MIDWEST VOICES: Let us bow our heads and pray for... (Comments)

The re-awakening of atheism in America is going to make for some very interesting times. Leaders of the Christian Right have spent years trying to cast themselves as the voiceless victims in a secular society, but the scapegoating [sic] is over. (Want to talk marginalized? How many atheists have there ever been in Congress or the White House?)

Re-awakening? At best the current popularity of atheism will influence a few people to adopt it, but most who are influenced will be nominal at best, settling on agnosticism instead. She is certainly correct, though, in labeling atheism as a truly marginalized minority and calling out the Christian Right for pretending they are “voiceless victims.”

Although I would consider myself a “co-belligerent” with the Christian Right on certain issues - the “life” issues in particular - I do applaud anyone who highlights the deliberate misinformation and willful ignorance that characterize much of the Christian Right.

Nonbelievers know a lot about Christianity and Judaism, most having been raised in religious families. Believers, however, are somewhat less clued-in about atheists. Here are a few simple truths about who they are, and aren’t.

First of all, most believers and nonbelievers don’t know much about Christianity or Judaism (at least historically) – and that includes the pray-daily-bible-thumping-wear-it-on-the-sleeve believers, too. Anyway, the last sentence in that paragraph, with its claim to know “…a few simple truths about who [atheists] are, and aren’t.” should clue you in that the rest is utter hogwash. Here we go….

Atheists are well-behaved.

Really? All of them?

Atheists seem to play well with others overall.

Direct me to your quantitative study entitled “Atheists: How They Seemingly Play Well with Others Overall”

They’re not in the news for getting caught doing things they tell others not to do.

This statement may just imply that atheists don’t have standards, or maybe that they are boring. Or, could it be they only make up 0.4% of the population, they hold relatively few public positions, and therefore they have fewer opportunities for public displays of hypocrisy.

Most co-exist peacefully with believing family and friends. They pay taxes.

...and so do most people.

Atheists don’t start wars on behalf of atheism.

…though wars have certainly been waged on behalf of ideologies that are anti-religious, if not downright atheistic. Let’s just turn to our history books and look at the last century for a good primer on the topic.

They do join the military, however, and contrary to the cliché, they are found in foxholes. In fact, there is a lawsuit now against Defense Secretary Robert Gates and a major who harassed a group of “foxhole atheists” who simply wished to exercise their freedom of/from religion while serving their country in the Middle East.

I’m certainly not for harassing anybody for their particular beliefs, especially if they work under me, but “a” major’s action does not constitute a modern day auto de fe.

Atheists have a thing for the American Constitution, particularly the First Amendment that separates church and state. They are secularists who support a government free from influence by any religion. They’re not anti-religious but nonreligious.

Well, if atheists (again, is this all of them, some of them, or just the ones Staten is idealizing?) truly have a “thing” for the Constitution they would realize that “separation of church and state” does not mean that religion cannot influence the state; it means that there cannot be an official state sanctioned religion, nor can the state intervene in the affairs of religious faiths (provided they don’t break the law). If Ms. Staten’s ignorance of Constitutional law is indicative of her co-secularists in general, I’m afraid we wouldn’t be any more well served than by the Christian Right she decries.

Any person of faith, whether it lies in atheism or Christianity, is well within their rights as an American citizen to do whatever is in his or her power to influence the state, for which Ms. Staten’s incoherent rah rah atheism piece could be considered somewhat of an example.

So when people like Mike Huckabee announce they want to “take this nation back for Christ” and make the Constitution fit the word of God, atheists worry, and feel that everyone else would be wise to worry along with them.

Let’s don’t get hysterical here. When Huckabee says “‘take this nation back for Christ’” – I don’t believe he means “…make the Constitution fit the word of God” – as Stanton sneakily adds after the quote.

Atheists don’t take up much space. In fact, they only comprise 0.4 percent of the U.S. population, according to the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, conducted through the Graduate Center at CUNY. (Agnostics would add 0.5 percent, the nonreligious 14.1 percent more.)

