While you're cussing out people for conflating terms, save a little bile for Amy Sullivan, too. She's one of those people who constantly use "religion" and "morals" interchangeably, when the two seem to have almost no relationship to one another.
Sorry, that just happens to be one of my pet peeves. As someone with no religion, I'm awfully tired of people assuming that means I have no morals -- and that's precisely the kind of bigotry that hurt us in this election.
I don't think it's extreme at all to call these people fascists; in fact, it's long past due. Nazis didn't start by committing mass murder, after all, but rather with lots of flag waving rallies and propaganda and bragging about casual cruelties in the beer hall. Now is the time to stomp on it, not 5 years from now. We've already got the uncaring acceptance of torture, the jingoism, the militarism...we're already too late. We should have been marching in the streets four years ago.
It seems to me that, although we atheist liberals do some very nice talking, the first and most tenacious folks to go out there and actually do dangerous dirty work for our shared humanist causes are often the religious liberals. (My impulse is to say "are usually" instead, but I don't want to have to provide stats.)
Like you say, you don't have stats, so don't suggest it. This is a common claim, but it's like the "there are no atheists in foxholes" cliche -- it just isn't necessarily true. I know atheists who do social and community and charity work, and those kinds of people may be just as common among atheists as they are among theists. The thing is, most atheists don't identify themselves by their lack of religious beliefs, so their work isn't attributed to a specific organization. And there are relatively fewer atheists around in general, so they aren't as visible.
The claim also feeds into the all-too-common stereotype of atheists, that we're all bleak, cynical, amoral people who are selfish and hateful.
Life of Brian is good, but I wonder if the better antidote to The Passion might not be Hellboy, instead.
Patrick: I assumed "Joel" was the guy you first linked to, at http://www.notfrisco2.com/webzine/Joel/archives/004690.html.
I am reminded of my occasional encounters with adamant creationists who insist that the defining characteristics of evolutionists are that they hate god, and that their goal is to destroy society. Never mind that I can produce lists of Christian evolutionary biologists and that many of them are working in universities to better people's educations--their definition is absolute and any contradiction with it means that I'm just trying to mislead them about the real meaning of evolution.
Ivor's insistence that all atheists are claiming absolute knowledge is the same thing, and he's reacting in the same way to any argument that shows that his beliefs are erroneous.
Yes, please. Let's not call atheists illogical. I'm an atheist, and my position is simply that life is too short to give much credence to improbable hypothetical entities that lack any supporting evidence for their existence. I disbelieve in god for the same rational reasons that I disbelieve in Bertrand Russell's orbiting teapot. Ivor's characterization of atheists is simply bogus, rather like accusing all agnostics of being gutless, indecisive wimps, or all Christians of being witless sheep...all false.
Although I must admit that my objection to the responses to Atrios's post is that we see far too much sheep-like behavior from many Christians, who too readily identify with any old wolf (or oyster, or lichen, or mineral) that happens to have a fleece draped over it. There is a pattern of undiscriminating defense of anything labeled "Christian" that allows a lot of evil to flourish in this country.
I have the general impression that the beltway dems would like nothing better than to eradicate Dean from all memory, and since we seem poised to nominate yet another ball-less, boring insider, I doubt that they will remember him.
There is a mob of us out here who were motivated by Dean, though, and the Democratic leadership should be warned that we might get really pissed off if they don't shape up. And we're ANGRY. And CRAZY. Kerry better not be a wimp, or he'll be just a single-term president.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2004 | 9 |
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