Hey, Kathleen Parker? I got yer fuckin' God right here!

The BBQ Pit
1

From that great bastion of journalism, USA Today:

Followed by about another seven or eight hundred words of verbal diarrhea about “evicting God from our public institutions” and “renegades from our traditional heritage”.

If anyone has ever wondered why some atheists are so damned pushy–[whine]“But it’s a nationalll tragedyyy! How can you atheists be so meannn and bring up all that stuff about the Constitution noww!!!”[/whine]–well this is why. Because if we don’t bring it up NOW then some dog-felching monkey-fondling pig-licker will spew some garbage about “the silence of atheists these days” and root around in her septic tank of cliches for that old “no atheists in foxholes” lie. (I’ve met plenty of atheists who’ve been in foxholes. Hmmm…“There are no Christians in universities!” “There are no theists in Mensa!” “There are no Bible-believers who are literate enough to sign their own name!” “All Christians are so fucking stupid they have to be fed intravenously and placed on respirators because they’re too fucking stupid to remember to breathe!” Of course those are lies, but hey, fuck the truth, right? We don’t need no steenkin’ truth, right?)

Of course, I should sit down and write a nice, polite but firm, well-reasoned letter to the editor in which I carefully point out that Kathleen Parker has a great big festering pustule in place of a brain and that she undoubtedly enjoys having deviant sexual relations with goats and gorillas and donkeys and throw in a couple of quotes from James Madison and stuff. But really, I’ve got to vent first.

Hey, you ignorant mindless puke-swilling shit-for-brains asswipe, why don’t you move to Afghanistan if you’re so fucking eager to live in a country which hasn’t “evicted God from its public institutions”? They’d love you there! They love God and they just really love women who write editorial columns for major newspapers! I don’t suppose it would possibly have occured to you that maybe now would NOT be a good time to gratuitously question the patriotism of a group of Americans based on their religious beliefs? That maybe atheists can be patriots too, that maybe atheists can love their country and revere and want to defend its institutions too and be fucking well unhappy that some bunch of GOD-FEARING EXTREMELY NON-ATHEISTIC RELIGIOUS FANATICS had just murdered several thousand of our fellow citizens? Oh wait, the dictionary says “occur” means “to come to mind”. You, obviously, have nothing which could be described as a “mind”. “Our children must be awfully confused” that all these adults are mentioning God. WHAT FUCKING PLANET DO YOU FUCKING LIVE ON, WOMAN?!? Do you live on fucking Bizarro World? Ever hear of fucking Sunday School? Fucking Vacation Bible School? Ever walked down a fucking street in an American town or city? See that big building right in front of you? The one with a big cross on it? Hey, idiot, I’ve got news for you–that ain’t a fucking drive-through movie theater! Oh, look–there’s another one! Fuck–they’re everywhere! It’s like Pod People or some damn thing! There’s no fucking escape! People turn little storefronts and old fast food restaurants and I-kid-you-not PUTT-PUTT GOLF COURSES into churches in this country!

Lemme see–“Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services who was raised by wolves on the Planet Mars.” “Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services who writes a regular column from Pyongyang, North Korea.” “Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist who was born blind and deaf and has never learned sign language. She can’t smell or taste so good either. She has no knowledge at all of the outside world. She makes these funny little grunting noises and we transcribe them into a column.”

Nope. It doesn’t say any of that.

FUCK, woman, where the fuck have you been for your entire life, anyway? Children will be confused because adults are talking about God now?!? Oh, yes, that’s right–we’ve finally thrown off the cruel yoke of Communist oppression in this country! Now Christians can emerge from the catacombs and TALK ABOUT GOD! No longer will the Mad Tyrant Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s Legions of Doom hunt down anyone who TALKS ABOUT GOD!

