I would be incensed & indignant if I *had * invented the concept. But I didn’t.
I just don’t get why atheists are so offended by references to God.
The statue of liberty is a depiction of a Roman goddess.
Does that mean our government is endorsing Roman Polytheism?
I’m outraged we better take that statue down, now! 
Is it possible that because atheism is the minority, it gets it’s feelings hurt more easily?
Alas, no. You might have a point if correlation and causation were synonymous, but since they are not, you do not. There was an atheist in Congress before there was a Muslim, and Muslims are a greater minority than atheists. While interesting, it’s not relevant.
You still have not addressed my second point.
I of course did not mean that you personally had invented it. Just because it is in Wikipedia as a concept does not change my original point. Calling ceremonial deism does not chnage the fact that it is religion being crammed down my throat under that title.
I did not imply that correlation and causation were synonymous. I am perfectly aware of the concept (I usuallly refer to old joke about 90% of violent criminals eatring potatoes before hey comitted their crime).
But I would never use those words unless I were a pretentious blowhard.
Has it occurred to you that maybe there is prejudice against Muslims as well?
Are you attempting to insult me?
You’re talking about prejudice against atheists. Muslims aren’t atheists.
Pick whatever you like- Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Episcopalians, Lutherans, atheists- you’re going to find people that vote against them or think differently about them because each belief system has components that cause the other to judge them personally. That’s not discrimination, although you seem to have backed off the use of the word “discrimination.” Prejudice isn’t illegal.
See, all you’re doing here is attempting to poke holes in people’s counter-arguments by using some inelegant form of sophistry. And you still haven’t addressed the second point I asked you to address.
And, as an aside, after you’re done addressing my second point, I would be interested to hear how “In God We Trust” on a dollar bill is cramming religion down your throat.
Papa Bush is alleged to have said that, but oddly enough only one person (Rob Sherman) actually heard him say it. The evidence supporting that claim is thinner than thin. It was supposed said at a press conference at Chicago Airport when he was VP, but was not reported on by anyone other than Sherman.
Said at a press conference, but in a private conversation, according to Sherman.
This site seems to suggest that there was a back-and-forth between the administration and American Atheists over the comments in which the administration implicitly confirms the comments, or at least doesn’t explicitly deny them. I guess I’d want to see the actual letter to judge whether the administration was confirming that the specific comment was made.
I don’t know if it is true but I’ve heard that the model for the face of the statue was Bartholdi’s mother, who ironically enough was a notorious bigot.
The thing about atheism is that it is very easy to hide whether one is, or is not an atheist. I know I’ve avoided many uncomfortable moments by letting someone assume I was a Christian. I imagine any atheists in other countries do the same thing. I don’t think god should be on our money or in the pledge but it doesn’t keep me up at night either.
Yeah, that’s very convenient.
Well, “PositiveAtheism” isn’t what I’d call an impartial agent in this dispute.
I can say that I heard Hilary Clinton say that Jews shouldn’t be citizens. It was at a press conference, but she said it in a private conversation to me. Trust me, I know what I heard.
On the other hand, if you decide you are going to insult someone in this Forum, you will be no more successful at avoiding an admonition to stop it by hiding your insult inside a conditional phrase.
Just stick to your OP (and try to find a point to debate) and do not sidetrack the discussion with personal slams.
[ /Moderating ]
C’mon, John. If you claimed that, don’t you think the Clinton campaign would deny her saying it in a split second? I think the shilly-shallying about the denial is far more telling than if Bush ever said what is claimed, which is not at all clear. The calculus is that they would lose more votes by issuing a denial than they would by stonewalling the issue. They’re probably right, don’t you agree?
No, I don’t. But if you want to debate this, feel free to open a thread. Seems like we have to go over this about once per year, so it’s about time again, I guess.
I don’t care about a statue of a Roman goddess because no one worships it. I do care about references to God because hundreds of millions worship it, and desperately want to force me to as well, or punish me for not doing so. Not to mention that the Roman religions were never as omnimalignant and all-consuming as the Christian/Islamic religions. As far as I’m concerned there’s not much difference between putting “God” on money and putting a swastika on it. It may not directly hurt anyone, but it’s a symbol of utter evil.
:rolleyes: Given that Christians whine all the time about how oppressed and offended they are despite being in the vast majority, writing the laws, and running the country - no.
Indeed, but it also makes your point that it was at a press conference and not reported by others irrelevant.
