Rhoades Less Traveled:

My dad was a theologian who taught Christian ethics at a seminary in Claremont.

My mother, a pragmatist if ever there was one, had worked out her own cosmogony, a sort of Whitmanesque animism with plenty of uncertainty about the details, except that if she couldn’t see her loved ones in the afterlife, then the afterlife didn’t exactly blow her hair back.

Me? I don’t know. It’s as simple as that.

And I’m OK with that. I can’t imagine trading in my sense of wonder and mystery for a sort of concretized certainty about the question of all questions.

In fact, I can’t help but be suspicious of anyone — Christian, Muslim, atheist — who is too certain about the meaning of life, what happens in the afterlife, etc.

It seems part and parcel of the human condition that we, as Keats put it, must “learn to live in uncertainty.”

Science contributes greatly to this view. The more we know, the more we realize how much we don’t know — as if every breakthrough spawns a dozen more questions than it answers.

Exciting stuff, though hardly comforting.

Nevertheless, I try my best to respect any and all religious and nonreligious folk. Until they toe over the line that separates my beliefs from their beliefs or society’s 1st Amendment tenet that government and religion don’t mix and, like two fighting fish, should be kept separate.

Which brings us to Costa Mesa City Councilwoman Wendy Leece, who would like to see “In God We Trust” emblazoned on a wall in the Council Chambers.

Confoundingly, she refers to this as a secular move of unity.

Wendy, please.

I respect your belief in God (in your case, the Christian God).

All I ask is that you respect a plethora of other beliefs, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, agnosticism, atheism and dozens upon dozens more, not to mention those, like me, who choose to embrace their ignorance on the matter.

The point is, “In God We Trust” betrays a monstrous certainty about the human conundrum and, worse, foists it onto those who don’t agree, which is expressly what our Founding Fathers feared would happen.

That’s expressly why they penned the 1st Amendment — to, among other things, ensure a democracy and protect the country from theocracy.

And thank goodness for the Reformation, which stripped Christianity of its tyranny — which peaked in the Middle Ages — and allowed it to exist, peacefully, in a pluralistic society.

In much of the Middle East, and with apologies to progressive Muslims, Islam has not experienced such a reformation.

Consequently, its theocratic despotism rears its ugly head at every turn.

So to Wendy Leece: Read your Constitution. Read your Bill of Rights.

And do what’s thrillingly American: Believe as you choose, but don’t force it down the throats of others.

BRADY RHOADES is the Daily Pilot’s editor. He may be reached at brady.rhoades@latimes.com or at (714) 966-4607.