Those who pile remorseless fact on remorseless fact in the name of rational science usually wind up constructing another idol, only one that is lifeless; that is their right and choice, but why should it surprise them that the rest of us refuse to bow down and worship with them?
What is one to make of the onslaught of atheist tracts over the past year or two – Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens, all raking the countryside with their discontent with religion?
Did all those Silent Nights and Merry Christmases and Happy Hanukkahs finally get to them? Has peace on earth good will toward men driven them to madness? Does the Nativity cut to the heart of their pain?
They are an interesting lot, these men, who find faith an absurd – even abominable — idea and will not rest until they make cry uncle all of us who insist on believing. And convert us to what? One might lament the evangelical who is so persistent that he alienates people and threatens them with visions of fire, but at least such a person is trying to save a soul. What are the evangelical atheists trying to save? What are they trying to sell – other than a rationalism taken to such extremes that is ceases to be rational?
Let us concede that faith is a mystery beyond reason. Like love, hope, and charity, it has reasons that reason does not know. It can no more be understood by reason than Mozart or Shakespeare. Yet here is the irony. Though western religious tolerance, rooted in enlightenment, is upon us, the apostles of atheism are not content.
People, in this nation at least, are free to worship the sun, Satan or nothing at all. Atheists espouse their views routinely on national television, make money pedaling their books, and are, for the most part, greeted by indifference. Not good enough for people like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. They want us to submit to their demand that the public square be stripped of every vestige of faith. This is not only unacceptable, it betrays the tradition of American history and a spiritual instinct as old as humanity itself.
Neverthless, evidence of this crusade can be seen across this land. In our courts, our malls and in the halls of government, the atheists (or their surrogates) aggressively seek to impose their objections to faith on the vast majority of faithful Americans. It is not enough that they are not forced to pray, they now find offensive any public display of prayer. Having been given the tolerance they claimed as their right, they are intolerant of any public affection for faith. They will not rest, so it seems, until every religious symbol is removed from any spot on which they might tread.
Hitchens is the most determined advocate of this position, his occasional blandishments about tolerance aside. Not with a scalpel but a Gatling gun does he seek to sweep away the crimes cloaked by the mask of religion. Whether it is the abuse of women, children or medical science, he is quite right to be outraged by pain inflicted on the world by moral bullies and extremists who have concluded that their dogmas justify acting as God’s judges and executioners on earth. One only has to consider the daily toll of killings each day in the name of religious faith to appreciate Hitchens’ point.
But Hitchens misfires, not because he is wrong but because he is right. Dogmatic believers – atheist or otherwise – often assume a knowledge that invites abuse. He calls his book, god is not great. It could just as easily have been named man is not great. Or nationalism is not great. Or extremism is not great.
The inquisition was insane. So was the Holocaust. Flying planes into buildings in the name of faith is every bit as pernicious and murderous as crucifying Christians in the name of Caesar. Drinking Kool Aid laced with poison makes about as much sense as dispatching millions of people to the Gulag. G. K. Chesterton observed that human beings are not rational and Hitchens acknowledges this but then fails to digest the relevant lessons.
For every case of religious-inspired violence there is an equally horrific example of violence rooted in atheistic or pagan political culture. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount are relevant not because they deal with rare abnormalities in human behavior, but because they speak to failings that afflict the vast majority of flawed human beings.
Early on Hitchens writes: “The true believer cannot rest until the whole world bows the knee.” Yet, Hitchens knows that the true believer is as likely to be a Marxist as a Muslim, a Nazi as a Catholic, a nationalist as a Morman, a secular humanist as a Buddhist. And so Hitchens tries a bit of polemical gymnastics, and seeks to lump every sort of dogma, from materialism to paganism, under the heading of "religion." In doing so, he has rendered his book meaningless. If he cannot distinguish between the worship of God and the worship of man, how does one take him seriously as a critic? If the impulse to believe in dogmas is at issue, isn’t Hitchens’ belief in unbelief just another dogma?
As a faithful person, I am prepared to defend my faith, but I am not prepared to let Hitchens define what that faith is. I will defend a belief in God, but not a belief in Hitchens as the arbiter of what God is. I am prepared to defend the notion that Jesus stood in unique relationship to creation, but I am not prepared to let Hitchens equate Roman paganism with the Beatitudes. We need not submit to their circular logic, which goes something like this: religion is bad, bad things happen, thus religion is the mother of all bad things.
Hitchens’ history is sorely lacking. There is no compelling proof that Jesus existed, he claims at one point. I doubt Mr. Hitchens would deny the existence of Shakespeare, and we certainly have as much evidence to support that Jesus lived as we do that Shakespeare did. He claims that the moral instruction of the Bible and the New Testament are nothing new, but clearly he has chosen to ignore the brutalities of the pagan world.