FUCK!!! Every other word anybody says in this fucking country is God! You can’t throw a fucking brick in any direction without hitting a fucking church! God God God–people at work have God Screen Savers and read books about God on their lunch break! You walk in the grocery store, bam, big as life, a rack of books about God! The book stores all have whole sections about God, plus there are other book stores that only have books about God. Celebrities talk about God. Politicians talk about God. Athletes thank God when they successfully sack the opposing quarterback. Just which children is it you are talking about who are confused that adults are mentioning this strange concept, “God”, which they’ve apparently never heard of before? Little vegetable children? “Hello, my name is Timmy, and I’ve been in a Persistent Vegetative State ever since I was born and I live on Mars and I don’t have any mother or father, just wolves, and I have never heard of this strange word some people are using now, “God”? What does this mean? Please reply to this e-mail and forward it to 10,000 of your closest friends and have them reply to it too and when the Martian Overlords come everyone who has replied to this e-mail will be spared the Martian Product Testing Labs and sent to the thorium mines instead and your life will not be quite as brutally and painfully short. Thank you.”

What the FUCK is with these FUCKING people, anyway? Put God on your fucking bumper, I don’t care. Put God all over your house. Go to fucking church on Sunday. Go to Wednesday night prayer meeting. Wear stupid T-shirts that rip off popular marketing slogans for God. (“God Adds Life!” “Got God?” “God–It’s what’s for dinner!”) Carve God on your forehead with an X-Acto knife, see if I care. Give ten percent of your income to support some big-ass mega-church–fine, hey, no skin off my back, it’s a fucking free country. Just leave me in peace, m’kay?

But NOOOO! You HAVE to have the fucking government bow down to your fucking tribal idol too. You have to cram your mindless little superstitions down EVERYBODY’s throat! You can’t leave me in peace, you have to say I must not be a patriot and I must not be a Real American because I don’t grovel before your little Bronze Age deity.

NNNYYYAAAUUURGH!!!

2

“dog-felching monkey-fondling pig-licker”??

Wow!

I’d stand and applaud, but you seem to be out of sorts right now… so I’ll just quietly post and slink away…

3

You’re my new hero. That was completely wonderful. So much so, that I finally got off my ass and registered after months of lurking, just so I could say how goddam full of patriotic pride you’ve made me. Just when I thought I was out of tears, you make me believe in America again.

CC
~insert witty and reference heavy sigline here~

4

Good rant. This woman is smug and irritating, and I am sure you feel better after venting your spleen with such a splendidly written rant. I especially liked this line:

Damn. That’s pure poetry!

However, I did notice this line:

Sure, she’s smug, she’s irritating. She’s a huge pain-in-the ass.

But please note that some of her “mindless little superstitions” are probably also my “mindless little superstitions”, and Polycarp’s, and DDG’s, and countless other religions folk. And all I have to say about that is…gee, thanks. :frowning:

5

I am in awe…absolute awe.

Nothing else to say
<slinks away, bowing, in awe>

6

Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever rated a Pit post before, and may never again, but that post was a thing of beauty. Remind me to never piss you off.

7

MEBuckner, please submit that to your local paper.

Then remove the word ‘fuck’ and send it in again under your real name :wink:

8

Beautiful rant, a work of art.

And true.

We even went through it here, when some of the non-theists or non-religious said “hey, we aren’t comfortable with this national emphasis on God and prayer, we think its devisive” and got back “what??? deny others comfort. How can you?”

Now, having been silent out of respect for others comfort, you are being told you must have converted? Congrats. I’m sure you’ll find peace in God…

9

Pardon me for going beyond the obvious. Besides being an awesome rant, it is right down scary.

As in “where is this world going” scary. Exactly what is it going to take for people to realize that there’s no hiding behind man-made deities with feet of clay? Only a theist could possibly find refuge in the infamously circular “mysterious ways” of the lord. Just in case we’d forgotten that religious strife of one kind or another is responsible for killing more people than any other single factor in the history of mankind, we just had the most gruesome reminder in the history of terrorism. All because Mr. God Mohammed said it was the right thing to do: Jihad, kill the heathens. And of course, our own Mr. God Jesus’ first suggestion to his loving flock was just as direct: with a Crusade of apocalyptic proportions.

So, in the middle of this insanity we’re being told by this Katheleen Parker, that there are no atheists left. And that’s what I find so downright scary, that at a times like this people actually turn towards an ineffable entity, incapable of doing a thing…other than justifying more killing in his name. This is civilized, exactly how?

