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Supporting Civil Rights for Atheists and the Separation of Church and State
20
Jun
2011
Seven in Heaven Street
A group of firefighters who died in 9/11 have been honored the wrong way. A street has been named for them which, unfortunately, encroaches unnecessarily on the separation of Church and State.
Named "Seven in Heaven Way", the street uses the tragedy of 911 to legitimize Christianity by asserting that Heaven is a real place, and that all these heroes are actually there. Now, I am not sure if all seven of the named firefighters were Christian, or if they were "good Christians", but that's not relevant. What's important to remember here is that these men died in a religious attack against ALL of America. The Muslim extremists attacked the Constitution, not just the Towers and the Pentagon.
Breaking our own laws undermines us, even if it's only the name of a street. As we approach the 10th anniversary of 9/11, we will see preachers and their politicians trying to make Christianity the victim, and to vilify anyone who screams foul.
Foul.
These heroes died FOR our Constitution, and breaking the Constitution in their memory should make any patriot shudder. Call it "Seven Heroes Way". Call it "Remember Seven Way". But leave Christianity out of it - it wasn't involved.
By Dave Silverman
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Comments
I really don't agree with David Silverman on this one. Is he really representing American Atheists on this "Seven in Heaven" issue? Because nearly all the atheists I've asked don't agree we should be fighting against this sign. I see even some prominent atheists, such as The Atheist Experience's Matt Dillahunty, disagree with Silverman on this.
I disagree with Silverman for a couple reasons:
1. The claim is this sign violates the law, or the constitution, but how it does that is certainly NOT clear. I agree we shouldn't tolerate even little violations of the First Amendment because then where will it end, but again, there still needs to be a good, clear case showing how that "little" thing violates the First Amendment. We don't that with this sign. This is not on par with clear violations such as public school officials or teachers preaching, or Congress passing a law to add "god" to our currency.
2. If we don't have a good case, we appear as stupid whiners, and this diminishes our cause and influence. I don't care if others think we're whiners if what we're fighting for is a good, substantiated cause, but fighting this street sign is not.
3. Who really cares if those firefighters believed in heaven? This just seems a little ridiculous to me. I consider myself an atheist and anti-theist, and even I wouldn't be offended if the city commemorated me with a sign mentioning heaven.
It doesn't seem like you got Matt's second post on this issue. American Atheists is not taking any legal action against this sign, it was just an article.
You can find that here: http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/2011/06/seven-heroes-updated.html
Only the ones w/out any filters do - the rest of us likely have better taste, or better things to do.
Not because I am watching it....but you seem to be well informed about, what atheists are watching!
BTW can an atheist be "in seventh heaven"?? just curious..
The point is, that "heaven", just because it is used on a road sign, doesn't indicate the possible existence of a real heaven.
Atheism today, acts just like another religion...
Atheism is no more of a religion that theism is. Atheism is nothing more that a lack of a belief on god. Theism is just a belief on god. Religion comes in when rituals, customs, and rules are built on top of theism or atheism.
So yes, there are some extremely rare atheistic religions - Raleans (probably spelled that wrong) - but, like I said, they are extremely rare. Most atheists are just plain atheists and do not follow a religion (theistic or atheistic).
Apparently I did - my apologies. You were exploring someone else's simile.
It's why I put things in blockquotes. It separates the poster from the responder - otherwise, it all sort of runs together.
My bad.
Oh sorry, I'm from California - the beaches are a little greener out here. I stand corrected.
So...you're swimming in water that's 977 Farenheit? Little warm ain't it?
Yeah, like swimming in pitched waters...
Translation: "When you agree with what I say!"
Obviously you didn't learn about anatomy: the heart's an organ that pumps blood, not processes info...
Which is why I'm an atheist now.
Utterly asinine. The government is bigger, stronger, more powerful (oh wow, redundancy city!) than I am. So is the county I live in. So is the state I live in. So is the ocean, the weather patterns, an 18-wheeler, the collective personnel of the WWF, the army, the navy, the marines, the congress, the senate, my city council...