Mr. Hitchens is not content to argue that religion, taken to radical extremes, does much harm. No, he argues that religion “poisons everything” and he does not exempt Judaism or Christianity or any other of the great world religions. Such a comprehensive claim discredits itself at the outset, for religion no more poisoned the world than the world poisoned the world.
Life is a vale of tears, an imperfect journey, however lifted it might be by the tender mercies or moments of beauty we experience. Yet religion has enriched that experience and offered glimpes of the eternal by inspiring art, literature, music, architecture, and philosophy. It has compelled men to look beyond themselves, just as it has commanded them to bend their knees. It has comforted millions in time of need, and led to shattering moral insights.
We also know, as Mr. Hitchens dutifully reminds us, that religion has been used to break men’s minds and spirits, to force men to deny their own sacred beliefs, to rip them apart from the very creation for which we give thanks to God. Yet, I am amazed at how unpersuasive the religious critics are.
Dawkins relates a claim made by some that the universe could no more come into existence by chance than a Boeing 747 could be assembled by a windstorm blowing through a salvage lot. What about the obvious question: is the universe anything like a Boeing 747? Is the universe a machine, or a mysterious blend of poetry, drama and science? We can only assume a creator, an intelligent design, if what we are today is what the creator intended us to be, right? If the wind shapes a cloud in the image of an elephant, do we assume that the wind consciously created the shape? Our existence could be an accident of moving parts, not always effectively assembled to judge by all the discarded pieces of creation.
But then maybe God isn't an engineer or an architect, but a dramatist or a comedian. Nature is sublime and brutal, efficient and wasteful, miraculous and horrifying, comical and tragic. Those who claim to have faith must concede that if God exists, all of this is part of the creation God made possible, and that we have a limited capacity to make sense of it – the child with cancer or a fissionable atom that unleashes hell. As C.S. Lewis reminded us, waste, inefficiency, loss, suffering are all part of God’s plan. It would be hard to argue otherwise.
The unbeliever likewise must answer difficult questions. Believing in a God that unleashed creation may be farfetched, but is it more farfetched than believing that our universe came from nothing? And if the object lesson of evolution is that the best is what emerges from the primordial morass of human existence, are we not forced to concede, at this juncture at least, that religious belief is the superior idea, given its dominance of virtually every culture and society known to man?
It is my own view that the journey to understanding will not be marked by arrogant preaching, but by tentative steps in the direction of self-discovery. It will not be found by a thousand theologians debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but by a childlike wonder that finds all things possible –- snowflakes that dance in the air like fairies, a sun that melts away each evening, stars that twinkle like icicles on a winter’s day. Small mysteries that add up to universal wonder are the stuff of faith.
No, it is not the humble Christian who poses the problem, but the arrogant atheist. It is not the uncertain agnostic who threatens God’s children, but the religious who mistakes himself for God. I, for one, share Hitchens’ concerns about true believers if he means those who are incapable of entertaining doubt. I would go further. I would argue that doubt is essential to a healthy faith. And I would go even further by arguing that God would consider doubt essential to true faith.
Doubt is integral to faith precisely because faith is the triumph of hope over reason. Where there is no doubt, there can be no struggle, no search, no journey toward understanding, and no reconciliation between the material and the spiritual. Those who never question can be easily tempted to tyranny. When Jesus said that the heart of the law is mercy, when he forgave sinners as a matter of routine practice, he was speaking to the heart of the Christian mystery — those who condemn risk condemnation. The paradox is instructive. It is the possibility of error that binds our common humanity; it is the capacity to admit we might be wrong that leads us to truth. Thus are religious faith and science joined.
Where might faith be found? It can be found in countless places. In prayerful moments inside an empty church, in the joyous Masses at Christmas season, in the gestures of peace transmitted through an embrace or a handshake, in the traditions of charity and gift-giving, in the recognition of shared, irredeemable losses, in questioning moments of despair when all seems futile, in the little things that annoy us, in the still small voice that pierces the thundering winds. That these dramas are beyond the calculus of today’s zealots, faithful or not, is the root of much tragedy. It is those who demand merciless perfection who are most dangerous to imperfect humans.
No one will deny the intelligence of men such as Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens. They are provocative, but are they wise? Who sounds more dogmatic — the man who writes that “religion poisons everything,” or a believer like “silly” Malcolm Muggeridge who called his autobiography The Chronicles of Wasted Time. For all their stated objections to the abuse of religion, these atheists seem more interested in destroying any faith that violates their own sacramental unbelief. They are quick to indict the religious for every heinous crime committed in the name of faith, but in doing so they embrace the same absolutism they condemn in the religious zealot. They ask the faithful to own every sin committed in the name of God, but they will not shoulder a solitary sin committed in the name of science or atheism.
