Friday morning February 26th, 60 representatives from the Secular Coalition of America met with White House staff to discuss three issues of concern to it’s members which consists of non-religious Americans. Those three issues included protecting children from religiously motivated neglect and abuse, ending proselytizing in the military and working to ensure that various faith based initiatives don’t cause religious discrimination to individuals in need.
While that agenda seems fairly benign and something most individuals regardless of faith or lack thereof would agree with, that didn’t stop the right wing smear machine from spreading fear and lies about the meeting. Apparently the idea that non-religious Americans should be treated with the same respect all other citizens expect from our government is enough to cause right wing hysteria. Sean Hannity of Fox News was found to have made at least 4 factual errors in his quick statement about the meeting falsely claiming that this meeting in some way meant that the nonreligious were getting special treatment from the Obama adminstration. Sean’s statement was nowhere near as inflammatory as what occurred in the right wing blogosphere, which basically labeled the groups participating in the Coalition as hate groups. For perspective on this issue, it is important to realize that one of the groups runs a summer camp and another one is the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers.
#52 – Guyver,
Aside from the marriage tax credit and adoption rights, what EXACTLY do gays not already have that married couples enjoy?
Next of kinship rights.
1) Spouses are allowed hospital visitation.
2) Spouses are the ones to make life and death decisions for an incapacitated spouse.
3) Spouses are the nearest kin and will inherit the
decedent’s estate should s/he die intestate (without a will).
Is that not enough to convince you?
58, Phydeau,
“I don’t care if God exists”: ???
Apathetic Agnostic? 🙂
62, Misanthropic Scott,
Item 1 has merit. Would be a State’s right issue.
Items 2 and 3 would be resolved with either a will or trust so it’s a non-issue IMHO.
Hmmm… not caring about something is apathy… so maybe if I don’t care about whether God exists I’m a
(fanfare)
apatheist!
Yes you heard it here first folks!
Drat… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism:
An apatheist is also someone who is not interested in accepting or denying any claims that gods exist or do not exist. In other words, an apatheist is someone who considers the question of the existence of gods as neither meaningful nor relevant to his or her life.
Oh well. I thought of it too! 🙂
61, Misanthropic Scott,
“I’d say you’re an atheist since you are clearly making the comparison of the bowling ball to a fish that has absolutely no contact with a bowling ball and would never see evidence of it.”
Sounds more agnostic since the existence of a “God” is acknowledged but not observed. In this case QB’s God does exist… but never to be observed.
Sounds A LOT more like “Deism” (which is where QB’s comments sound more like than the Agnostic).
So, it depends. If you mean that god has and can have no relevance in your life under any circumstance, you’re an atheist.
If the POSSIBILITY / PROBABILITY of the existence of a Creator / Deity has been disqualified, then I would agree with that. Otherwise, the person is an agnostic IMHO.
65, It would be interesting to see how many atheists and agnostics are more like an apatheist than what they normally consider themselves.
#60 – Guyver,
“How could we possibly know since there is no way to prove it due to the fact that religious organizations need not keep records?”
All you had to say was your argument was entirely academic. You didn’t have to answer a question with a question. 🙂
Actually, what I said was that the rules were written the same way as the definition of god was written, to disallow proof or evidence. So, it’s not academic to state that the very possibility of testing for discrimination has been actively removed.
“And you have the statistics to show that it has not been declining since and because of faith based initiatives? And, what government has tons of this? Local? State? Federal?”
I thought your question was about where an atheistic social worker can find a job?
Yes. And if the jobs are in increasingly short supply, the answer is no.
On the homeless link, I visited it. It was some guy’s blog. I tried to go to the original article he linked, but it was dead.
Sorry about that. It was a Wall Street Journal article. I’ll see what I can find now. It was picked up by several sites. Unfortunately, all link to the same Wall Street Journal article. And, the Fox Street Journal has either removed it or requires a subscription for older articles. Here are a couple of additional sites with some quotes from the article in the latter. I’ve emailed WSJ for more info about what happened to the article. Do remember that Faux Spews bought the Fox Street Post (formerly known as the Wall Street Journal).
http://tinyurl.com/7a7nyx
http://tinyurl.com/ye3x9jv
On the Red Cross, there was no link to where they were denied funding. On a side note, I stopped donating blood to the red cross after I found out that they charge patients for the blood I donate freely.
Your side note is irrelevant. The point here is that if secular and sectarian organizations are competing for a pool of money and more is being given to the sectarian, then by definition, the secular is getting less.