You, however, are obviously not brighter than I am.
AJ, you're going to have to stay focussed. You bang on someone (me? Unclear) for "It must be difficult to go through life not believing in something bigger and stronger and more powerful than yourself.", which is so obviously something a theist would say, & come back later w/an entirely humanist 'de-conversion' story about sandy tar.
Try to stay on point.
I thought it was very on point. Specifically, people having certain perspectives and having those perspectives changed. The story about sandy tar is what I would consider an alternate ending to the story in the start of this thread. I then follow this with an explanation about how people have deluded their own perspectives by placing religion before the truth and therefore considering their religion unquestionable.
And just to clear it up, I was specifically addressing the comment made by actiasluna1977.
Although I found your comment to be overly negative, I think you may have misinterpreted what I said because it appears we are both atheists. You may have gotten confused with actiasluna1977's comment and mine because I specifically address the statement “It must be difficult to go through life not believing in something bigger and stronger and more powerful than yourself.“ as being nonsense in my comment (in a very similar way you do).
I quite agree that the religion stuff should go from the public street.
Religion sucks. Religion is comforting...and crippling.
All I am saying is: Should we then leave it to religion/christianity to decide if atheism is harmful to THEM?
Extremism is an awful thing and then it doesn't matter the "label"..
And this "road sign story" indicate that atheism is just another religion!
http://atheistexperience.blogspot.com/2011/06/seven-heroesand-press-rele...
since when is Heaven a "christian thing" as you put it? Jews believe in heaven, muslims believe in heaven, those of use that are NOT religious but are spiritual believe in heaven as a peaceful state of mind. it seems that YOU are attaching YOUR ideals to what the word means and pushing it on others.
I never could figure out why atheists work so hard at being NON accepting to others while others ARE accepting of atheists.
Religion is man made and an instrument of control, that's the down side.... the up sode is that it can teach community and offer comfort and support.
picking a fight over a street sign is a dumb waste of time.
1: "since when is Heaven a “christian thing” as you put it?" Heaven is a Christian thing (Islam is an offshoot of christianity). Jews, if they believe in an afterlife, do not have "heaven". All that is said in the Torah or Old Testament "and he slept with his fathers". It is more common with a Greek Hedes or Underworld, where every soul go.
2:"it seems that YOU are attaching YOUR ideals to what the word means and pushing it on others". No, Heaven as it is commonly used have christian connotations.
3:"I never could figure out why atheists work so hard at being NON accepting to others while others ARE accepting of atheists." We are not non-accepting of christians oir their faith, just when they push it down our throat or in this case break the law.
4:"Religion is man made and an instrument of control, that’s the down side…" So why sohould we just sit back and watch as they control all? If you really believed that you would want to fight. I don't believe there is something "real" in religion, but it is not only for crowdcontrol. Many believe "truly".
5:"the up sode is that it can teach community and offer comfort and support." Which could be done by any organization, religious or secular.
6:"picking a fight over a street sign is a dumb waste of time." Today it is a street. What will it be tomorrow? These small steps matter. Once it is done it will, probibly, not be changed.
SebEng, Islam is not an offshoot of Christianity. Jews do believe in an afterlife. I think you need to do some research. You ARE pushing your values on others. You are pushing your non-ideas down everyone else's throats. Your view on religion does not make it fact. You want others to accept your views and have 'tolerance' yet you are the least tolerant. How is this sign affecting you? You are what we call 'butthurt'. It is a small sign and you are completely wrong in your assessment of humanity. Even if you if what you atheists non-beliefs were true, it is not freedom. I am in a rush on my way to work so my post may be a little erratic, I'll be on later to be more articulate. However, here is a suggestion for you fools. Mind your own business. IF you don't want to believe in God, then great don't believe, but stay out of others' beliefs. If it makes you feel superior to look down on people of faith, chuckle every time you see a reference to God. No one is making you believe. However, you have no right to make someone not believe.
