So, for those of you who missed this, a City Councilman in Asheville, NC may lose his seat because he is an athiest and, apparently, that makes him a second class citizen.  Not just socially, but legally.
Foes say atheism disqualifies pol – BostonHerald.com

That has riled conservative activists, who cite a little-noticed quirk in North Carolina’s Constitution that disqualifies officeholders “who shall deny the being of Almighty God.”

I really don’t understand this position at all.  While I do understand the idea that the atheist movement might need to deal more politely with those of faith (’understand’, not necessarily ‘agree with’), the idea that somehow saying that one can be good without god is too strong an attack on religion is ludicrous.  It seems to me that if that is too aggressive, even the statement that its OK to be an atheist is too much of an assault.  If that is true, then saying “I believe in Jesus” is anti-semitic, or saying that “I’m a moral person even though I am an atheist” is too derogatory towards theists (which is all the ad campaign is, in fact, saying).  It sounds to me like this gentleman wants atheists to ‘keep it to themselves’.  Which would be more than OK if theists would do the same.  But, as always, religion is the trump card and anyone who says anything about alternatives is just being a jerk.  Apparently, Humanism only worries about the tender feelings of the theist, and atheists can go fuck themselves.
Atheists’ ad campaign embarrasses humanism leader

Writing in the NY Times (Dec. 9/09), Mr. Doerr commented that “…I am embarrassed by the A.H.A.’s “good without God” campaign of signs on transit vehicles. Humanists are philosophical naturalists, but more important than advertising, one item of the humanist worldview is emphasizing the many positive positions we hold in common with a wide range of religious believers. I refer to such matters as peace, civil liberties, religious freedom, the environment, social justice, democracy, women’s rights and so on.”

And this really is it.  The more atheists that come out, the more WILL come out.  Changing public acceptance and image of atheism is fundamental.  I believe that there are far more people out there who don’t believe in magic-men-in-the-sky then we think, and I think there are even more people out there who say they believe but are just in denial because they see no other options.
More Atheists Shout It From the Rooftops – NYTimes.com

“It’s not about carrying banners or protesting,” said Herb Silverman, a math professor at the College of Charleston who founded the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, which has about 150 members on the coast of the Carolinas. “The most important thing is coming out of the closet.”

See, he’s just lying to you here.  He’s not debating theism vs atheism. 
Theism vs Atheism: What’s at Stake

In other words, if there is no God, then liberalism makes sense. And if God does exist, then much of liberalism is invalid. This is why most of our public policies are based, indirectly at least, on atheism. For example:

* The increasingly successful campaign to legitimize homosexuality. After all if, under atheism, we think homosexuality is ok, then it is ok.
* The near-total absence of any restraints on abortion. After all, under atheism, man is just a physical body, in which case the barely-formed fetus cannot possibly be a person deserving the protection of the law.
* Mass immigration. After all, if it is not true that, as the Bible says, God deliberately formed mankind into separate nations, then it’s perfectly ok to flood our nation with non-assimilable foreigners, if we think that there is some immediate advantage to be had.

Well, he’s not unless all theists are christian. I think it is safe to say that isn’t true.  I suppose I should take this in the context.  All conservatives are christian (so he implies).  So, you’ll note from my last post, conservatives do not care about discrimination based on race or gender, nor do they care about anyone who isn’t a christian.
NIFTY!
I find myself reminded of the lovely blind spot people seem to have whenever they bring up putting prayer back into schools.  They all assume it will be THEIR prayer.

I doubt thats what he was irritated about.  I doubt he was annoyed at the idea that he might ask for help.  He was annoyed at the idea that he might have asked for help from his fairy godmother, or the monster under his bed.  Wouldn’t you be insulted if someone, in all seriousness, chided you for stepping on a crack, risking your mother’s back?
Did you ask for help?

In hearing Mr. Newdow — I should say Dr. Newdow, as he is an emergency room physician and a lawyer — interviewed recently about whether or not he had ever asked for God’s help in the emergency room, I began to understand the problem. His irritation at the insinuation that he would ask for any help from a supreme being was palpable and probably unfortunate. After all, I think most of us in an emergency situation would like all the help we could get, and what does it hurt to ask? (emphasis mine)

Lets summarize first.

1. Rick Warren is anti-gay.
   

   Dr Warren said that homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. “We shall not tolerate this aspect at all,” Dr Warren said.

2. Rick Warren is anti-woman (see #32) I don’t see how you can tell a woman to let a man beat her instead of getting a divorce and be anything but anti-woman
3. Rick Warren is anti-AIDS prevention.  His ‘main man’ in Uganda is named Ssempa:
   

   Ssempa’s stunts have included burning condoms in the name of Jesus and arranging the publication of names of homosexuals in cooperative local newspapers while lobbying for criminal penalties to imprison them.

And this man isn’t run out of town on a rail?  Why?  Because of the most insidious aspect of religion.

