With all his Christian rhetoric of late, it’s not surprising that President Obama will cave in to the religious right and sign the NDOP proclamation for May 7. Although he is eliminating the “We love Jesus” ceremony started by GW Bush, it is pretty disappointing that he doesn’t have the backbone to stand by the Constitution with more fervor.
The NDOP is clearly against the law. It is a proclamation by the US President urging people to pray. This is not about the president’s right to pray as an individual, rather using the office to officialize religion, namely Christianity. Exactly how is that defensible legally? It’s not. It’s wrong, and we should let him know about it.
Check out what you can do for our answer to the NDOP, the National Day of Reason, coincidentally on the same day.
I just love how current christians don’t understand that the seperation is there for their own protection. We all know perfectly well how much the different christian sects hate each other and the only reason why one of them hasn’t gained complete control is because of the seperation of church and state.
How long would it take for example if the seperation was not there anymore, for the christians to start attacking each other in order for one of them to gain the title of state religion? I would say a few minutes. Tops.
And lets not harbor any delusions that when this happens that they wouldn’t start descriminating HARD against any non-christian religion right out of the gate.
Just a hypothetical (Which seems very far from reality after reading about the newest Dobson debacle), but would it be constitutional for the government to speak out against religion? If it is insisted that Atheism is not a religion and that people still have the right to believe in whatever nonsense they want, I see no reason that a President would be unlawful in standing up and saying that religion is a crutch for society and a waste of our resources. Any thoughts?
No present-day political leader in USA would DARE say such, PROOF.
Altho’ I’d greatly admire any politicain who was BOLD enough to use one of my favorite Jefferson quotes:
“…and the day will come when the mystical generation of jesus by the supreme being, as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the FABLE of the generation of Minerva in the Brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the DAWN of REASON and FREEDOM of THOUGHT in these United States will DO AWAY with ALL this artificial scaffolding.” Th Jefferson 1823 letter to Jh Adams.
To fully appreciate Jefferson’s DERISION of the divinity of je-zeus one must understand the Fable of Minerva nad Jupiter.
Jupiter, a Roman god, had the hots for a goddess, Metsis, who did not have reciprocal feelings for Jove. Every time Jupiter would try to “take” metsis she would mystically transform herself into a deer and scamper away or a hawk ands fly away.
One day she turned into a fly, but Jupiter caught her and ate her, LIERALLY!
For the next nine months Jupiter had a banging and clanging iside his head that was so severe he finally had a felllow god cleave his head open…and VOLIA out popped his fully-formed adult daughter, Minerva, clad in battle gear, including sword and shield, which she had been banging for nine months!
Where is a Jefferson-like political luminary when we truly need him/her?
VOILA
Hah I understand that there isn’t a chance of it happening anytime soon, my question was simply that if I live to see a day when rational thought isn’t political suicide, wouldn’t it be tough to argue that bashing religion is constitutional?
In saying that I also realize that, despite a clearly defined first amendment, it’s tough to argue that a day of prayer or week of spirituality go against the constitution as well.
Proof says, “In saying that I also realize that, despite a clearly defined first amendment, it’s tough to argue that a day of prayer or week of spirituality go against the constitution as well.”
Govt sanctioned prayer , govt imprimtur of approval of prayer is UNCONSTITUTIONAL, notwithstanding popular conventons to the contrary.
geoih asked:
“You’re saying it on the Internet. What makes you think you aren’t saying it in Finland? Ever heard of Salman Rushdie?”
Response: Yes, but, I don’t think Whutthole would like him. I’m not sure that I do either. He seems to think that mythology and science mix. My point of view is that where what is convincingly proven ends, that is also where my belief ends. The rest is where I sit a self appointed juror waiting for more information. You can’t take me off the jury, I appointed me myself.
You asked: “What makes you think you aren’t saying it in Finland?”
Response: This is the world wide web. What I am typing now is world wide.
Believe it or not, I have no quarrel with the Finns. I have no idea what sort of social issues they are dealing with, and have no advice how to best deal with them. I just bring up these issues to remind freethinkers that there are no black and white issues. Except one, survival of the human race. No compromises.
NeoWolfe
So that makes for another day for fools then?
As outspoken as we all are about being atheists, I think this is an area where we need to give Obama some slack.. I am against a national day of anyhting religious however, this is one that needs to chipped away at, baby steps, baby steps… At least Obama isn’t throwing an I love jesus party in the east wing of the white house.. He didn’t even have a public service to recognize the “National Day of Prayer”. He threw the religous right a bone that they probably aren’t satisfied with anyway.. He is the first Pres. that I can think of that openly believes in evolution.. can we expect more than that at this point? If anyone in this forum ran for any office and ran on a platform of what they really thought, none of us would win.. Grant it noble to say what you really think, but those on the fence may need to warm up to the idea of no supreme being and becomming a free thinker.. Baby steps, baby steps.
Shodan- I couldn’t agree more, evolving away from religion will likely be more effective than attempting an enormous leap, but this certainly does not mean we should be satisfied with government advocation of prayer. The more we push BEHIND Obama, the more likely this progress is to speed up.
So, in response to the NDOP, I wore my ‘proud to be an American atheist’ shirt to the grocery store today. No reaction, either positive or negative – which is about what I expected (shrug). Then again, there weren’t many people there midday on a Thursday.
I see what your saying PROOF.. I agree. govt. advocation of prayer goes directly against separation of church and state.. My point is, I think Obama is smart for doing what he did.. Focus on the ISSUES and not what the religified right wants to focus on… Knock it down one step at a time.. He couldn’t have gone up there and done what most of us would want him to do and say “This is rediculous, why waste my time”? The right would have “crucified” him (for lack of a better term)… And like you said, an enormous leap might be hard for many of them to wrap their heads around… Freethough takes some time..
Anybody else seeing the signs that somebody is posting here under multiple monikers?
Signs?? Nope.
And I do hope and trust that switching to WordPress has eliminated the previous ability to ferret out personal information (email/IP addresses) about posters. At least, it was supposed to.
what is what paranoid about?
and we definitely need to initiate a national day of wishing it were so
What- just because two people agree on something for once I don’t think we need to call the authorities. But if you feel the need Dave, by all means check our IP addresses or whatever you need to do.