They remind me of a journalist I knew years ago, while working at the Virginian Pilot & Ledger-Star. Alan was a provocative thinker and he found me a curious character. On several occasions over drinks or dinner he would inquire about my politics and my Catholic faith. At one point, he suggested that if I truly believed, I should exert every effort to convert him. After all, he winked, his very soul was in jeopardy. I would answer today the same way I answered him then. I don’t know with certainty God’s will or even if God exists, I can only suggest that my own life has been deeply enriched by the tradition of faith into which I was born; that Jesus, more than any other thinker, teacher or prophet, has brought me face to face with shattering glimpses of truth.
Of course, I am not alone. Reynolds Price, a Duke University novelist, poet and essayist, remarks that he is overwhelmed by “the always startling degree of tolerance and compassion shown and commended by Jesus. I say startling because I’m always caught off guard by that characteristic whenever I read about him.”
Phillip Simmons, in his beautiful book, Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life, explores the gospel story of Jesus entering Jerusalem. The Pharisees warned him to quiet the crowd, but Jesus answered that even if the crowd were silent, the stones would shout out. Simmons continued: “True religion is an activity of the imagination . . . and Jesus felt himself so aligned with the natural and cosmic order that the very stones would cry out his arrival. Jesus at this moment is in the state of true wildness, when we express our divine natures as naturally as animals do, when our every word and deed flows directly from our highest purposes.”
Chesterton observed: “If it were true that by leaving the temple we walked out into a world of truths, the question would be answered, but it is not true. By leaving the temple, we walk into a world of idols; and the idols of the marketplace are more perishable and passing than the gods of the temple we have left. If we wished to test rationally the case of rationalism, we should follow the career of the skeptic and ask how far he remained skeptical about the idols or the ideals of the world into which he went . . ..”
Those who pile remorseless fact on remorseless fact in the name of rational science usually wind up constructing another idol, only one that is lifeless; that is their right and choice, but why should it surprise them that the rest of us refuse to bow down and worship with them?
I stand up and applause Paul Burnett….
See his #100
denniscampbell: Imposition is force, dennis…
You want a nativity scene in your retail store’s front window? You go right ahead…
You want a nativity scene in a public square? I beg to differ…
Your first mistake is alienating yourself from customers that are not interested in your beliefs and find it offensive.
Your second mistake is assuming your nativity scene is a correct representation of facts. Christianity is YOUR imperative, not mine…I was relieved of religious subjugation immediately following my ability to READ.
JohnScott…I can appreciate your post, especially when I understand that Japan is 80%+ agnostic/atheist/non-believers…best of all, the Japanese enjoy the distinction of having the highest percentage of believers in evolution than any other nation in the world.
Buddhist and Shinto beliefs cannot be considered “religion” in the sense that Christianity is considered religion…”never the twain shall meet”
And in accepting Dec.25th as a holiday the Japanese embrace something that to them is “fun” as you so stated…and in retrospect you might realize that “serious” never enters the picture.
I might not like Yamamoto or some other figure in Japanese history, but I will bet a bunch of yen that you have admired and respected people in your past that you set aside days for…and have fun.
Fun and stupidity are two different things.
George says: “The problem with believer and nonbelievers alike, in my view, is that they want to be God”
You don;t seem to understand George:
You are God
I am God
He is God
She is God
This is God
That is God
And THAT is THAT
Owlafaye, specific constitutional reference, please.
George says: “the atheists and critics of faith are every bit as dogmatic as the religious devotees they love to skewer.”
We come from demonstrable facts, irrefutable logic and copious evidence.
George comes from: “God said it, and thats that”
denniscampbell…stay out of my yard or I am going to punch you in the eye.
owlafaye, quite the intellectual response!
denniscampbell
You don’t seem to be able to differentiate between that which is objectionable to some, and that which others proclaim to be acceptable based on their beliefs.
This is when the state steps in…if you want to drag it to the Supreme Court, I assure you; it will become constitutional.
The populance is expected to act within a general understanding of individual rights.
When you supplement this understanding with religious belief, you have stepped over the line.
Your beliefs, magic book and faith give you no authority over me whatsoever.
dennisC.
You are talking to the intellectual and the pragmatic…give it up son…mockery identifies you.
The constitution gives me the authority to practice my religion, and I do not need your permission nor anyone
else’s to do so, and it does not forbid such practice in the public sphere. It really does not matter whether you
object to that or not. And I really do not care if it offends you.
dennisC. Christianity is an unsatisfactory solution to man’s miseries…you may live all your life in it and yet nothing ever changes.
Change comes with taking a grip on your life, accepting the responsibility that your words, thoughts and deeds bring upon you, and correlating this data into a cohesive, positive plan that protects you and the ones you Love.
Your derision is an unsatisfactory path when you consider logic.
Can you imagine someone so caught up in God and his plan for them that they get run over by a bus?
Here comes the bus…PAY ATTENTION ! …son
How would you know?
Exactly Dennis…well said:
“YOU DO NOT CARE”
Typical Christian smugness.
How could I be so SILLY?