"Islam is not an offshoot of Christianity"
- If you would take your own advice and do some research you would find that the fouders of Islam is Abraham, Moses, Jesus and lastly Mohammed. Thier stance is that Jesus was a prophet, but not son of God. Jehova and Allah is the same god.
- I did not say jews did not believe in an afterlife, I said it was different from what we commonly call "Heaven".
"You are pushing your non-ideas"
- Non-ideas would be not ideas, meaning no ideas, and if I have no ideas there would be nothing to force down, no?
"How is this sign affecting you?"
- Christianity would be favoured, and there are laws against favouring speciofic religions. That is it. No more.
"You are what we call ‘butthurt’."
- Oh, and you started out so polite and well mannered. Now you just made sure that I would ignore the rest of your post. I will continue, though, without ad hominem attacks.
"It is a small sign"
- So what's the big deal? Why not have a more inclusive sing and humour this minority for once?
"you are completely wrong in your assessment of humanity"
- What is wrong with my assesment of humanity? What in my post said anything at all about that? For the record I love humanity. We are insignificant, small pieces of carbon, looking at the wastness of the universe. And as far as we know we are the only ones looking at it, and that makes us special. There is just nothing "magical" about us.
"IF you don’t want to believe in God, then great don’t believe, but stay out of others’ beliefs. If it makes you feel superior to look down on people of faith, chuckle every time you see a reference to God. No one is making you believe. However, you have no right to make someone not believe."
- But you still keep the right to make people believe, eh? Do you not see the double standard in this? And I said nothing about taking away your belifs. I have no faith, but I am open to evidence of the existence of god, godess or gods. Have your faith if you wish. I would say that "I don't care" but I care. Because your belifs inform your actions, and false belifs may cause horrific or wrongful actions. If you believe in God (capital "G" meaning the Christian one) I hope you do it for good reason.
And also; I am not an atheist because I dont WANT to believe in God. God's existence has not been proven to me, so I don't assert a conclution and believe.
I could go deeper into this, however I must also rush out now.
Both of them are offshoots of Judaism.
Gee, but they can't agree on it. Where have we seen this before?
You may need to do some self-inventory.
No, they're being asked to keep it to themselves. Not the same thing.
What a remarkable non-statement.
Opinions don't alter reality. Reality is, religion is idle speculation only.
Oh goody, we get yet another delusionist making it about their feelings.
It's a violation of the SOCAS. Did you read the article.
You are what we call a middle school mouth.
Which is what, exactly?
What is a 'non-belief', anyways? Did you learn English in 8th grade? 'Cause that's what it looks like.
I'll believe that when I see it.
Says the religious asshole(s) who aren't atheist, who show up on an atheist blog to nag & pester the non-believers. Yeah, about that mote in your eye...
No.
You clowns want the free passes you had 2 decades ago. Newsflash: those days are gone. You may want to take your own fucking advice & mind your own zeus-damned business.
No, it pisses me off. It pisses me off because all religion is a lie, it's unmitigated garbage. Many of us wasted hours, months, even years & decades studying this nonsense. Children starve to death while Catholics accrue unearned wealth. Popes tell Africans not to use condoms, fucking up education & killing more people. Nutjobs fly airplanes into buildings for Allah. Genocide is committed regularly by the delusionists, even into the 21st CE.
You want your free passes back?
They've been revoked. You clowns don't get by w/out being criticized any more.
Are we living on the same planet? You come on here banging on us for having the audacity to criticize anything remotely religious? Nobody asked for your opinion. What I've seen of it, it's not worth much.
Wait - WTF? How to do that? Hold a gun to their heads? Twist their arms? Are you being deliberately obtuse? So, we should just shut up, because our criticisms...what? Make people uncomfortable? Irritate them?
This is America. You don't like the reality of free speech, just move to another country like the Vatican.
