Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Word To My Mother
My mother is a great believer in forwarding emails of the Republican or Christian variety. I've seen most of them before, and generally I don't respond. Eh. My mom is awesome, but a little far right politically and religiously at this point in her life - and I'm too damned tired to start a war. Heh.
But when she forwarded this essay (quoted in it's entirety below the fold), and claimed it was written by our own curmudgeonly atheist Andy Rooney, I had to reply:
Hi Ma,
This was actually written by a sports writer by the name of Nick Gholson who worked for the "Times New Record" newspaper in Wichita Falls, Texas, back in 1999, NOT Andy Rooney. Andy Rooney is actually an atheist!
"Why am I an atheist? I ask you: Why is anybody not an atheist? Everyone starts out being an atheist. No one is born with belief in anything. Infants are atheists until they are indoctrinated. I resent anyone pushing their religion on me. I don't push my atheism on anybody else. Live and let live. Not many people practice that when it comes to religion." -Andy Rooney, Boston Globe, May 30, 1982.
"I am an atheist... I don't understand religion at all. I'm sure I'll offend a lot of people by saying this, but I think it's all nonsense." -Andy Rooney, from a speech at Tufts University, Nov. 18, 2004.
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And as for agreeing with Gholson's essay below, obviously I don't. I think it's a pretty desperate argument to claim that "might makes right" like Gholson does here - especially in America! Adult Americans don't usually agree or use petty, childish, playground arguments like that. We usually stand up for the little guy, don't we? Defend those who need defending? We say, "I disagree with what you say, but I would die defending your right to say it!" Right??
Our Constitution and Bill of Rights are designed to counteract the sort of "tyranny of the majority" that Gholson is promoting, and to protect the rights of the minority from being trampled by all the frothing "Christian Nation" kooks in the majority who want to have MY kids pray to THEIR god in public schools paid for by my taxes. You can say your prayers any time you want - on the street corner, in church, in your home, heck, even at a football game! What you *can't* do is have public school officials lead *my* children in saying *your* prayers to *your* god, to the exclusion of all other religions, or non-religion - and then expect me to pay for the privilege!
Argh! It drives me nuts! :)
I love you Ma, and I'm really not trying to make you upset, but I think you're 180 degrees off-center on this issue. I hope you'll reconsider your position.
Much love,
-Brent
Ugh. I hate writing to my family about this stuff. It's going to make the holidays interesting, in any case! :)
Mom's email:
*With this issue, I agree. If you don't, delete it,* but at least read it!
HOORAY, HOORAY, HOORAY for Andy Rooney . I myself have been grumbling and wondering how a handful of people have been able to take our right to pray in public places away from us. So, agreeing with Andy, I GLADLY will forward this email AGAIN, AGAIN AND AGAIN.
Andy Rooney and Prayer
Andy Rooney says:
I don't believe in Santa Claus, but I'm not going to sue somebody for singing a Ho-Ho-Ho song in December. I don't agree with Darwin , but I didn't go out and hire a lawyer when my high school teacher taught his Theory of Evolution.
Life, liberty or your pursuit of happiness will not be endangered because someone says a 30-second prayer before a football game. So what's the big deal? It's not like somebody is up there reading the entire Book of Acts. They're just talking to a God they believe in and asking him to grant safety to the players on the field and the fans going home from the game.
But it's a Christian prayer, some will argue.
Yes, and this is the United States of America , a country founded on Christian principles. According to our very own phone book, Christian churches outnumber all others better than 200-to-1. So what would you expect -- somebody chanting Hare Krishna?
If I went to a football game in Jerusalem , I would expect to hear a Jewish prayer...
If I went to a soccer game in Baghdad , I would expect to hear a Muslim prayer.
If I went to a ping pong match in China , I would expect to hear someone pray to Buddha.
And I wouldn't be offended. It wouldn't bother me one bit.
When in Rome...
But what about the atheists? Is another argument.
What about them? Nobody is asking them to be baptized. We're not going to pass the collection plate. Just humor us for 30 seconds. If that's asking too much, bring a Walkman or a pair of ear plugs. Go to the bathroom. Visit the concession stand. Call your lawyer!