DannisCampbell is a CHAMPION Christian…
All bend an ear (Or God is gonna GETCHA)
Laughter…mockery…derision…more laughter, lots more laughter
Lawdy, you are boring!
Yawn…I’m sure you find yourself very clever. Perhaps your dog does as well.
Mr. Ingles
Your post #105 reveals a very important fear of atheist activists when you suggest that Christians are trying to rewrite the Constitution. You may find it useful to step out of your shoes and look at things from another perspective.
Are Christians trying to rewrite the Constitution or are they trying to point out that it doesn’t need rewritting? Prime examples are court interpretations that site a constitutional privacy right and an extension of that privacy being the right to abort new life in the womb. I’ll say it for good Christans who can’t: WTF?
Another is the topic here: religious free speech, which has been restrictd by “law” by judges despite the Constituion stating that “NO” laws with respect to to the establishment or free exercise of religion may be passed. Again: WTF?
I have no reason to suspect you are part of a movement to silence free speech, or that you are an activist atheist, but would suggest that you easily could be mistaken as such, or an ally in a war against the free speech and the Constitution.
Hoping you are still out of your shoes, consider the accomplishments of secularists (and atheist or other activists) just on these two major rewrites of the Constituion. One might be inclined to give a thumbs up to the courts for their “good” work of redefining the Constitution in a way agreeable to them, but who can argue that anoyone, Christians or otherwise, do not have a right to be concerned when they see end-runs on our Constituion via the courts?
Consider for just a moment that under the protection of the Constitution, people may say all variety of things on public property, from advocating that murderers rightly convicted be set free, to advocating communist revolution to the abolishment of free speech itself, yet bring up God and the free-speech-with-exception-of-free-religious-speech-guardians open their mouths and hiss like pod people in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
The law of the land is simple. As long as Congress does not pass a law establishing a religion, and as long as it does not prohibit the free exercise of religion, it is doing what it is supposed to be doing.
The freedom of religious speech and its manifestations in nativity scenes, menorahs and a Muslim crescent or other religious symbols, are no more construed to be indications that Congress has passed a law “officially” establsing these as state religions than displaying signs advocating communism or Nazism are seen as government endorsed. All that’s being confirmed in all cases, is that people have the freedom to speak their minds in the U.S.
Christians trying to rewrite the Constitution? Well, if you gave them a pen, just what language would they need to add to make their postion clearer? Reads to me like they wouldn’t have to change a word.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
nickadams
You are still allowed to preach on a soap box and carry signs saying “The World is Coming to an End” in public…but you would like to give the impression that this is not so nick. Singing words and carrying reasonably sized signs is OK.
-Posting your religion on lamp posts, and other acts of GRAFFITI are not.
-Nativity scenes and other displays of mythological religious beliefs in public spaces is a 24 hour affront and intrusion…if you are carrying it around in your arms, that is OK. Once you leave it in public, you are infringing on the right of the general public.
-LITTERING comes to mind.
-Public displays of the 10 commandments on other than private property are an arrogant incursion and should be dealt with severely.
-If you were right and good for mankind, your church would have to turn them away at the door. But the door nick, works two ways…we will not enter and disrupt your life, so don’t exit and disrupt ours.
-Beer is a great thing but I don’t go door to door giving it away…I would soon be out of beer. Religion gets a door slam in most cases and a lot of you Christians have flat noses because you are so ignorantly stubborn…we don’t want your “BEER”
Wake Up! PAY ATTENTION !
owlafaye,
You note that Public displays of the 10 commandments on other than private property are an arrogant incursion and should be dealt with severely.
My posts asks you or others to point out where in the Constituion your position (now includng for “severe” remedies) is supported.
Again, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”
Fre speech is guaranteed and free speech extends to symbols and displays, as not everyone uses words to express themselves. I think that is well established.
Aa for the questions of whether size matters (displays small enough to carry in your arms) and whether someone is tending their display, I really view as details that easily are handled by code once the larger issue of free religous speech on public property is resolved.
I don’t think it has been, though your points about how large/intrusive a nativity or other display may be in public space (which I read to be public property) and whether it should be stipulated that someone be assigned to stay with it while on display, are well taken. If I am mistaken and you are suggesting these size and personal tending rules for people who display on their own property, within view of the public, please excuse me.
Religious displays on taxpayer supported property is wrong. Super-simple. On a theoretical level, I could support a display of *every* theistic, deistic, and secular display *simultaneously*. This would include scientology, wiccan, mormonism and even satanism…but it would have to represent absolutely EVERYBODY for it to conform to the 1st ammendment. By excluding even ONE obscure religion, it shows favoritism and violates “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”.
Another complexity here is that every public (taxpayer supported) place that displays this comprehensive list of religions would immediately have to be updated when the next John Smith makes up some new religion.