Well, pscalfa1? Where's the 'more articulate' response? Or are you just another drive-by poster telling atheists to STFU?
As I walk along the beach, I look at the sand and I think that each grain of sand represents a child of GOD. As I continue walking, I see a clump of tar and imbedded in the tar are also grains of sand. These grains also repre
sent GOD's children. These grains are trapped in idiology known as atheism. I Pray for you because you are my brother and sister. Love, Dave
Oh geez, are you joking? A bunch of semi-poetic crap? There's no god. Now get over yourself, and it, in that order.
I might add, we are in no way directly related, so cut the 'bro' crap. & the word is 'ideology', not idiology.
I also recommend a good psychiatrist, because there isn't any tar to be found at a beach, ergo you were obviously hallucinating.
"because there isn’t any tar to be found at a beach"
Obviously you've never been to Galveston! There most certainly is tar found at the beach. Sometimes, you go into the ocean waves and come out with said tar on your person. Stuck like superglue. Its hard to remove, but a price worth paying for joy of frolicking in Mother Earth's watery bosom!
Funny how people have a certain perspective of things in their world.........yet when the mind is truly opened; when the brain and heart are eager to learn..... sometimes they find the truth to be other than that which they originally thought.
It must be difficult to go through life not believing in something bigger and stronger and more powerful than yourself.
:)
Funny how people have a certain perspective on things in their world..... yet the arguments they make can be reversed against the point which they were making.
I wrote a nice response down a little ways where I continue the beach story and talk about the truth. I would like you to read that (when these comments are moderated) as it would be tedious and redundant to recreate what I have already explained so nicely there in this comment.
PS: I hope you realize that I would certainly say the universe is bigger than myself. It must be difficult going through life having to pretend that there is something even bigger than the universe, so big that it actually made something is big as the universe. I'm fine at cutting it off at something as big as the universe as I have actually experienced the universe. God, on the other hand, is not something I can say exists as there is no evidence and I have not experienced myself. Even if I had experienced it myself, I wouldn't expect that to convince other people just like a UFO story certainly would require more evidence.
Think about it like this, Dave. When we see this scene, we would Interpret the tar to represent religion. History has shown us that religion is very often, dare I say almost always, a repressive force. Religion holds people back. Stops them from learning about the universe, stops them from enjoying their sexuality, stops them from expressing themselves. Now, at American Atheists, we truly believe everyone has the right to practice whatever religion they like. But we ask religious people to give others that same right. We don't want to hold anyone back, trap them in tar, as it were. This is the very opposite of our goal. Our goal is to protect people's freedom. And keeping religion from harming them, in any way, is how we go about doing this. You may not agree with our beliefs, but all we, as an organization, want to do is to help them. How can you not agree with that?
"You may not agree with our beliefs"...well let us leave it with that!
"keeping religion from harming them"...well let us decide if it is harming us!
"Religion holds people back. Stops them from learning about the universe, stops them from enjoying their sexuality, stops them from expressing themselves"...excuse me Mr, what planet or age are you from?:)
> “keeping religion from harming them”…well let us decide if it is harming us!
That is incredibly selfish in my opinion. Everyone living in the United States experiences that harm that comes from religion, even atheists. It is not just the religious who get to establish if their religion is harming anyone else because if it was, then nobody would notice this huge religious war that is going on.
For more information about how this War on Terror is a religious war, please see: http://faculty.plts.edu/gpence/html/This%20is%20a%20Religious%20War.htm
Therefore, if we left it up to the followers of a religion to determine if is harmful, we would obviously get varying responses. Many Muslims do not approve of these attacks while others do. Instead, we must gauge it on a broader scale including opinions of people outside of the religion.
Amen.
The Atheists put all this time, effort, energy and resorces into protesting and fighting against the name of a street sign. That seems kinda silly. There are many, far more important things to worry about. Why do they have so much idle, uninvested time on their hands? I sure as heck don't.
And, they all sound so hostile about everything. I don't get it.
I am trying to understand - even if I don't agree.