Unfortunately, one or two will make that call. One or two will tell thousands what they can and cannot do. I don't think a short prayer at a football game is going to shake the world's foundations.
Christians are just sick and tired of turning the other cheek while our courts strip us of all our rights. Our parents and grandparents taught us to pray before eating, to pray before we go to sleep. Our Bible tells us to pray without ceasing. Now a handful of people and their lawyers are telling us to cease praying.
God, help us. And if that last sentence offends you, well, just sue me.
The silent majority has been silent too long. It's time we tell that one or two who scream loud enough to be heard that the vast majority doesn't care what they want. It is time that the majority
Rules! It's time we tell them, You don't have to pray; you don't have to say the Pledge of Allegiance; you don't have to believe in God or attend services that honor Him. That is your right, and we will honor your right; but by golly, you are no longer going to take our rights away. We are fighting back, and we WILL WIN!
God bless us one and all... Especially those who denounce Him , God bless America, despite all her faults. She is still the greatest nation of all. God bless our service men who are fighting to protect our right to pray and worship God.
Let's make 2009 the year the silent majority is heard and we put God back as the foundation of our families and institutions. And our military forces come home from all the wars.
Keep looking up. If you agree with this, please pass it on. If not delete it.
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Open minded Atheism
How important it is to keep an open-mind, especially when new and logical views appear that change our understanding of reality.
I challenge atheists who say we just don't have our brains in gear: 166 years ago Abbott' s 'Flatland' showed that contiguous geometrical worlds explain where God is and why we can't see him. So we wrote 'Techie Worlds' for mechanical people and did the scientific thing: we looked at Christian teachings like the Trinity, like resurrection, judgment, the idea of a soul. In contiguous geometrical worlds these things are logical and understandable, even though to 'this-world-only' atheists they are ridiculous imaginings.
We see a lot of belief in devils, in miracles, in good and evil spirits. Just talk with your friendly Wiccas and Satanists. Their recognition of spirit worlds makes it more probable that our view (the view of love) of the world is correct. Besides, there is Pascal's wager, pointing out that Christian belief can reward while atheism just leads to death. The labels: Thinking, Logical, Reasonable, Rational really belong to Christians more than to those proudly acclaimed agnostics. Get a copy of 'Techie Worlds' from amazon.com and see the reasonableness of Abbott's explanation
GeorgeRic
Curiosity Question
(Assuming this is not an example of Poe's Law ...)
Okay, I'm an atheist, and I accept your challenge:
If Flatland was published in 1884 (and I think it was), "166 years ago" would mean this was the year 2050.
On the other hand, if "166 years ago" is right, that would make Flatland's publication date 1843. Since Edwin Abbott Abbott (delightful name!) was born in 1838, that would mean he published it when he was 5 years old, which would mean he started writing it when he was 4, at the latest.
What was that thing again about Christians not having their brains in gear?
.................
"We [...] did the scientific thing: we looked at Christian teachings like the Trinity, like resurrection, judgment, the idea of a soul."
No, you didn't do "the scientific thing." What you did was, you took something you already believed and you sought some sort of science-y sounding justification for it. There was never anywhere in your painfully vapid thought processes the possibility that you might be wrong.
What you did wasn't science, it was scientism. I'm surprised you didn't bring up quantum physics, or "vibrational energy."
And you know, you can't just make shit up and throw it out there, and just because it sounds sufficiently like Science Juju to you, make it be true.
PEOPLE WILL CHECK.
Just as I checked the publication date of Flatland.
Plenty of people know how science works. You can't just pop out with stuff. PEOPLE WILL KNOW.
You might as well walk into a garage full of automechanics and start blathering about how wheel bearings in Humvees are made out of highly polished oak. They'll know in 20 seconds you have no idea at all about what wheel bearings are made out of, and probably no idea about much else either.
PEOPLE WILL SEE THROUGH YOU.
Just as they see through the silly things children say.
Sometimes when I read stuff like this, or hear stuff like this, I almost think the people saying it must be some different species. The intense earnestness of the things you say, juxtaposed against the fact that you're just so amazingly, stupendously wrong about so much of it, is just surreal.