A total of 900,000 people isn’t [sic] even enough to fill 10 football stadiums, but evangelical leaders insist the godless are behind the decline of a whole nation. Uh, okay.

Which “evangelicals?” I’m pretty certain that evangelical leaders like Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo or Jimmy Carter don’t talk like this.

Besides, I think when most evangelicals talk about the decline of American morality they probably don’t have atheists, as a group, in mind. Sorry, they’re just not that influential. What they are talking about is the increased lack of shame or sense of traditional morality in general – and this comes from a variety of places; a group of 900,000 atheists are probably the least of their concerns.

Atheists make good neighbors. Chances are, if you lived next door to an atheist, you might never know it. Atheists aren’t known for going door-to-door or shore-to-shore to un-convert people. They will help you even though there’s no heavenly reward in it for them.

Seriously, how many more of these categorical statements like “atheists are this or that” am I going to have to read!

Atheists will not infringe upon your life uninvited. On the other hand, you have to wonder about the neighborliness of certain believers when you see, for example, the miracle of the multiplying churches and neighborhood-munching mega-churches.

Oh yes they will. Once atheists start multiplying because our schools have Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins on the required reading list, it’s going to be like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, you just watch and see. I’m going to alert Pat Robertson and pray that God raises Falwell from the dead to combat this scourge of atheism. I don’t think Osteen has the balls to do the job. We as believers need to exterminate these godless heathens once and for all!

I always find it ironic when atheists use Christian morality (“neighborliness”) to judge Christianity.

Thanks to the Religious Land Use law, passed in 2000, it’s lots easier now for religious groups to build more tax-exempt houses of worship, often against the wishes of neighborhoods which they burden financially and environmentally.

Yep, that’s right. Churches are always built where no one wants them. That’s what keeps them multiplying.

Atheists are lousy fundraisers. If you really want to raise a ton of money, oh, say on a weekly basis, don’t ask an atheist. Go to the folks with the know-how.

Televangelists raise almost $100 billion a year. In fact, they are so good at talking money out of people’s purses and bank accounts that six major Christian ministries are under investigation by the Senate Finance Committee.

Considering how influential Staten thinks the Christian Right has been you’d think the Senate Finance Committee would have better things to do than investigate their mega-church coffers.

These prosperity preachers tell their followers that God wants all of them to be well and be rich. (Serendipitously, God wants the preachers to have fancy cars, huge houses and the occasional Learjet.)

I see a new book – it’s called “Building Wealth the Godless Way.” In it you’ll learn how to take that money you’ve been foolishly tithing away to “prosperity preachers” and put it toward temporal treasures rather than heavenly ones.

Atheists are the quiet type. Religionists have counted on atheists’ need for self-protection, but things are changing. Witness the popularity of Christopher Hitchens’ insightful book, god is not Great, the movie version of “The Golden Compass,” the mainstream media interest in the nonbelievers’ demographic.

…and witness the cycles of this phenomenon every so many years. This is hardly unique. Christian-themed stuff gets popular for awhile, then atheism, and then New Age…it’s all fairly predictable.

There’s a new dialogue beginning between mainline believers and atheists, and among atheists themselves. While militant New Atheists fight on intellectual turf to replace dogma with rational thinking, humanists encourage believers and nonbelievers to get the moral work of peace, social justice and saving the environment done together.

What’s a “militant New Atheist?” I thought atheists were just quiet and good neighbors that didn’t try to convert anybody. I can’t wait till they “dialogue” with me and teach me how to be rational, saving me from being lost in religious irrationality.

So humanists are going to teach me peace, social justice, and how to save the environment. Goodie because my church has never even heard those words. Maybe Ms. Staten can get me the number of a hum-an-ist (did I pronounce that right?) to speak at my parish.

Right-wing Christianity shook the atheist community out of its complacency with its relentless rhetorical badgering and attempts to co-opt the country. A missing piece of the real picture of America is finally being restored. Amen to that.

All I can say is… “Don’t shove your atheistic morality down my throat!”