Hopefully, as MEBuckner points out in no uncertain terms, she has it all wrong and is just worried about pushing her own brand of manure at the worst possible time.

Be that as it may, his won’t be the only letter editor on this matter.

10

Wow. Fabulous. That is all.

11

I have no energy to rant, so I’m just going to give you my thoughts.

This is a bit depressing.

It’s rather ironic to me that I just left Xtianity, where I thought my beliefs were under “persecution” :rolleyes:, only to embrace freethought and nontheism and find out that now my beliefs really are in the minority, and despised by many. ::sigh::

Why can’t people just take comfort in their religious beliefs without having to have someone to demonize?

I think I’m going to go take a walk and get my mind off this.

[aside to yosemitebabe]

If all theists were like you, DDG, and Poly, then we would not be having this discussion. But more of them are not like you. Please don’t take offense. I cannot speak for MEBuckner, but I doubt he meant any ill will towards you, et. al.

Cheers!

[/aside]

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Welcome, Celtic Cowboy!

Thank you, MEB. While I share YosemiteBabe’s caveat, you did a lovely job and I have to admit to sometimes grumbling about “people’s damned Sumerian storm god who made good,” but not when I’m in church!

13

Well, somebody somewhere once summed up Kathleen Parker as “smug, Southern, and suburban”, which I find very apt.

She did an unforgiveable number last summer on the woman who was a hospital administrator and who absent-mindedly forgot to drop off her 7-month-old baby at the day care center, and left it in the car out in the parking lot, where it died of heat stroke. It wasn’t normally her task to drop the kids off–the daddy did that, on his way to work, and that morning she had a big confrontational staff meeting scheduled, so it was quite understandable that she should simply forget the baby was in the back of the car. It was one of those “shit happens” tragedies.

Kathleen’s premise was first, that if you’re bright and successful enough to be a hospital administrator, then you’re bright and successful enough not to leave your baby in the car. In other words, bright and successful administrators aren’t supposed to be human and fuck up, ever.

And second, that the ultimate responsibility for children always rests with the mother. This meant that the mom was doubly at fault–first, because she was a bright and successful administrator, and second, because she was the baby’s mom.

However, in the same column, she had no problem with the woman in Houston who drowned her five children in the bathtub. She wasn’t a bright and successful hospital administrator–she was from a lower socioeconomic group, so one doesn’t expect much by way of maternal competence from her, and so obviously she deserves our pity, not our scorn.

I wondered at the time what planet Kathleen was from, and now, thanks to Buckner, I know.

Excellent rant. 9.9

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Huh. I normally like Kathleen Parker. Shame on me, I guess.

She seems to be missing a crucial point. The events of 11 September did not make me reexamine my non-belief in God at all. I never thought for even one second that “God was trying to teach us something” or punish us, or whatever. People dying does not cause me to cast off my principles.

I think what she’s missing is that atheists are being quiet out of respect for everyone else who might hold religious beliefs. If you need to turn to a deity you believe in in this time of crisis, please do so. It’s been traumatic for all of us. That’s why we atheists haven’t complained publicly about members of Congress singing “God Bless America.” After all, many of them are religious people too, and we don’t ask them to supress their beliefs.

I guess the difference is that most of us atheists are willing to allow people to hold any beliefs they wish. Obviously this is not so for some of the Christians among us.

15

I’m am exceedingly glad this rant came up, because a few days after the disaster I had this exactly conversation with a co-worker. I simply nodded and walked away, because I prefer not to get into political/religious discussions with people I work with, especially when I know I am going to get hot under the collar.

Simply put, this man works 3 cubes down from a a Hindu woman that is going to have a baby. While he gloats and says, “You don’t hear the ACLU now” I want him to have the balls to walk down to the woman and inform her that she must either convert or move. Furthermore he should tell her that she must have her child educated in a public school taught by nuns, because this is a Christian country. Then explain how this is a good thing. Then report to your boss for firing.