It justifies anything and everything.  Once in a blue moon, as in the case of Madeline Kara Neumann, there will be a cry for people to be held accountable for their religions beliefs and the actions that stem from them, but as a rule, anything goes.  If I said the things Rick Warren said, and my only justification was “because”, I’d been called a monster.

This is the twisted result of backwards tolerance.

You see it in some Middle East and African countries where women are treated like property ON A GOOD DAY.  We say to ourselves “Well, thats just their way”.  We can’t question their religion because then, y’know, you might have to apply that to religion here too.  Further, most people don’t fully understand that this isn’t ‘their’ way, its forced upon the women.  The idea that there is ABSOLUTELY NO CHOICE doesn’t fully compute to us, and so we make the assumption that the women want to be treated worse than dogs and that religion can justify this anyhow.

Any other name put on this would make these people devils.

Garrison’s World: The Irrelevance of Rational Atheism and the New Philosophy of the Non-Rational – Part 7 : Fri, 02 Jan 2009 : eNewsChannels

There are, for example, experiments in Quantum Physics, such as the famous ‘dual slit’ experiment (you can see this in a YouTube video), which show electrons as appearing to be playing a spooky game of visual trickery with the experimenters, as if the electrons actually know when their behavior is being observed. As soon as the electrons ‘become aware’ they are being observed, they immediately change their behavior. There are other such mystic-like, magic-like occurrences now well-known and documented in Quantum Mechanics.

So this means that even when liberal rationalists appeal to empirical science to buttress their reliance on a so-called ‘tentative reason’ so as to give them some sense of security or certainty about such reason, science can only reply by saying, ‘You are looking at the wrong place to find certainty; we can only give you unpredictable probabilities concerning reality, mystic-magical types of findings, ‘Schrodinger’s cat’ who can be dead and alive at the same time, an object that can be at two different places at the same time, Heisenberg’s ‘uncertainty principle’ where if you know where something is, you can’t know it’s speed and if you know its speed, you can’t know where it is, and other experimental findings that are akin to mysticism.’

Recently, I was watching an episode of West Wing.  Toby and Josh have been talking about the upcoming election and candidate.  Josh says something to the effect of “Toby, you want to beat this guy, but I want to win”.
Thats something of the problem I’m seeing with atheism of late.  The Xmas sign, the lawsuit to get “so help me god” removed from inauguration, and so forth.
Are they right?  Of course.  Religion should be kept apart from government and, in fact, religion is just a series of myths (or lies). 
But these tactics don’t get us the win.  They make the religious folks, even those just nominally so, go on the defensive and that doesn’t help.  I’m not suggesting that we get all cozy and cutesy and humor the theists, just that we not smack them…yet.
We have to become more present, more open.  That will cause our ranks to swell as atheism becomes more accepted. 
Once we have taken that step forward, I think that many theists will begin to understand our perspective.  They will see that including ‘god’ in our texts isn’t any different than including ‘jesus’.
Smacking our opponents around may be very satisfying, but that doesn’t mean it progresses the cause any.

If a Christian group bought some ad space on some busses advocating accepting Christ, the Jews of DC would not blink an eye.  If the Jews did something similar, there’d be no outcry from Christians.  But when atheists do it, there’s no end of venom.

Why is that?

At the core of virtually any theistic religion is the belief that ALL other religions are simply wrong.  However, in the U.S., that doesn’t get bandied about much in public.  There’s sort of a wink and a nod agreement that one group doesn’t put up a sign saying another group is wrong.  Further, there’s a bit of rationalization that goes on.  Oh, sure, those guys are wrong, but it is just because they misunderstand, or are naive.

In other words, when someone says “My God is great” the subtext, that everyone else is wrong, stays subtext and everyone is OK with that.

The thing is, with atheism, that subtext is, in fact, the text.  There is no real way to say that there’s no god or, at least, no reason to believe god exists without saying that everyone else is wrong.  There is no way around it, and no way for people to ignore the statement with any kind of respect.  Theists can work around each other, but the nature of the atheist/theist relationship is conflict.

Does that mean that the two can’t communicate reasonably?  No, it does not.  But it does require honesty along with civility.  I am an atheist.  I do not in any way respect the beliefs of theists.  However, I do respect the fact that many people hold those beliefs strongly.  My brother is Christian and when I want to talk religion with him, I go about it with the understanding that, if I insult him for his beliefs, the discussion goes no where.  Its just a fight.

The bus signs in DC were respectful of the fact that many people believe, and still sent a clear message that those beliefs were not shared.  The Olympia sign was not.  The sign could not be seen as anything but a smack across the face (though I believe the sign to be accurate).  Maybe that was the goal.  I’m OK with that.  I think these myths are a disease rotting the U.S. from within.  But it isn’t very productive for me to open a conversation that way.

I was talking with a friend last night and told him I’d posted this.  Then I realized I had just ranted about it.

Rick Warren is seen as ‘bringing people together’ because it is still OK to hate fags and atheists.