Tag: Atheism

Conservative Atheists on the Net

Ron Battista posted reply to my Hannity/Silverman post.

Battista runs an interesting blog, Suspension of Disbelief which has a tagline of “An Atheist Who Is Tired of Atheist Activists.” Can I get an amen to that? 😉

Anyway, Battista links to a number of atheist conservatives such as The Secular Republican, and there’s even a Yahoo! Groups list, Conservative Atheism.

My wife, who is a pagan, and I often discuss this sort of problem, as she gets a little tired of seeing complete nutcases being represented as spokesmen/women for her religious views. But at least in that case, there’s not nutty American Pagans group that the media always turns to. We poor atheists have for too long had to live in the shadow of Madalyn Murray O’Hair and the American Atheists doing their best to convince the country that every atheist was a stark raving loony nut who stayed awake at night worrying about the horrors of “In God We Trust” on our money.

Plus AA tended to promote crackpot ideas from their obnoxious view that religious people were idiots or worse to lending credence to Holocaust revisionist nonsense. In many ways, the AA paralleled another partially-right but equally nutty group led by a charismatic women, the Objectivists. Did anyone ever see Madalyn Murray O’Hair and Ayn Rand together?

David Silverman Is No Michael Newdow — Atheist Smacks Down Sean Hannity

For the most part, I’ve never been impressed by the American Atheists (and I am an atheist), but AA’s David Silverman really made Sean Hannity look like the idiot he is on Hannity & Colmes. The topic was the Easter Bunny — apparently some shopping malls in Florida are doing away with the “Easter” part of the Easter Bunny, and going to either Peter Rabbit or “Garden Bunny” (which makes no sense). Hannity, of course, sees this is as yet another attack from those evil leftists.

Before going to the transcript, if Hannity would use his brain for a second he might stop to wonder why a rabbit is symbolized with Easter. What the hell does a rabbit have to do with the resurrection of Jesus? Nothing, of course — its a pagan fertility symbol people. If anything, Hannity should be glad that people are starting to dissociate this pagan fertility symbol from Easter.

Anyway, Silverman is brilliant, noting that what is driving the bunny changes is pure capitalism which, the last time I checked, Hannity supported,

DAVID SILVERMAN, AMERICAN ATHEISTS: Hey, thanks for having me back on the show.

You know, first of all, I want to say that this is about private property and this is about private enterprise. And they can name their bunnies anything they want. They can name them Peter Rabbit or they can name them the Jesus Bunny for all we care. They are private enterprises, and they can do what we wish — or what they wish, I should say.

BOB BECKEL, GUEST HOST: But why do they wish to do that?

SILVERMAN: Because it’s capitalism. They’re living in a place that is growing more and more diverse. And they’re recognizing the fact that Easter is only Christian. And even though it doesn’t have Christian roots, they’re recognizing that is more than Christian, and they want to play on the safe side. They want to sell more stuff. When it comes right down to it, these malls want to sell more stuff. They don’t want to…

Hannity simply ignores this, claiming its leftist intolerance,

SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: You know something, David? Look, where is the tolerance on the left anymore? I mean, this is the Easter Bunny. This is about Bob’s kids and my kids going to the mall. Are you really going to be hurt, are you really going to be offended by a mall identifying a bunny as the Easter Bunny? Is your faith shaken that deeply?

But as Silverman notes — and Hannity continues to ignore — atheists aren’t agitating for this change; its something the malls did on their own.

Silverman apparently flustered Hannity by not coming out and being a typical atheist freak (Hannity probably wishes he’d booked Michael Newdow), leading Hannity to this bizarre exchange,

HANNITY: Because of guys like you, because you’re demanding it, because of the frivolous lawsuits…

SILVERMAN: How can you blame me when we’re not doing anything? This is something — no, no, no, Sean. We’re not doing anything. You’re going a little too far here because…

HANNITY: No, I’m not. Why is it happening then?

SILVERMAN: Because of capitalism. They’re going to sell more stuff.

HANNITY: All right. It’s all happening because of capitalism.

(CROSSTALK)

SILVERMAN: They’re not doing it because of the atheists. We don’t have anything to do with it.

HANNITY: Why are the Boy Scouts under attack by atheist groups, by girls that want to be in the Boy Scouts, by gay and lesbian groups that don’t like their values?

SILVERMAN: You want to talk about the Boy Scouts?

HANNITY: No, what it is an assault on the very people in the society that lecture us about tolerance. You guys on the left, you are the most intolerant people on the face of the Earth to the point now that the Easter Bunny cannot be named the Easter Bunny without offending somebody in your side.

Hannity’s just an embarassment with his one-size-fits-all ranting — confronted by Silverman’s reasonable position, Hannity blathers on about Boy Scouts and lesbians and then says he doesn’t actually want to talk about the Boy Scouts after all.

