1. President Obama: Bad News For the New Atheists and Other Fundamentalists

Comment #279034 by Godless Sodomite on November 5, 2008 at 1:42 pm

Reasonable faith? Obama suffers from the cognitive dissonance of not supporting full marriage rights for me and my partner based on what his faith tells him his imaginary friend wants. As an expert on the Constitution and the offspring of interracial parents who wouldn't have been able to marry had their civil rights been left to popular vote, he should know better. His faith is no more reasonable than anyone else's. That he's not a totally unreasonable ignoramus like Dubya was (is) is beside the point. In matters of faith, when confronted with reality he's shown that he is quite unreasonable indeed. His religion is just as silly and unjustified as any.

2. Panel discussion on atheism where no atheists are included

Comment #21042 by Godless Sodomite on February 7, 2007 at 11:28 am

I'm not usually one to write letters to television programs, but the commentary by the panelists infuriated me. Here's my contribution to the letters of complaint to CNN:

What a lousy, but telling, segment about atheist Americans on the January 31st edition of Paula Zahn Now! Lousy because of the bigotry espoused by the all-theist panel; telling because they exemplified the exact same attitudes that the story highlighted. The panel seems to have absolutely no sense of irony.

We are a secular nation with a secular Constitution, not a Christian nation as was claimed by the panel. Our secular nation happens to have a lot of Christians in it, but the composition does not mean we are a Christian nation, which has a completely different connotation. The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, which by implication necessarily means freedom from religion. You cannot be free to practice whatever religion you choose without being free of all competing dogma. As an atheist I'm just free from one more religion than the Jews or Catholics are. While it may be true that only about three percent of the population are self-admitted atheists, the percentage of "non-religious" Americans is 14%-16%. Whatever their actual beliefs, that 14% of the population are certainly guaranteed freedom of religion by the Constitution, which for atheists means that we're free from all the religions that exist.

The slogan of "In God We Trust" on money and the "Under God" phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance are demonstrably untrue; to keep the phrases means that we, as a country, are willful liars. I'm an American and I trust in no gods and I'm certainly not under any god (whatever "under god" may happen to mean in the first place). Those who fight to keep the American sloganeering and cling to our tribal myths certainly know this, so are therefore lying when they insist that we trust in this god we are under. It's the human equivalent of animals marking their territory; a message to outsiders that this land is "our land"—"our" defined in the most narrow sense, which by definition would exclude me.

The invitation to sit down and shut up is most troubling. If someone in this day and age were to suggest that "uppity Negroes" sit down and shut up they wouldn't have a television job by the time the show was over--and rightly so. But say the same exact thing about atheists and nobody bats an eye.

I understand it may be frustrating to theists to have their assumed privilege challenged, but having an imaginary friend doesn't give them any more intrinsic cause for respect than anyone else. And the way the religious communities are lording it over atheists, I'd say they're entitled to a great deal less respect--they've certainly earned my disdain. The panel for the segment did absolutely nothing to disabuse me of the notion that theists, no matter how moderate their theology, are irrational and expect everyone not to challenge their pet superstitions. Perhaps if their superstitions were not so transparently false, they wouldn't feel threatened so much when their faith is challenged.

It's too bad that CNN didn't anticipate this prevailing attitude and ensure a more balanced panel—-unless the way the segment turned out was entirely intentional, which I can't discount even granting benefit of the doubt. Instead we got the same old bigotry that raises its head whenever atheists are brought into public discussion. It's completely unsurprising that theists would disagree with atheists on fundamental questions—-that wasn't my problem with the segment. I'm offended by the "sit down and shut up" attitude. I concede there was a half-hearted apologetic that we're entitled to speak our piece, but I get the impression it means we have the right to complain but have no cause to expect remediation for being run out of our homes if we're so distasteful as to tell the truth about our lives in public. The message I get from the segment is: "We'll put up with you so long as you operate within my theistic comfort level." As if I need look to them to grant dispensation to live my life fully and honestly. If religious people are going to utilize their faith in public discourse, they can't get bent out of shape when their sacred cows are slaughtered. By all means, let's have public discourse; but don't cry foul when an argument is demonstrated to be false, and don't run me out of town when it becomes perfectly clear that I'm not going to be kneeling before any of your imagined gods any time soon.