68, Misanthropic Scott,
So, it’s not academic to state that the very possibility of testing for discrimination has been actively removed.
Okay, so there’s no evidence that secular groups have been excluded. But it’s possible (even though they are not in great numbers). I’m okay with leveling the playing field of accounting for whether or not Churches hire atheists, or people of opposing religious viewpoints (if that really bothers you)…. last time I checked, most of those charities ask for volunteer help. At the end of the day, it’s about a charity providing a service to the needy. Rather than attack a faith-based group, why doesn’t a secular charity make a stink over exclusion? The emphasis seems to be more of a blame game rather than a secular group taking the initiative and doing something about it.
“Do remember that Faux Spews bought the Fox Street Post (formerly known as the Wall Street Journal)”
Most business shows are going to lean towards the right. What investor wants to watch a show / channel that promotes higher taxes / redistribution of wealth with their money? CNBC is a stark contrast to that of MSNBC.
First Tiny URL worked, but I have to question why do all of these blog sites fail to mention the Church’s comments (if they have any)? It seems like they’re intentionally trying to paint as bad a picture as possible to be self-serving.
“Your side note is irrelevant. The point here is that if secular and sectarian organizations are competing for a pool of money and more is being given to the sectarian, then by definition, the secular is getting less.”
Okay so my side note was irrelevant. As someone who is charitable at times, I do take issue with a “charity” (secular or not) profiting off of my FREE donation by charging the needy.
The key thing I would focus in on was whether the secular organization was unjustly denied funding it should have otherwise got. Otherwise, much of this is speculation and much ado about nothing.
#66 – Guyver,
“I’d say you’re an atheist since you are clearly making the comparison of the bowling ball to a fish that has absolutely no contact with a bowling ball and would never see evidence of it.”
Sounds more agnostic since the existence of a “God” is acknowledged but not observed. In this case QB’s God does exist… but never to be observed.
So, it depends. If you mean that god has and can have no relevance in your life under any circumstance, you’re an atheist.
Sounds A LOT more like “Deism” (which is where QB’s comments sound more like than the Agnostic).
Oops!! Backpeddle backpeddle. Reading my own words again, I stated that very badly. I meant to say that if seeing no evidence of the bowling ball or god implies to you that neither will hit you on the head, then you are an atheist. I didn’t mean to make it such a strong assertion of non-existence. An intelligent atheist will still change opinion upon seeing hard evidence. Until there is some though, and thousands of years have never produced any, I would consider myself an atheist. It still sounds to me as if apatheist and atheist are virtually the same. However, I would have no problem with the term apatheist for those who do not bother to ask the question.
68, Misanthropic Scott,
Let me make it clear though that I would rather the government got out of the charity business, since taxing me to give to charities is fundamentally legalized extortion. And as you have so eloquently noted, the government chooses to donate your money to charities in which you are most opposed to.
I have to wonder though, would secular charities survive without government help? I know the faith-based ones would.
70, Misanthropic Scott,
I would think any intelligent person would change their opinion upon seeing hard evidence, regardless of their background.
IMHO the big difference between an Atheist and Agnostic is that an Atheist will conclude there is no Creator until some form of empirical evidence shows up.
An agnostic doesn’t conclude one thing or another since the likelihood of such evidence is probably slim to none. An agnostic would be closer to a “fence-sitter” and not dwell on the things that are unlikely to be proven.
70, Misanthropic Scott,
Or some people can lean towards deism and not dwell on the idea that a creator would be so self-absorbed that it would want to revisit Earth or bother to care about it to be worshiped or acknowledged.
#69 – Guyver,
Actually Guyver, just to get back to the real point on faith based initiatives. They executive order does not create the possibility for sectarian organizations to get federal money. They were always able to get federal money for charitable work.
What the executive order does is to remove the requirement that organizations taking federal money prove that they are using it in a non-discriminatory way.
So, the faith based initiatives executive order is all about explicitly allowing discriminatory practices paid for with federal money and is hence a severe violation of the first amendment.
All of the rest of our commentary is a bit off topic, IMHO.
One big problem with determining whether a god exists or not is that the data sample is at this moment limited to the humane race.
Will alien races even have the concept of a god?
#72 – Guyver,
An agnostic doesn’t conclude one thing or another since the likelihood of such evidence is probably slim to none. An agnostic would be closer to a “fence-sitter” and not dwell on the things that are unlikely to be proven.
