Be Honest.

Be Honest. How would you feel,

 If lawmakers wanted to use your tax dollars to support private Muslim schools to teach children Islamic beliefs?

 If police cars and courthouses had the words "Allah be Praised" on them?

If you son or daughter was forced to recite Islamic prayers to be on a school sports team?

If presidential candidates said that the U S Constitution might be ignored in favor of Islamic teachings? Appalling thought isn't it? 

 The thing is, atheists are living with this every day, not with Islam, but with Christianity.

Aɴ Aᴛʜᴇɪsᴛ Bᴇʟɪᴇᴠᴇs

 “Your petitioners are atheists and they define their beliefs as follows. An atheist loves his fellow man instead of god. An atheist believes that heaven is something for which we should work now – here on earth for all men together to enjoy. An atheist believes that he can get no help through prayer but that he must find in himself the inner conviction and strength to meet life, to grapple with it, to subdue it, and enjoy it. An atheist believes that only in a knowledge of himself and a knowledge of his fellow man can he find the understanding that will help to a life of fulfillment. He seeks to know himself and his fellow man rather than to know a god. An atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanquished, war eliminated. He wants man to understand and love man. He wants an ethical way of life. He believes that we cannot rely on a god or channel action into prayer nor hope for an end of troubles in a hereafter. He believes that we are our brother’s keepers and are keepers of our own lives; that we are responsible persons and the job is here and the time is now.”

 

Madalyn Murray O'Hair - Wikipedia

1959

St. Ronny Speaks

To Be Conservative

"There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly… The religious factors that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both… I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in “A,” “B,” “C” and “D.” Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism."

Barry Goldwater, “To Be Conservative,” speech in the U.S. Senate, Sept. 15, 1981
Source: Congressional Record 127.15, 1981, pp. 20589f

Last night, David Williamson of the Central Florida Freethought Community delivered the first-ever secular invocation in Sanford, Florida:

Excerpt: While we cannot offer the legislative prayer the agenda calls for; atheists, Humanists, freethinkers, religious skeptics, and other non-believers can provide something special — which no prayer could ever accomplish. As we do in every other public setting — we live, work, play, learn, and we govern more effectively and harmoniously when we find amazing ways to unite instead of divide.

Read all of it at: Friendly Atheist

Say What?

The next time believers tell you that 'separation of church and state' does not appear in our founding document, tell them to stop using the word 'trinity.' The word 'trinity' appears nowhere in the bible. Neither does Rapture, or Second Coming, or Original Sin. If they are still unfazed (or unphrased), by this, then add Omniscience, Omnipresence, Supernatural,Transcendence, Afterlife, Deity, Divinity, Theology, Monotheism, Missionary, Immaculate Conception, Christmas, Christianity, Evangelical, Fundamentalist, Methodist, Catholic, Pope, Cardinal, Catechism, Purgatory, Penance, Transubstantiation, Excommunication, Dogma, Chastity, Unpardonable Sin, Infallibility, Inerrancy, Incarnation, Epiphany, Sermon, Eucharist, the Lord's Prayer, Good Friday, Doubting Thomas, Advent, Sunday School, Dead Sea, Golden Rule, Moral, Morality, Ethics, Patriotism, Education, Atheism, Apostasy, Conservative (Liberal is in), Capital Punishment, Monogamy, Abortion, Pornography, Homosexual, Lesbian, Fairness, Logic, Republic, Democracy, Capitalism, Funeral, Decalogue, or Bible.

Dan Barker:"Losing Faith in Faith"

More on Christain Privlege

A couple of posts back, Ed Brayton gave an interesting talk on Violence in Defense of Christian Privilege. Here, DarkMatter2525 posts a video commentary along those same lines.


Now, Christians claim that the devil worshiping, baby eating, non-believers are persecuting them. I get around quite a bit and I haven't found the same kind of vitriol directed towards Christians. I'm sure it's there though. Probably it's just not as blatant.

Atheist Invocation to the Chico City Council

Delivered by George Gold, Coordinator of the Butte County Coalition of Reason, to the Chico (Ca.) City Council meeting of Tuesday, January 6, 2015; 06:30 pm.

Good evening Mr. Mayor,  members of the city council.

I’m George Gold, Coordinator of the Butte County Coalition of Reason, and I’m President of the Atheists of Butte County.

Rather than bowing our heads and closing our eyes in deference, we want to encourage you to open your eyes wide to face the reality that confronts us. We should do so without losing sight of our ideals and what we might achieve.

When this body comes together to govern, you do so with the consent of the citizens of Chico. Chico is a diverse community with many different views and opinions. This eclectic community, according to the Pew Research Center includes 20 per cent of our population living secular lives.

In the city of Chico that means for the first time ever, I’m here representing over 17,000 secular Chico citizens with this invocation.

Humanists, non-believers, agnostics and atheists by their very nature, believe that we have the power to solve all problems within ourselves, amongst ourselves, through science and reason and that by applying this science and reason with the strength found in sympathy and compassion we can overcome any hurdle we encounter.

It is incumbent upon this council to make the best decisions for the entire community. In this regard, I ask that you use wisdom, common sense, and empathy in your deliberations.

Violence in Defense of Christian Privilege

Posted for Christians. 

Watch the whole thing. Pay particular attention to the Christian responses to people that have a different outlook and dared to speak out.

Please pay particular attention from the 34:30 mark
 

BTW, this is nothing new. O.H.

“I’ll tell you what you did with Atheists for 1500 years. You outlawed them from the universities, or any teaching careers, besmirched their reputations, banned or burned their books or their writings of any kind. Drove them into exile, humiliated them, seized their properties, arrested them for blasphemy. You dehumanized them with beatings and exquisite torture, gouged out their eyes, slit their tongues, stretched, crushed or broke their limbs, tore off their breasts if they were women, crushed their scrotums if they were men, imprisoned them, stabbed them, disemboweled them, hung them, burnt them alive. And you have nerve enough to complain to me that I laugh at you.”
—Madalyn Murray O’Hair


Comments are always open

'I Believe in an America Where the Separation of Church and State is Absolute

September 12, 1960, address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association

BY: John F. Kennedy

While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election; the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers 90 miles off the coast of Florida--the humiliating treatment of our President and Vice President by those who no longer respect our power--the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills, the families forced to give up their farms--an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space.

These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues--for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barriers.

But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured--perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again--not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me--but what kind of America I believe in.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference--and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.