Fox would do well to ditch both Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. Unfortunately since so many people inexpliably watch these goofballs, that isn’t likely to happen.

Source:

Transcript: The Easter Bunny Under Attack. Hannity & Colmes, March 16, 2005.

Michael Newdow Back With Lawsuit Over Bush’s Bible

Michael Newdow — who seems to want to take up the helm of the deceased Madalyn Murray O’Hair as the most annoying atheist in America — is back with a lawsuit seeking to prevent Bush from placing his hand on a Bible while he is sworn in as president on January 20.

The Washington Times quotes Newdow as saying,

It is an offense of the highest magnitude that the leader of our nation — while swearing to uphold the Constitution — publicly violates that very document upon taking his oath of office. The demands of strict scrutiny have not been met, and defendants must be enjoined from their planned religious activities.

Ugh. You can just see this guy in colonial America crying to the heavens that Jefferson’s justification of the revolution based on the claim that people are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” is just one step from a theocracy.

According to the Washington Times, Newdow is so offended he might not go to the Inaguration even though he has a ticket,

The presence of Christian influence and prayer, Mr. Newdow said, have forced him to contemplate not using his ticket to the inauguration because he does not want to feel like “an outsider.”

Yeah, I’m sure he’ll be sorely missed if he doesn’t go.

The other funny feature of Newdow’s lawsuit is all of the right wing Christian types using him as proof that Christianity is under assault by an irrational, creeping secularism. Riiigghhhttt. Look, if Newdow is the best that we atheists can come up with, Christianity is safe in this country pretty much forever.

Newdow is a walking, talking advertisement against atheism. If the right wingers were smart, they’d find a way to fund him.

Source:

Atheist sues to ban hand on Bible. Jon Ward, Washington Times, January 8, 2005.

Stupid Fundie Atheists

Just like the fundamentalist and evangelical Christians, we atheists have to endure a lot of idiocy from self-righteous, idiots who call themselves atheists and make the rest of us look bad.

Fox News’ Brit Hume reports on one of these folks,

An effort to boost Christmas Tree recycling in Chicago has come under fire by atheists, who say it unfairly benefits Christians. Authorities planned to hand out a year’s worth of blue recycling bags in exchange for one used tree, but atheist activist Rob Sherman says the program is inherently unfair to those without Christmas trees.

Officials told him he could bring someone else’s tree but Sherman complained that “Atheists shouldn’t have to go begging from home to home for a Christian who will sponsor them.” The city will now offer the blue bags to anyone who visits a tree recycling location and brings a large bag of any recyclable material.

Ugh. Many of these atheists seem to exist pretty much to complain how much this or that public expression of religion is oppressing them.

Consider another horrible example of discrimination. Sherman takes credit for Wisconsin’s decision to remove “Happy Easter” displays from that state’s rest areas,

This past weekend, I drove through Wisconsin, primarily on Interstates 39 and 90. At several of the Interstate rest areas where I stopped, numerous signs and decorations had been erected which said, “Happy Easter.” Other signs, as many as one hundred per building, promoted Easter by depicting bunnies and eggs in a manner consistant with Easter decorations. I wasn’t happy about it. Can’t a guy go to the bathroom at a government facility without the government cramming the Christian religion down his throat?

Today, I contacted the Wisconsin Governor’s Office to express my concern about this state/church separation matter. I was referred to the Highway Department, which referred me to the Engineer in Charge of Roadside Facilities and Maintenance. The engineer took my call.

. . .

The engineer said that the rest stops are maintained by a sheltered workshop (an organization that provides work for mentally handicapped individuals), and that he understood my perspective. He said that he’d make some contacts and get back to me with a response and a decision by Thursday of this week.

Five minutes later, he called back. He said that he told management at the sheltered workshop that they could put up signs promoting the Spring season and Spring scenes, but that the Easter signs had to go.

Sherman is clearly proof of his own position — would a just God really tolerate such silliness?

When he’s not crusading against Christmas tree recycling programs or Happy Easter signs, Sherman worries about a number of issues, including the lack of legally enforceable clothing size standards.

Source:

Lost in Translation. Brit Hume, Fox News, December 29, 2004.

Anthony Flew Gets Religion

Wow — one of the world’s most famous atheists, Anthony Flew, has apparently changed his mind.

Unfortunately, Flew seems to have simply adopted the view that life is too complex to have arisen without some sort of divine spark. Ugh. The Associated Press quotes Flew as writing in an earlier letter,

It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism.

Huh? If anything the case for a completely naturalistic theory of life is far stronger than it was in the 1950s when Flew made his mark in philosophy with his defense of atheism. Perhaps Flew just needs to re-read Dawkins and Dennett.

Source:

Leading Atheist Philosopher Concludes God’s Real. Associated Press, December 9, 2004.

Sorry to Disappoint, but I’m Still an Atheist!. Antony Flew,