The difference lies in the fact that most agnostics will not genuinely give equal credence to other equally likely hypotheses such as the tooth fairy, fire breathing dragons, gnomes, elves, wood sprites, zeus, odin, baal, the proverbial teapot orbiting between earth and mars, and any number of other mythologies for which no evidence exists.
Atheists recognize all of these and many others as equally possible or impossible.
#75 – bac,
Will alien races even have the concept of a god?
Of course they will … created in their own image … with all of their flaws magnified many times over and scripture to say why those flaws are divine. 😉
If atheism is a religion… then I’m an a-atheist, eh?
I can settle this… There’s usually an alien race happening at the US-Mexican border. The aliens usually win… and they always praise the Christian god when they do.
So an atheist has never visited a president before? I think not. I know atheists that go to church so their neighbors don’t know they are not christian. This articl andt response f y shows the histeria this country shows toward many groups that they think are incompatable with their line of thinking.
Proud atheist.
@Guyver
Thank you for donating blood – unfortunately the nurses, doctors, drivers, lab techs and office staff don’t work for free.
Neither do the office rents, laboratory equipment and computer systems come gratis.
It would also be cheaper if the FDA had a more realistic attitude to $M fines for minor errors in paperwork.
Skeptic, OK maybe Sidney Crosby is God.
I have no problem with normal atheists — I value them and their perspective, even.
But this new breed of “atheist supremacists” are just another aggressive bigoted hate group.
They have a right to exist but the government has no business welcoming them.
>> # 78 14 GOLD said, on March 1st, 2010 at 1:20 pm
>> If atheism is a religion… then I’m an a-atheist, eh?
Of course atheism isn’t a religion. (Neither is simple belief in god or the supernatural, for that matter.)
But there is a sub-set of atheists who believe — with full blind faith despite clear evidence to the contrary — that atheism is the path to higher evolution. Worse, they believe the eradication of religion is also necessary for society to progress.
It is THESE atheists who are a kind of fundamentalist pseudo-religion.
… and these atheist supremacists are a dangerous cult who have no business in the Whitehouse.
They are on par with the KKK, Nation of Islam, or the Traditional Values Coalition — all have a right to exists but must be shunned by government and all decent people.
Thanks for the feedback. I think I’ll say that I refuse to get drawn into arguments until someone defines terms.
My first question is now “I don’t understand why I should care if God exists”. It sounds to me like most religion is just options trading in case something happens after you die.
# 63 Guyver said,
58, Phydeau,
“I don’t care if God exists”: ???
Apathetic Agnostic? 🙂
There is already an organisation along those lines…
The Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic — Motto “We don’t know and we don’t care”
(Before the religious start jumping up and down “See, atheists ARE a religion”, the whole thing is a joke, like the Flying Spaghetti Monster)
“working to ensure that various faith based initiatives don’t cause religious discrimination to individuals in need.”
Many groups, religious and other wise, make an effort to take care of their members when they are in need and it none of any ones else’s business if they do so.
If the atheist faith based groups want service I don’t see why they shouldn’t be expected to band together to take care of themselves like the other groups have rather than trying to get free handouts from groups they oppose.
That being said most Christian faith based groups will help just about anyone in need though they do try to avoid being scammed.
A Christian, a Jew, and an atheist are standing in line to be executed during the French Revolution.
The christian is first, and he lays down on the guillotine. Before the executioner pulls the lever he shouts, “My god will save me!”. The lever is pulled, and the blade swooshes down, stopping just short of his neck. The executioner, believing a miracle of god has occurred, figures he can’t kill this man, as so sets him free.
The Jew lays down on the guillotine. Like the christian, he shouts, “My god will save me!”. The lever is pulled, the blade falls, and once again it stops just short of his neck. The executioner, again, believes god is on this man’s side, and lets him go.
Finally, the atheist lays down on the guillotine. He examines the guillotine, finds a rock in the gears, and says to the executioner, “Well here’s your problem…”
The moral? There’s a time and a place for skepticism.
Enough with this bullshit of calling “the absence of religion” a religion. Please, just give it up. It is like calling the absence of water another form of wet.
#87–do-ill==I agree, in a vacuum. UNLESS, as I believe it does, “faith based initiative” implies the group will be receiving Federal Grants and Funding.
Do you agree or not that groups receiving Direct Federal Money should not discriminate? or not.
#88 Gildersleeve
Seriously dude. Sucky self righteous humor is right up there with sucky self righteous music.