Well, I must say to you that I don't really mind the street sign. But the thought that someone might put up such a sign when I die surely is quite scary. The thought that they might put up a cross beside the road if I die in a car accident... The thought that they might hold a Catholic funeral in my name... I do not want to be remembered as a theist. In future generations, and countries where atheists outnumber theists, I do not want to be seen as someone oblivious to the truth.
Therefore, I think it would be best to avoid such signs altogether. As the article does point out, there are other ways to honor lost lives without saying that they reside in heaven now. And, quite honestly, I would see that as extremely disrespectful if it was done for me or any other atheist.
I hope that helps you understand, and I am glad you are trying. Just to put it another way, how would you feel if after you died, people put up a (assuming you are not Jewish) Star of David by the road where you died?
Also, considering that many atheists do not announce that they are an atheist to their families because they are afraid of being kicked out or whatever, there is a higher probability that this type of mistake will be made for atheists.
You are part of the problem. Religion destroys everything.
Continuing the story...
but as I sat down before this clump of tar for my prayer, I noticed that approximately 10% of the beach was covered with this tar and as I thought more and more about it, I slowly realized that this tar represents the truth. I saw that the supernatural beliefs that I had where so foolish. As I looked around, I noticed that the truth is not hidden. There are people who are more than willing to explain it, but I needed to help myself first.
I realized that religion was more important to me than the truth. For these "clumps of tar" to help me, I would need to realize that the truth is more important than religion. It is, after all, impossible to show someone the truth if they do not care what the truth is after all. Instead of praying, I meditated on what I value more - the truth, or religion.
---
That is how I feel about many theists. The value religion above truth. They don't merely accept it as a truth, they value it above truth. They do not care what the truth is, they just want their religion to be true.
So, when I see someone praying for me, I understand that they mean well. They want me to have what they have, or what they think they have. An afterlife, a church community, and a supernatural protector. However, I do not need any of those things. I do not need to delude myself into thinking that when I die I live on forever. I do not need a church community as I am capable of making friends outside of a church, and I do not need to believe some supernatural being is watching over me or protecting me as that would lead to the conclusion that my life is not something I can control.
Atheism can have all the things religion has and more. You see the truth and the beauty in nature without having to attribute it to a supernatural being. You can appreciate things for what they really are and how rare they really are rather than asserting "god made it." With atheism, your life is truly in your hands to do with it what you want.
I hope that one day, you come to see what I have rather than praying that people find the relatively empty life you have. Thanks for reading.
Where is the assertion, that heaven is a real place? I can't see it!
To me it looks more like you are "seeing ghosts in broad daylight" or it is just a manifestation, that people see what they WANT to see.
Does an atheist watch tha American family drama television series - 7th Heaven? Or is that hard to swallow too?
The problem that I have with the sign is that it implies that the official position of the government lies in asserting that these firefighters, who died while doing their job helping the victims of an attack perpetrated for religious reasons, are now existing in a "heaven". Possibly even accompanied by god and the angels and the saints and even the perpetrators. I just don't think that the government has the right to spend any part of my tax dollars in supporting this kind of nonsense. I know that those firefighters are not in heaven because there is neither a heaven nor an afterlife nor anything else. Sure, it's a small sign but it is officializing nonsense.
For those of you still reading: it may seem that I was unnecessarily rough w/this loudmouth. Trust me - I've encountered this type many times before. They're a dime a dozen, really, & the essential message is 'STFU atheists'. No amount of polite dialogue will dissuade this sort. Courtesy seems to convince them that they have a valid point when they don't.
Furthermore, the terrorists who carried out the attack were motivated by the prospect that they would also go to heaven. I find it distasteful that we honor our heroic firefighters by suggesting that they have ended up in the same imaginary place as the terrorists. Wouldn't it be better to show some maturity and forgo the bronze age thinking and honor them via some purely secular means, say a scholarship. I'm sure the recipients would be eternally(snark) grateful.
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