This is a follow up to my diary Being an Atheist in America, which I wrote yesterday morning. There were a lot of thought-provoking responses in the comments, but with over 200 of them, I didn’t try to comment back because the responses would be too buried to be able to continue a discussion. One thing that I saw a couple times, phrased in different ways, is some people saying they have no problem with Atheists, but they are not fond of the “religion is a fairy tale and we’ve grown beyond that” condescension that some display. I saw some of that on display yesterday, and I’m sure I visibly winced a number of times. I think people of all viewpoints, especially those who find themselves targeted, scapegoated, or dismissed by Bush administration policies, would do well to learn how to speak respectfully to and about each other. Because there are some scary, driven, and well organized people in charge these days, and they don’t have any of our best interests at heart. Some quotes below the fold…
I’ve started a transcript of Melvin Lipman’s (President of the American Humanist Association) talk here. The following is an excerpt.
Timothy LaHaye–anybody ever hear of Timothy LaHaye? (Some laughter) The author of the Christian fundamentalist Left Behind series, was on the Jerry Falwell show about six months ago, and he said, “We’re in a religious war and we need to aggressively oppose secular humanism; these people are as religiously motivated as we are and they are filled with the devil.”
Karl Rove, Bush’s chief political strategist at a meeting of the theocratic Family Research Council in March of this year, spoke about the “war on secular society”, and he said, “We need to find ways to win the war.” And so, it’s a war against us, and we need to fight back in this war.
Another Bush administration adviser Paul Weyrich said, “The real enemy is the secular humanist mindset, which seeks to destroy everything that is good in this society.” It’s nice to know that we’re so powerful. (Laughter)
In 2003, speaking to the Christian Coalition, Alabama Governor Bob Riley, spoke about a “more important war than the war in Iraq”. He said the war against secular humanists is “a war for the absolute soul of this country”. He called for a “crusade” to restore the Christian character of America.
Well, friends, I think we should be prepared for a crusade. It’s creeping up slowly. It’s like the analogy of the frog in water, you’ve probably heard, that if you put a frog in lukewarm water, the frog will just sit there. And then you start turning up the heat little by little until it starts to boil, and it’s too late. The frog is unconscious and can’t jump out.
Changes are not made all at once. We’re not going to have a government that takes away our rights not to believe all at once. But we’ve got to see the signs. We’ve got to see what is happening, and we have to be prepared to defend ourselves.
Last year, after a close Senate vote to approve her nomination to the Federal Court of Appeals, and she was approved, California Justice Janice Rogers Brown said that people of faith were in a war–they keep using that term war. She said they’re in a war against secular humanists, who threaten to divorce America from its religious roots. Brown complained that America has moved away from the religious tradition on which it is founded, and to which we need to get back.
In June 2002, responding the the 9th Circuit’s courageous decision concerning the Pledge of Allegiance, George Bush, the second, our president, said “I will only appoint judges who know their rights come from God.” Now Article VI of the United States Constitution specifically prohibits the use of any religious test for any public office. But I guess our president can legitmately claim complete ignorance of the Constitution as an excuse. (Laughter).