In a similar (theoretical) vain; I could support broad, compulsory religious education. Religion certainly is important historically, but when our youth got so see all the conflicting religions, and how so may borrowed so many pieces from other religions (i.e. virgin births) it would become apparent that there are all equally footed in [lack of] reality. In the end, it would create more non-believers than anything.
Being truly comprehensive and omitting no one is impossible…so we just shouldn’t touch it. Keep any and all religious displays off of taxpayer supported properties. Done. If you want an 8 foot nativity in your front yard at Christmas; assuming it meets municipal code you are free to do so. I might not believe what you do, but it is not a crime to think differently.
Oh!! And churches should pay taxes on any monies that cannot be documented as going to public, religion-free social services.
If your XMas displays are bright and/or noisy to the detriment of the neighborhood, they will be taken down by authority…and I am quite sure, people of your ilk will claim “religious discrimination”.
You are squirmy and delight in finding little holes that you feel will help you worm into a rather common-sensical argument.
There are large parts of the word NO that you are unfamiliar with.
Your weight is 178 lbs.
Is anyone else having a problem with getting posts to show up? I have made 4 attempts on several occassions and they don’t show up.
The supposedly one billion Christians worldwide…do not exist.
Even so, this would comprise only 14% of that 7 billion population.
There are 20,000 sects of Christianity in America alone…all quite sure they are the only answer to salvation…laughter.
Christians and their Christ are really not welcome in most parts of the world and this is reflected in the fact that they are really not welcome in most parts of America…’not welcome’ as in: Stay the hell in your church and quit preaching on PUBLIC STREETS’
Maybe you have a legal right but then you choose to ignore your responsibility to the common man. You are a noisy little bunch running scared and no one is particularly interested in seeing you run through the streets with finger in air yelling Jesus Jesus Jesus or “He is Risen” “He is Risen”
I am sure Jesus is Coming and that Colonel Saunders will handle the food arrangements and Elvis will provide entertainment…in the meantime, stay in church and out of our children’s pants.
owlafaye,
Your points about regulations for religous scenes in public places based on size, supervision of displays and the like exhibit common sense, at least to me. It seemed a case of skipping ahead of the debate to the particulars, but as you brought it up, I assumed they were points you were willing to discuss. Excuse my misunderstanding.
We have some common ground. Wether a display of holiday lights celebrating Christmas or a brightly lit display protesting Christmas, we have to be civil when exercising free speech.
Mr. Adams, I’m afraid that there are Christians who don’t think the Constitution goes far enough in their direction. Current Republican primary candidate Mike Huckabee, for example: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/01/15/579265.aspx “…what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards…” I’m really having a hard time understanding that as anything but a Christian “trying to rewrite the Constitution”.
Be that as it may, I’m not familiar with any state, city, or federal government body “displaying signs advocating communism or Nazism”, whereas there are quite a few examples of state, city, or federal government bodies displaying nativity scenes and menorahs. (I don’t know of any case offhand of Muslim crescents, though I wouldn’t be too surprised.) As I said way back in comment #1, “I’ve seen several cases recently where atheists have asked that religious displays not be placed on public land – or at least, if they are, that such displays be open to all religions and viewpoints. But can anyone find, say, a case of an atheist suing a church or synagogue to take down their cross or Star of David?”
There is a difference between people displaying nativity scenes, menorahs, or Nazi flags on their own property, and government officials doing so in their capacity as government officials and on public land. (I do not find nativity scenes as distasteful as Nazi imagery, but you brought up the comparison.) Imagine if your local city council put up a Nazi flag in front of city hall on Hitler’s birthday. Would you find that an appropriate act or use of public funds? Again, I don’t find nativity scenes to be viscerally repugnant like Nazi flags, but it’s not the offensiveness that’s at issue. It doesn’t matter what the government is endorsing in such displays, it’s that the government is endorsing it.
Subject to reasonable ‘nuisance’ ordinances, I’ve got no problem with private Christmas displays. One of our neighbors down the street, whose son plays with ours regularly, puts up quite the extravaganza every year, the kind people stop in front of and take pictures. Aside from the minor annoyance of having to drive carefully around the gawkers, it doesn’t trouble me in the slightest. The same display in front of city hall would bother me… and I’m sorry, I just don’t see how that negatively impacts religious expression.
Mr. Ingles,
I agree, with respect to the governer and his desires. But Christmas lights at city hall? Why would government recognition or tribute to something important to its people bother you? It already is acknowledged as a legal holiday, for which we pay government employees for “not working.”
How can paying tribute to something so historically important be any different from, say, a tribute to the Reverand Martin Luther King on the holiday honoring him?
Not everyone is a fan of MLK, but to them I would say, deal with it. Why shouldn’t I say the same to anyone who is bothered by official recognition of any national holiday?
Well thanks nick, exactly my point.
The term “captive audience” should be uppermost in your mind in relation to your desire to parade your religion in public.
“whippersnappers” comes to mind also, irritating displays, repetitive displays…taped nonsense, repeated over and over. If it isn’t nonsense to you, it becomes nonsense after the 40th rendition.
