Sunni posted A Request for Mama Liberty. I cannot respond to the request, but will respond to the insinuation (made by a visitor) "that in accepting any religion, one becomes subservient to its god(s), and thereby sets up a contradiction with being truly free."
Just to be clear, I am an atheist.
First of all, what does it mean to be "free"? As I said here it is making one's own decisions, without being coerced, paying the price and receiving the rewards for those decisions. It is no more and no less.
In the world we live, much of what we do is not consistent with being free. We are coerced into paying taxes, to give just one obvious example. In some parts of the world religion is closely associated with the state, and people are not able to decide for themselves if they will participate or not. We can all agree that in these cases religion is inconsistent with freedom. Note that this is because of state action.
However, if an individual voluntarily chooses religion, and does not coerce anyone else into doing so, then there is no contradiction between "being truly free" and giving oneself to the deity(s). Just as there is no contradiction between being free and being married. In voluntarily choosing to marry, I voluntarily agreed to stop dating other women. This was not a loss of freedom, this was a consequence of the choice I made. By choosing to have children my wife and I "gave up" the lifestyle we had before and adopted a new one centered on our children. This did not make us any less free.
The visitor is essential arguing that by accepting any limitations on action one has become not "truly free". This is silly on its face. Any contract limits action, in return for some reward. In fact, every decision limits action. If you come to a fork in the road and choose to go left, you have now cut off all the options that are only available on the right fork. Of course if you choose the right, the left becomes unavailable.
The only thing, for freedom, is the ability to make uncoerced decisions, for which you pay the price(negative) and receive the rewards (positive). If you have it you are free, if you are paying the price for a freely taken decision, you are free, if you are receiving the rewards of a freely taken decision, you are free.
Choosing to become subservient to a deity is no different from any other decision. Period.
Providing Some Historical Context
Broadly speaking, in the history of philosophy in Europe, it was the Christians who behaved more libertarian (or in the case of some scholastics, could be called so outright) than the secular humanists, who often were using their philosophy as a makeshift to elevate the power of the state. It's easy to see an apparent contradiction between libertarianism and religion. However, it's necessary to point out that the antagonism between religion and liberalism is only there on the surface. Frederic Bastiat, for example, was devoutly religious, while Karl Marx was an Atheist. Rand and Rothbard were both atheists, while Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are (and were, respectively) Christians.
I don't see one's religious views as having much, if any, significance as to their political views, which are properly a different field entirely.