All fair points. I’m just saying it has a little more credibility than you suggest–which is to say, still not a whole lot (slightly more credibility than you claiming that Hillary told you Jews aren’t citizens). But I’m not particularly interested in the accuracy of something a then-candidate ex-president said in the 80’s, which is why I thought it was adequate to point out that Der Trihs got the wrong Bush.
Help me find your contribution to the debate. It looks like you’re assuming your own conclusion.
But these assertions are unfounded and do smack of paranoia or a persecution complex. While I’m not going to diagnose you with either, if you’re going to hang out in GD you should at least go with claims that can be verified.
I did not reply to your second point because it seemed so irrelevent, contrived and so far removed from any point I had been making that I took it to be more of a rhetorical argument than an argument that you seriously expected me to respond to. 
Okay, what you said in your second point was:
"People who convert to Christianity and are persecuted for it make the news because they did something- they engaged in a ceremony or refused prayer services.
“People who hold atheist beliefs and tell nobody do not make the news because they haven’t taken any affirmative steps to get noticed. The exact same thing would apply to someone who accepted Jesus in the Protestant fashion yet continued to live a Muslim life. The “discrimination” against him would go undocumented because there’d be no way to document it.”
Now there is an old saying that “text without context is pretext”. In the above quote, you are pretending or at least inferring that I ( idiot that I am) am calling for the US Commision’s report and the media to read the minds of atheists in Muslim countries that provide horrid and severe punishments for apostasy from Islam (of which atheism is a form) and to document the plight of those closet atheists who are essentially invisible since they pass for devout Muslims. I guess that really proves how stupid I am, does it not? :dubious:
In fact, my comments were made at a point where the discussion in the OP had broadened to include a general discussion of whether atheists are persecuted throughout the world.
My point was that much anti-atheist discrimination passes under the general title of religious intolerance, making it invisible for people like you and Mr. Moto and others on this thread who choose not to see it.
As an example, I said that Muslim countries with laws against apostasy are automatically discriminating against the rights of atheists, since a Muslim who becomes an atheist is “by definition” an apsotate. Many ex-Muslim atheists “vote with their feet” and move to western countries where the anti-atheist prejudice AND DISCRIMINATION exist but at a less deadly level. But that does not mean they are safe, especially with the growing numbers of Muslim immigrants to the west. There are several web sites of Muslim apostates abroad. Google “Muslim apostates” and read the stories of these people, and the degree to which they live in fear, even in the west: fear for themselves and for their families back home.
NOT ALL of these apostates are atheists, admittedly. Some became Christians. But as it states in the “Apostates from Islam” site:
(Emphasis mine) “Some of us have embraced other religions but most of us have simply left Islam without believing in any other religion. We believe in humanity. We believe that humans do not need to follow a religion to be good. All we need to follow is the Golden Rule. All we have to do is to treat others they way we expect to be treated. This is the essence of all the goodness. All good religious teachings stem from this eternal principle. This is the ultimate guidance humanity need. This is the Golden Rule.”
True, they do not use the word “atheist” specifically. But as we pointed out, only about 900,000 Americans self-identify as atheists but 27 million(!) identify as “no religion/secular”. No doubt these people have been brainwashed against the word “atheist” as much as people in the West. Note how pathetically they feel the urge, in the above quote, to defend themslves against the ridiculous but ever-present charge that atheists have no morality.
Sadly, many of these people live in fear of their lives, even in western countries. Read the site about the family that gets bricks thrown through its windows IN THE WEST.
An Iranian ex-Muslim who attends my humanist group once broke down in tears telling me she cannot see her family or visit her home in Iran because she is a known atheist. Her family in Iran is not atheist, but they live in constant fear and under supervision and harassment.
Frankly, I think it is unlikely that the Bush administration, where Condi Rice leads the Cabinet in prayer and where the President is in bed with the religious right, is likely to come out swinging for the world-wide rights of atheists.
Well, to be specific, I am a Canadian taxpayer, not an Ameican one. So I gues it is not being crammed down MY maple-syrup swilling throat. I was speaking allegorically as if I were an American taxpayer. The argument remains the same, nit-picking aside.
Printing “In God We Trust” on the money is esstentially a declaration by the state that there exists a God. Now, there is NOTHING wrong with an individual, church, author, billboard (on private land), tv program, radio program, newspaper, etc. etc. declaring this. This is freedom of religious opinion.