A week in solitary with George S. and Jingle Bells played over and over 24 hours a day might convince you people to insert a little common sense and plain decency into your standard rants.
Sounds like someone is due a visit from Jacob Marley
Actually the government does sponsor a religion. It is the religion of science. When evolution is taught as fact when it is in fact a theory then the state is making it a religion. When science says that the behavior of man will be discovered by science they are denying the soul. So we do have a state religion and I don’t like it.
All of the atheist of the world live for nothing, they believe that in the end the curtain closes for good. So why do they waste their precious time argueing with people of faith. I am sure they would prefer to attend a wild orgy complete with human sacrafice. So what keeps them glued to a meaningless thread on a meaningless website. Because the truth is they are not godless, they are antigod. That alone is a statement of faith. No matter how misguided it may be. Take that fire that burns in your belly and learn about eternity. It is not a blank void. Don’t wait until you are there to do your homework.
Mr. Adams – Mr. Huckabee is running for President. He didn’t make that statement about amending the Constitution to “bring it in line with God’s word” to limit his appeal to voters. Apparently he feels that there’s a significant number of U.S. citizens of voting age who agree with that idea – enough worth courting. Are you of the opinion that he’s wrong about that? It does seem to me that the number of Christians who’d go along with that is, well, greatly in excess of the number of “Santaists” who’d want to amend the Constitution to require chimneys in every home. That was the point I was trying to make, a point that renders Mr. Shadroui’s attempted equating of the two rather absurd.
It’s true that there are people who don’t like Dr. King or the holiday in his name, but on the other hand nobody (to my knowledge) worships Dr. King in the sense that, say, Christians worship Jesus or Jews worship G-d. Secular-ish holiday decorations on public land are one thing (our local fire department puts lights on the fir trees in front of their main station, and it’s not hard to find red, white, and blue bunting on the fourth of July, for example) but crosses and nativity scenes are a bit different – they are quite specifically religious.
In any case, it’s not something that I lose a great deal of sleep over. I’ve only rarely been annoyed by the ‘blue laws’ still left in Michigan that disallow alcohol sales before noon on Sunday – we’re not exactly big drinkers and we usually do our grocery shopping on Saturday or Monday anyway, so the situation doesn’t come up much. I believe those are examples of government overstepping its bounds with respect to religion, though, so I’m not surprised it bugs others more.
fbaginski, I’m honestly having a hard time separating your comment 137 from owlafaye’s general output. If you’re as interested in science as you say, accept my assurance that your ‘theory of atheist motivation’ has met at least one datapoint in contradiction of its predictions…
baginski…evolution is a FACT…wake up!
Start reading outside of the influence of the Christian Press.
Laughter Mr. Ingles…
We don’t believe in God therefore we are hedonistic monsters…ask baginski…
laughter
nickadams…Once again: It is a Public place and not a Christian place…you can have a nativity scene in your front yard and NO, you don’t have to tend it.
You can’t place a nativity scene in the public square and justify it by saying you are “tending” it.
Essentially you are advertising your religion, and once again: If you had a quality product they would beat a path to your door and advertising wouldn’t be necessary.
If I feel I need religion I will go to a church.
The problems with America’s Christians is that their heads are filled with the lies of the Christian Press to the point where they really believe that Christianity is mighty and might is right. This stupid insistence that America was founded by Christians and is a Christian nation is the prime example of “stupid thought”.
You believe this and you wonder why people don’t want the 10 commandments on the courthouse lawn.
Ignorant arrogance of this sort is repugnant.
baginski says: “Take that fire that burns in your belly and learn about eternity. It is not a blank void. Don’t wait until you are there to do your homework.”
This is a typical Christian threat, an attempt to instill fear in a correspondent in hopes that he will come to your side and thus give support to your own doubted beliefs. If you are so strongly imbued with fith, why are you constantly seeking the affirmation of others?
People who believe in a life after this one, do so because they can’t face death without that consolation.
Mr. Ingles,
Regarding Huckabee, I stated I agree with you, not the Governor. However, as I am sure you know, the Constitution may be amended and Mr. Huckabee is free to attempt it, whether he becomes president or not. I hope you or any liberty-loving American wouldn’t have it any other way.
As for religious speech, you expect to be protected from the sight or sound of it originating from public property and you mention the Nativity, though I have yet to see you or anyone explain where a right to be shielded from the Nativity comes from.
The Constitution says Congress “may not” prohibit the free exercise of religion. Just what is it about the words “may not” that are so hard to understand? Yet not only do some not understand, they would have us believe that “may not” really means “may.” Or worse, “must.”
The big “but’s” with respect to free speech in public space always revolve around concerns about maintaining certain standards – codes,civility and safety.
None of those being issues with the display of a Nativity scene, what is it that says a government may not grant such a display?
