Fox New Channel's War on Atheism

[Luke T.]

Well put. The question is, how does one differentiate between actual problems and political scapegoats? In the US, at least, politics has become so polarized that it is near-impossible to neutral. No matter how hard you try to find the midpoint the spectrum of an issue, there will be someone who will accuse that point as being on one side or the other (generally on the opposite side from the accusor). How can you know if the accusor is right or wrong?

I sometimes have to stop and ask myself if there is even really a problem, or was it manufactured out of thin air.

Are things really getting worse? I don't think so. I think things are better than they ever have been. But somebody can always throw up a photo of a dead kid in an attempt to negate me.

I don't know what that kind of argument is called, but I see the tactic all the time. For example, a government policy is brought up, and then they find the one guy who was hurt by it.

 

[CapelDodger]

from Luke T.:

I doubt there is a conspiracy on the part of religious people to install Jesus in our public venues ...

Perhaps not a true conspiracy, but a convergence of interests when this kind of matter comes up. I've observed the rise of the Religious Right from a distance and I don't myself doubt that there has been a conspiracy between politicos who want the votes and the religios that want prayers in schools and such. What intrigues me is that Reagan's election must have seemed like victory to the religios and yet the Constitution got in the way. Ultimately, no result except Clinton for two terms. Now they've got Bush and no Ten Commandments in the Courthouse. So where do they go from here? They've tried capturing local bodies such as school-boards but can't seem to hold onto them once voters are reminded of their existence. I've come across people arguing that the Declaration of Independence overrides the Constitution and I think that's a pointer to how things might go. Which is the States' Rights issue - which has never really been put to sleep. Bringing with it the possibility of a new Secession, separating the United Satanics (of New York, California etc.) from the Kingdom of God. That would be entertaining.

 

[Luke T.]

from Luke T.:

Perhaps not a true conspiracy, but a convergence of interests when this kind of matter comes up. I've observed the rise of the Religious Right from a distance and I don't myself doubt that there has been a conspiracy between politicos who want the votes and the religios that want prayers in schools and such. What intrigues me is that Reagan's election must have seemed like victory to the religios and yet the Constitution got in the way. Ultimately, no result except Clinton for two terms. Now they've got Bush and no Ten Commandments in the Courthouse. So where do they go from here? They've tried capturing local bodies such as school-boards but can't seem to hold onto them once voters are reminded of their existence. I've come across people arguing that the Declaration of Independence overrides the Constitution and I think that's a pointer to how things might go. Which is the States' Rights issue - which has never really been put to sleep. Bringing with it the possibility of a new Secession, separating the United Satanics (of New York, California etc.) from the Kingdom of God. That would be entertaining.

I have never heard anyone claim the DOI overrides the Constitution. If they do, they are seriously out of touch with reality. And I, for one, am glad the States' Rights issue has never been put to sleep.

We are a nation of contradictions. The vast majority of Americans believe in a God of some kind, and yet our airwaves are filled with the likes of Baywatch and Jerry Springer. The porn and gambling industries are booming. We seem to thrive on guilt over the things we enjoy. If it feels good, it must be bad for you.

This is a balancing act. And sometimes the scale gets tipped one way or the other and we get a little crazy. Then things return to normal, but not quite the same as before. Then we forget what happened the last time, and go through it all over again. But we seem to improve with age in my opinion. So we are doing something right.

Our preachers get caught with their hands in the wrong pair of pants or in the cash box and we are shocked and outraged. Our celebrities commit crimes and we feel they should be forgiven and we buy their records in greater numbers. I can't figure it out. I guess the greatest crime you can commit in America is hypocrisy. And since we are all human, we are all hypocrites on some level. We know it.

To acknowledge the divine in one's heart is to acknowledge one's own weaknesses, and the scale between the divine and the human just seems to great to overcome. So we resign to our weaknesses, and a feeling of doom follows us everywhere. We have damned ourselves and we project that to dooming the whole world. And there are plenty of people out there ready and willing to exploit that.

I rebel against doomsayers of every kind. I do it because I believe I am worth something. I do it because I believe I am a good person.

 

[bignickel]

I think the fear on the part of religious people is over morals. They believe morals are directly descendant from religion. By removing religous influences, you are begging for corruption. And it is easy to find evidence to confirm this belief.

The reasoning is simple. Theist:moral. A-theist:a-moral.

It is here that I believe that the battle is to be fought.

The best thing to hit the in-your-face theist is: what does morality have to do with religion?

After they recover sufficiently from the effrontery that this represents, you can deal with their responses. Some will try to re-define your question with 'morality' vs 'the actions of so-called religious people' (probably involving 'one true scotsman'); don't let them. Some may even try to re-define the word 'religion' to include the word 'morality': don't let them. This may mean you'll have to walk out of the conversation if they persist in this, so don't feel any remorse in pointing out that that's what they're doing.

For extra points, hit them with "If the Bible didn't state that adultery was wrong, would it be wrong?" This will give you plenty of targets to smack around, no matter which way they answer.

 

[bignickel]

I sometimes have to stop and ask myself if there is even really a problem, or was it manufactured out of thin air.

Are things really getting worse? I don't think so. I think things are better than they ever have been. But somebody can always throw up a photo of a dead kid in an attempt to negate me.

This brings to mind a section of Neal Stephenson's "Quicksilver" where a protagonist likens a shipwreck at sea (Acts 1 thru 5) to humanity's progress thru the ages (Acts 5 to 1):

The human race has, actually, been in Act V for most of history and has recently accomplished the miraculous feat of assembling splintered planks afloat on a stormy sea into a sailing-ship and then, having climbed onboard it, building instruments with which to measure the word, and then finding a kind of regularity in those measurements.

But as for others:

Quicksilver, pg 78
"But they had, perversely, been living among people who were peering into the wrong end of the telescope, or something, and who had convinced themselves that the opposite was true- that the world had once been a splendid, orderly place - that men had made a reasonably trouble-free move from the Garden to the Athens of Aristotle... and that everything had been slowly, relentlessly falling apart ever since..."

 

[hgc]

I doubt there is a conspiracy on the part of religious people to install Jesus in our public venues as much as I doubt there is a conspiracy of atheists to remove Jesus from America. I think it is the work of busy-body individuals.

For example, on Christmas eve, Billy Graham's son, who is also taking up the evangelical torch, was on Hannity and Colmes. It started out nicely enough, but then Hannity asked him if Jesus was a liberal or conservative. Apparently, Colmes had claimed in his latest book that Jesus was a liberal. Hannity began a diatribe about welfare dependence and creating a nation of leeches and would Christ be that kind of liberal? And so on. Graham the Younger looked at Hannity with a deer in the headlights look and said, "That's politics" and looked at the floor. The interview ended there.

It was Hannity and Colmes who were guilty of politicizing religion, not the religuous man himself. And I believe that is where most of the trouble lays, despite the Pat Robertsons.

Keep it clear in your minds it is Fox that politicized the religious issue in the case of the opening post of this topic. They not only fan the flames, they start the fire.

I applaud Franklin Graham for cutting Hannity and Colmes short on this question.

But, I think the most alarming example of politicalization of religion occurred in a year 2000 Republican presidential primary debate, when the question to the candidates was to name their favorite political philosopher, and candidate Bush answered Jesus Christ.

 

[Zero]

I think there is a certain idea among Christians that they are entirtled to special rights. Because they actually have had those special rights for so long, when people seek to equalize the situation, some Christians see it as persecution.

 

[Regnad Kcin]

Excellent posts from Luke T., bignickel, and others!