But currency is a public “document” or “commodity” issued by the state for the use of ALL citizens. In a country that separates Church and State, what business does the state have to promote theism over atheism, using tax money collected from all citizens, atheists included?
THAT is how it crams religious belief down the throats of atheists. When an atheist parent is trying to raise a decent, rational kid free of ignorant superstition, one day, the kid asks daddy what that motto means. The parent has to tell him that his government, whom the kid is being taught to respect, is telling him there is indeed a God. So who is right, daddy or the government?
So how about a compromise? If “ceremonial deism” is such a cool thing, why not diversify? Most bills withh say “In God we trust”. Some will say “In Rama we trust”, “In Vishnu we trust”. Some will recognize our native brother with “In Gichi Manitou we Trust”. Or how about “ceremonial atheism?” A few, a very few, currency notes will say “There is no God” or “There is no way to know if there is a God”.
Of course you theists will not accept that idea, will you? Leave the money as it is, call it “ceremonial deism” which does not violate the separation of chuch and state, and tell those @##$$% whining atheist babies to shut their fucking mouths!
God bless America.
Well, to be specific, I am a Canadian taxpayer, not an American one. So I guess it is not being crammed down MY maple-syrup swilling throat. I was speaking allegorically as if I were an American taxpayer. The argument remains the same, nit-picking aside.
Printing “In God We Trust” on the money is esstentially a declaration by the state that there exists a God. Now, there is NOTHING wrong with an individual, church, author, billboard (on private land), tv program, radio program, newspaper, etc. etc. declaring this. This is freedom of religious opinion.
But currency is a public “document” or “commodity” issued by the state for the use of ALL citizens, no matter what theit religious opinions. In a country that separates Church and State, what business does the state have to promote theism over atheism, using tax money collected from all citizens, atheists included?
THAT is how it crams religious belief down the throats of atheists. When an atheist parent is trying to raise a decent, rational kid free of ignorant superstition, one day, the kid asks daddy what that motto means. The parent has to tell him that his government, whom the kid is being taught to respect, is telling him there is indeed a God. So who is right, daddy or the government?
So how about a compromise? If “ceremonial deism” is such a cool thing, why not diversify? Most bills withh say “In God we trust”. Some will say “In Rama we trust”, “In Vishnu we trust”. Some will recognize our native brother with “In Gichi Manitou we Trust”. Or how about “ceremonial atheism?” A few, a very few, currency notes will say “There is no God” or “There is no way to know if there is a God”.
Of course you theists will not accept that idea, will you? Leave the money as it is, call it “ceremonial deism” which does not violate the separation of chuch and state, and tell those @##$$% whining atheist babies to shut their fucking mouths!
God bless America.
Let us take one small example. Look at these two You-Tube videos of Paula Zahn on CNN discussing last January why ahteists are so hated. In the first video, we see actual cases of American families, persecuted, threatened, taunted, thrown out of their homes, etc. for their atheism.
Does any of this strike you as discrimination, my friends?
But look at second video! Following the news report Paula Zahn has assembled three people ALL OF THEM THEISTS, to discuss the issue of anti-atheist prejudice and discrimination. NO ATHEIST is present!
Can you imagine for one second a discussion about anti-black prejudice in which only white people participate??? A discussion about anti-semitism in which three gentiles espouse the opinion that Jews “bring it on themselves”?
The so-called discusssion is an extremely offensive session of atheist-bashing in which we are told that atheists believe “nothing” and are “imposing their beliefs on other people.” Not a single atheist there to oppose them.
Can you believe the African-American dismissing anti-atheist discrimination and violence because it takes place mainly in the South? Can you imagine someone saying the same thing about anti-black violence (I know racism is not confined to the South, I am just asking you to imagine how he would react if the shoe were on the other foot).
Can you imagine any other group being treated this way on American TV?
Now in the interests of accuracy, I must admit that after a huge outcry, Paula Zahn DID have the head of the Amereican Ateists and Richard Dawkins on her show. But even then, the head of American Atheists was confronted by a theist who was very agressive and argumentative. You can find that second show on Youtube as well. I believe you can see it here. In the discussion following the Dawkins interview, note that the CNN interviewer is essentially asking the atheists what is wrong with them and why they are such whiners.
Funny how an atheist appearance must be balanced by the opposing viewpoint but the Pope or any other religious leader is never “counterbalanced” by an atheist viewpoint.