Dickwad, a few myths for you:

  1. This is a Christian Country, SOCAS is a myth that is not in the Constitution.

Yes Seperation of Church and State is in the Constitution. Check the part about “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” Look cite:
http://encarta.msn.com/find/concise.asp?mod=1&ti=04491000&page=7

What that means is there can be no official religion for the US, because that would prohibit the free exercise of other religions. Of course deep down in your addled brain what you really want is a Christian theocracy, and have deluded yourself into thinking that’s what this is.

  1. The fifties were great because of all the prayer in school and God in the government.

Unless you were black, female, poor, communist…the fifties weren’t all that wonderful, sorry.

  1. Prayer in School would have stopped this. So would a Christian government.

I shall point out that part of the reason these fanatics (who are religious mind you, oh but that’s the wrong religion, forgot) hate us is that we are so predominately Christian. An official Christian government would not have helped this situation. Nor would prayer in school.

You goat felching dickwad, intolerance is hardly the answer for this scenario, and the quiet of people different than you in a time of crisis does not make you right! However taking advantage of the silence to promote your agenda does make you an uncaring lying opportunist. Cool huh.

Grrr…feeling much better now.

Excellent rant: 9.8 With a member of the Anglican church giving you a 9.0, ruining all the tens.

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The sheer meanness of the attacks on Christians makes me ashamed of my status as an atheist (or, more properly, an agnostic).

A rant like the OP, if it were addressed to atheists, or liberals, would provoke a firestorm of disapproval and superior self-righteous clucking over the “meanness of tone”.

Has anyone ever converted to Christianity without believing? I’m tempted, just because I think I’d be joining a better class of people.

Do you remember when Joseph Welch had his historic moment with McCarthy? When he asked, “At long last, sir, have you no decency?”

I wonder if someone needs to ask this question of the American left.

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Dear gods, where do I begin? :rolleyes:

There are widespread vicious attacks on Christians? Ummm, where? Surely you mean somewhere other than in one Pit thread?

So? What’s your point? Christians are the ones who claim to be all loving.

Maybe, but far more have converted without thinking.

Argumentum ad hominem. Blah blah blah.

What does left wing politics have to do with the OP?

18

sniff I love you people. Wipes tear from eye

Howdy CelticCowboy! Welcome aboard!

19

Thanks. Alas, I doubt that post will ever catch on as an annual Fourth of July speech.

Well, I’m sorry if there was any collateral damage to any of the Good Christians. As Mars Horizon notes, if all believers were as decent as Polycarp or Duck Duck Goose or you, then the worst things atheists would likely say about religious belief would be to express polite disagreements in the course of earnest and well-reasoned discussions of the Meaning of Life.

Oh for fuck’s sake.

If some atheist were to assert that no one who believes in God could be a patriotic American, I would fully expect him to be flamed to a crisp.

Furthermore, did you actually bother to read the fucking twit’s column? We’re not just talking about “in this time of crisis my belief in God has been a great source of strength to me”. Minus the obscenity and the references to bestiality, and using langauge appropriate for a “family newspaper”, I’d say what she wrote was basically “a rant like the OP…addressed to atheists”. (“Renegades from our traditional heritage” my fucking ass.)

You might also recall some vile spew vomited forth by Jerry Falwell a few days after the attacks (“I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way – all of them who have tried to secularize America – I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’”–“this” being the murder of thousands of innocent people by God-intoxicated religious fanatics).

See, most atheists I know only crank up the flamethrowers after some asshole starts flaming us. That’s certainly the kind of flame-throwing I support and defend.

“The sheer meanness of the attacks on Christians makes me ashamed of my status as an atheist (or, more properly, an agnostic).”

Yeah, us atheists should be grateful that those generous Christians even let us live in their country! They’re so good to us! As long as we never publicly say anything about our beliefs, they’ll tolerate our secret, closeted existence!

Pardon me, I have to go pick some cotton and sing a few non-spirituals. I’m just a happy, grateful heathen, yessir!

Well, you know, on Kathleen Parker World. Where little children never hear the word God, Christians are horribly persecuted by the liberal atheist Religion Police, and people say things like “Me no want ice cream–Me hate ice cream!” just before they sit down to eat a couple of pints of the stuff.

20

MEBuckner, marry me!