There's some disturbing irony in religiosity, it seems to me. Many people caught up in it are stuck in a sort of Catch-22: They're wrong about a lot of stuff, but can't admit they're wrong. But because they can't admit they're wrong, they can't learn better. Which means they keep on being wrong about stuff.
They develop permanent mental habits of rejecting anything that contradicts what they "know." Eventually, they seem to pinch off into their own separate mental universe and nothing new, ever, gets in.
It wouldn't hurt
to point out that the nation founded on "Christian values" has had separation of church and state built in since the very beginning. A fair number of those Christians were actually running away, as fast their stubby little feet could take them, from state-sponsored Christian religion in Europe. How does that work again?
Do we really need another round of state-supported bigotry to remind us? Even if you're Christian, who do you want telling you how you can or cannot worship God? Who gets to decide which kind of churches you can attend? Who writes the doctrine, and who decides which prayers are acceptable? The government?
...yeah, I didn't think so.
I admire your thorough,
I admire your thorough, reasoned, polite reply. Good luck on getting through.
fragile, indeed...
I've noticed (in a parallel to Hank Fox) that the once-typical exhortations at the end of these emails to "FORWARD THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!!!" has often been replaced something more sheepish like "If you agree with this, please pass it on. If not delete it."
Once I got into the habit of replying (to ALL) every time I received one of these things--and often writing a blog post about the Google/Snopes/etc debunking process--I began to receive far fewer of them. This suggests to me that the Right (at least those of my acquaintance) are isolating themselves ideologically.
I appreciate having an emptier Inbox, but it does worry me somewhat...what are they forwarding amongst themselves but not sharing with me out of fear that I'll to debunk it? Is it crazier than the birther/deather/teabagger/socialist/czar nonsense?
"Especially those who denounce Him"
That phrase, right there, is where the fundamental misunderstanding lies. How many atheists actually take the time to "denounce" God? I mean, why? Almost every atheist I know doesn't really give God much thought - it's like not giving the tooth fairy a lot of thought. Yet the faithful perceive that we're constantly on some kind of "we hate GOD" kick, when in truth we just get sick of them shoving their religion down our throats.
Jim Downey
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Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
Likewise, only different
I got one of those forwarded thingies, a different one, a year or so back, from some very close friends. I could tell by the tone of the writing that it wasn't Andy Rooney, and I immediately researched it on Snopes and other sites, and managed to trace it back to somebody completely different, with some added nastiness from whoever had started the forwarding cascade.
I sent my friends the details of where it came from, and added a note at the end, "You might want to check these things more carefully in the future, before forwarding them." I MEANT it as a friendly suggestion, but it probably came across as an acidic snarl.
Anyway, I never got any more of them from those people.
The weird thing is, because a lot of my friends are cowboys, I get the feeling that these types of things circulate a LOT among the winger crowd. Every time I got one, it was enclosed in a massive cocoon of email forwarding envelopes.
Usually, whoever was sending it had no idea how to strip out the forwarding formatting, and NONE of the people sending them had any idea there was such a thing as BCC, "blind carbon copy." In every case, I could see the email address of every person who sent, received or forwarded it.
More than once, I sent back replies -- detailed critiques -- to the entire email list. And for the small number of times I did that, I had ONE reply back from one of the recipients, and it was a very mild, sort of glancing protest. Considering the level of nastiness/outrage of the original piece, it was like the people involved in the little email echo chamber were actually ashamed when I called them out on it.
I've wondered more than once if these things can only propagate in the echo chamber, if they're so fragile that they burst or vanish when you break the walls of the chamber. If that's the case, it might mean that it's best to actually argue -- gently, rationally -- with friends who have gone off and joined the Rightwing Crazies.
Echo chamber
I'm sure there is one. I used to get so much of this stuff from my in-laws, until I took to replying with debunking and/or argument to everyone on the list. Gentle, civil argument, to boot -- but the emails stopped and I'm sure I didn't convince my in-laws to change their minds. I just got kicked out of the echo chamber.