Granting, mind you, is an act of meeting a reasonable request by the people. Since the government recognizes Christmas as a national holiday, and as Christmas is a religous holiday celebrating Christ’s birth, a Nativity is a perfectly logical and reasonable way of illustrating the event of that birth, is it not?
There may be people who don’t believe in Christmas or are offended by it, but the fact remains that there is a Christmas every year, and the federal government, as well as every state and local government, recognizes it.
CHRISTmas is a national religious holiday the government sanctions without sanctifying.
Governments do not celebrate Christmas by taking the day off, Government gives the day off so PEOPLE may (or may not) celebrate Christmas. Governments don’t sanctify Nativity scenes or present them as symbols of a state religion, but they do sanction them. Why? Because how silly is it to declare a holiday recognizing the importance of the birth of Christ, yet not recognize the scene of the birth of Christ – the purpose and meaning of the holiday?
Bottom line is the government either recognizes Christmas or it doesn’t.
At present, it does, and whenever I hear the abusurd notion that government has a responsibility to protect us from the meaning of the Holiday by banning Nativity scenes in public space, I have to conclude the real agenda is to do away with Christmas as a Federal holiday. Good luck with that.
owlafaye,
Sorry if there was some confusion. Are you retracting what you wrote in post 126#? I reread it and note that you clearly stated that Nativity scenes would have to be carried when being displayed in public spaces. To be specific, you wrote,
“Nativity scenes and other displays of mythological religious beliefs in public spaces is a 24 hour affront and intrusion…if you are carrying it around in your arms, that is OK.”
Sort of a joke about carrying the nativity nick, like carrying a sign or a newborn baby, you know?………..as to the rest:
Displaying the Nativity is a “religious practice”…your practices and beliefs are a part of your religion not a part of public congress.
This belief and reverence is traditionally exhibited by the faithful within the confines of their church…to move it into the public streets is to infringe on that area controlled by government and is contrary to the Constitution. The government desires no control over what you lawfully say and do within the confines of your church.
Religion is NOT a public exercise but a privately held belief.
You seem to ignore the respect implied in the government recognizing one of your holidays (Christmas) and instead, use this as an excuse to force your agenda upon that “captive audience”: the common man on the public streets.
The national holiday as you mentioned, is “RECOGNIZED” not endorsed or deemed relevant, true or compulsory.
You throw “sanction” in there as if it is officially Christian…you are totally in error.
Your problem is that you approach all these semantic tricks with that same sanctimony that belies the rational, objective view.
Like all fanatics, you are quite sincere and humorless…but your religious system is inherently non-rational, a form of insanity that is normative I grant you, but in being normative, the practical considerations related to the size of the populance under your mesmerism, demand it not be considered insane…so instead of herding you all into mental hospitals as the diagnosis indicates, government attempts control of the problem by containing you within your churches as outlined in the Constitution.
When you start parading your faith in the streets, invading government congress, demanding special rights and insisting on that treason of “God before government” you have to be rounded up and put back in your self-created little prisons.
As long as you have that chain around your neck, the one you put in place yourself, I have the right, as I pass by, to yank it as hard as I can.
Might I recommend:
http://iqballatif.newsvine.com/_news/2008/01/29/1262772-why-low-human-development-and-inequality-is-associated-with-deeply-religious-societies
An excerpt for the lazy:
Why do we need to worship one particular prophet? Why do we insist in loyalty of creed when ideas and life have so many different forms and colors? Let’s have all good things as part of our life and routine; let’s take all human virtues as the greatest gift of mankind. The problem arises when religion enforces selectivity of one thought over another; it is that selectivity of ‘ideological puritanism’ that becomes a predicament for us.
Our new frontiers of knowledge have exposed mankind at large to new challenges. Decadent thought processes and non-scientific approach can only lead to confusion.
We see this happening all around us; societies that missed their renaissance earlier are going through a period of self-discovery, unfortunately, with the ferocity and violence as seen in medieval times.
Look at any country at the lowest rung of development. More often than not, you will see they are stuck in a quagmire of self-destruction. The lowest ten countries that are marred with the lowest level of human development index, which counts amongst many other factors like education and infant mortality, are also victims of religious intolerance and, as a result, acute tribalism and internecine wars.
Something profound in my searches:
Religion is the camel, always trying to sneak into the government tent…but it must be kept out.
Tattoo that on your forearm George.
George Shadroui is a snicky, smarmy, yappy lap dog of Catholicism…a Catholic “Yap Dog” who deserves every swipe upon his cold, trespassing little nose.
Unfortunately, the more you hit him the louder and more evasive he becomes.
I am sure he sits smugly confident that God’s Love and Admiration shine down upon him whereas my understanding of a God would indicate that he is laughing up his sleeve.
Ok, ok, I’m calling “uncle.” I am collapsing under the weight of owlafaye’s well reasoned, relentless logic. He is clearly a thinker of the first order, a giant among men.
