning of science is to understand that a statement can be falsifiable by the evidence, and that what we "know" is less than we assume ("All I know is I know nothing" -Socrates). Moreso than any other religion, the simple question "Is this true?" is asked in ours - with meaning. Christian theology, unlike the theologies of other religions is *also* imbued with that questioning eye; it's led to schisms and dogma, but also to *advance*. And perhaps, even to those who split off completely into agnostic and atheistic doubt.
One of the book I read on my own recent philosophic excursions was a book on the New Age "wisdom" by Tony Schwartz, a secularized Jewish reporter who went looking for meaning in his life. Lot's of interesting stuff there are Esalen, new psychotherapies, bio-feedback, theories of mind, sports trainers pushing excellence (let your mind go, learne to relax) and whacky new age spiritualism (higher modes of consciousness thanks to LSD, meditation, that take us beyond the rational - so there is subrational, rational and above-the-rational), but in the end he came to conclude the answer is the search. And I came to ask while reading "Why didnt you just ask a Rabbi or a Minister these same questions?" the answers to his questions have been given in the Torah and in the Epistles, and in meditations of St Francis, Augustine, Aquinas, etc.
It is a testament to the eternal search. Yet also a testament to Chesterton's point that: "When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing -- they believe in anything." -- GK Chesterton. That's my one-sentence summary of the entire grab-bag of New Age spritualism. Despite trying to 'beyond' mere Christianity, the New Agers end up reverting to primitive mysticism of a type that even devout Christians would find weirdly superstitious.
The only real advance of the modern era, when you look at it, is science and the natural knoweldge of the world we have gained. No moral vision has yet to surpass what Jesus taught on the Sermon on the Mount. It is complete; yet universal ("Do unto others as you would have other do unto you" is the best formulation of a similar ethic carried in practically all major religions). It doesnt mean we should accept faith of 100AD christian blindly, but we should be humble about assuming we can 'invent' something better.
I too have found the Left's assault on or Greek and Roman roots to be a big threat. More so than the issue of the removal of the 10 commandments from the Alabama Court House. I go back to Chesterton on this. They destroy the old moral fabric because they want to install their own, not because they are hard-nosed skeptics: Worshipping animals (Peter Singer), woman-Gods (Wicca feminism), hedonism (take your pick), and other superstitions.
An appropriate response might be, not likely must be, a secular-based Conservative traditionalist moral foundation. Curiously, the best example of that would be found in (egads) the Deist Founding fathers, like Jefferson, etc., and the legacy they gave us. Which returns us to the idea that the best way to stop the depradations of the Left on common sense would be to defend the traditions of both faith and reason - and civic duty and freedom - that the founding fathers gave to our country.
So we need to ask: WWJD? What Would Jefferson Do?
You said and yet consider the lesson of doubting Thomas
What a perfect example! Thomas doubted the resurrected Jesus. Jesus then asked him to probe his crucifixion wounds. Is that not the observational-rational-scientific basis of Greek philosophy employed by Jesus to us?
That is why Christianity survived and prospered in the Greco-Roman world while the popular mystery cults of that time died out.
Islam in contrast would never allow its worshipers to probe God.
"Those who intellectually contributed to the Constitutional convention were the Founding Fathers. .... Back then church membership was a big deal. In other words, to be a member of a church back then, it wasn't just a matter of sitting in the pew or attending once in a while. This was a time when church membership entailed a sworn public confession of biblical faith, adherence, and acknowledgment of the doctrines of that particular church.
Of those 55 Founding Fathers, we know what their sworn public confessions were. [excerpted]: HERE
Specifically, the 55 Framers (from North to South):
John Langdon, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
Nicholas Gilman, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
Elbridge Gerry, Episcoplian (Calvinist)
Rufus King, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Caleb Strong, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
Nathaniel Gorham, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
Roger Sherman, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
William Samuel Johnson, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Oliver Ellsworth, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
Alexander Hamilton, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
John Lansing, Dutch Reformed (Calvinist)
Robert Yates, Dutch Reformed (Calvinist)
William Patterson, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
William Livingston, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Jonathan Dayton, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
David Brearly, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
William Churchill Houston, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Benjamin Franklin, Christian in his youth, Deist in later years, then back to his Puritan background in his old age (his June 28, 1787 prayer at the Constitutional Convention was from no "Deist")
Robert Morris, Episcopalian, (Calvinist)
James Wilson, probably a Deist
Gouverneur Morris, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Thomas Mifflin, Lutheran (Calvinist-lite)
George Clymer, Quaker turned Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Thomas FitzSimmons, Roman Catholic
Jared Ingersoll, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
John Dickinson, Quaker turned Episcopalian (Calvinist)
George Read, Episcopalian, (Calvinist)
Richard Bassett, Methodist
Gunning Bedford, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Jacob Broom, Lutheran
Luther Martin, Episcopalian, (Calvinist)
Daniel Carroll, Roman Catholic
John Francis Mercer, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
James McHenry, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Daniel of St Thomas Jennifer, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
George Washington, Episcopalian (Calvinist; no, he was not a deist)
James Madison, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
George Mason, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Edmund Jennings Randolph, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
James Blair, Jr., Episcopalian (Calvinist)
James McClung, ?
George Wythe, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
William Richardson Davie, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Hugh Williamson, Presbyterian, possibly later became a Deist
William Few, Methodist
William Leigh Pierce, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
William Houstoun, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
William Blount, Presbyterian (Calvinist)
Alexander Martin, Presbyterian/Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Richard Dobbs Spaight, Jr., Episcopalian (Calvinist)
John Rutledge, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, III, Episcopalian (Calvinist)
Abraham Baldwin, Congregationalist (Calvinist)
And don't confuse the modern-day "pop-culture" mainline Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Congregationalist churches with the ones extant in the days of the Founders. Today's mainline churches have been co-opted by the Marxist left.
Madison was a Calvinist:The Political Philosophy of James Madison by Garrett Ward Sheldon
... "Sheldon argues that it was a fear of the potential 'tyranny of the majority' over individual rights, along with a firmly Calvinist suspicion of the motives of sinful men, that led him to support a constitution creating a strong central government with power over state laws." (editorial review)
THE RELIGIOUS FAITH OF OUR FOUNDING FATHERS all but calls Madison a Calvinist.