I am now a convert to atheism, and I want to be just like him. Now I can be snotty, coarse, and mean, too. I can now completely avoid the arguments of those dirty, evil theists and simply call them names.
I am so superior to them fundies, I don’t even have to read their posts any more. I just breeze right by and go straight to insulting them.
This is so easy! Why didn’t I think of it before?
This is good…keep track of my posts and learn logic, common sense and the gift of presenting facts in a terse, concise and devastating manner.
No need of the hangman’s knot of perpetual repentance…just keep in mind: “Thanks to the diligence, persistence and enlightening qualities of the opinions and observations of owlafaye, I am no longer a dumb schitt, cloud in the sky, goofball Christian compelled by a questionable mandate from an invisible, cosmic supernatural being in the Sky, to prove to the world that I haven’t the faintest, and in fear with this ignorance, I cower in the face of reality and beseech nay, beg a nebulous entity to intercede on my behalf and render asunder the immutable laws of the universe to satisfy this one plaintiff.
“How silly of me” says MountainMan and with that he exits stage right with the applause and understanding of a class of men most forgiving and understanding (unlike MountainMan’s former peers) and not apt to mention the matter again.
So keep quiet and listen up and we will let the matter rest forever.
George Shadroui? You listening George?
Your assignment for the week is to ferret out the brilliant truth in your copious articles and present each point for our review in 25 words or less.
Truth is simple, to the point and in great abundance.
Make it so.
I may have missed a few truths in your articles so feel free to use a second piece of paper if I have underestimated you.
O great owlafaye, teach me some new swear words that I too can use to pursuade those simpleton Christians.
Mr. Adams – you mischaracterize my objection to religious displays on public property. I don’t want to be “protected from the sight or sound of it originating from public property.” I don’t need to be “shielded” from it. It’s not the content that’s the problem, it’s the fact that it’s religious and specifically put there by the government as an endorsement. I’ve got no problem with opening up public spaces to any and all speech, religious or otherwise – I find the whole notion of “free speech zones” to be both oxymoronic and plain old moronic – where private citizens and groups can then exercise their religion or lack thereof. See, e.g., here: http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=7470226
Of course, Christian tolerance can’t be relied on in such cases: http://atheism.about.com/b/2007/12/21/wiccan-holiday-display-stolen-christian-display-stands-alone.htm
Again, I’ve no problem with “holiday display areas” on public land that private groups can put displays upon, so long as they are open to all groups, and are subject to the “big buts” you mention. Paying for the displays themselves with government money bothers me rather more. I refer back to my comment 62 above.
Federal days off are no big deal, as you say, so long as Christian worship isn’t mandated. There are other problems with how the federal government handles religion – see here: http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/laborprof_blog/2007/10/religious-comp-.html – but as it doesn’t discriminate between religions or religion and non-religion, time off for Christmas doesn’t bother me particularly.
Mr. Ingles,
My point was that the birth of Jesus already is a religious holiday funded by government money (yours and mine). I think shutting down government and paying people not to show up on the day marking the birth of Christ is pretty serious recognition, though as you seem to agree, not an endorsement. But then, why would it be?
Likewise, recognizing the nature of this religious holiday via reasonable and tasteful ways is not an endorsement. Why would it be?
To put it simply, there is no secret that Christmas is a religious event and acknowledging that is not a crime. If it where, there would be no national holiday to start with.
There is no compulsion to put a nativity on the courthouse lawn, or to pay for it with public funds. But then there is nothing in the Constitution forbidding it, either.
The government holds up its end of the bargain by following the Constitution and passing no laws establishing or endorsing a religion, Christian or otherwise. The rows of displays a county decides to display on its courthouse lawn recognizing and respecting the various faiths are nothing more than a government acknowledging something fundamental among its people – faith. There is no endorsement.
Besides, if the panel tasked with seeing to it everyone who wants to be included should end up with 20 different faiths to display, how would anyone detect an endorsed one?
We all must be sure the government does not adopt a religion, but that is easy enough. Like all things in the U.S., it is about equal protection.
Will it mean small towns where there is only one dominant religion will have a poor representation of the world’s religions ’round Christmas? Yes, but that’s just the way it is.
Will it mean some anti-religion Atheists will fume? Yes, but then I suspect many already stew over the fact that the government recognizes Christmas at all.
I think what really gets under the skin of some Atheists is that they have no pageant. How does a government recognize Atheist beliefs?
That’s easy. Do nothing, especially do nothing with respect to Christmas.
To set the record straight, I don’t have a dog in this hunt. I am a strict Constitutionalist making an argument. As far as I know, there is no God.
Yes nick, we have no pageant and we have no beliefs…we have no churches, no tithes to pay, no magic book and no lies to tell…we “do it” without guilt by the way…we do have what appears to be a very intricate creed for all the controversy surrounding it however…
Atheist creed: NO GOD