Seriously this is why I am so disgusted by the Religious Right. They exploit the emotions of those most in need, and offer a bald-faced fantasy whenever reality is grievous enough to grant their advantage.
How dare Huckabee say that school is where we don’t want to talk about eternity, life, responsibility, or accountability. I do want to talk about those things -where religion does not. Why? Because religion offers a way to deny accountability for anything. Reverse the burden of proof. Assert as fact that which is not evidently true. Don’t have a basis for any claim; assume your conclusions on the veracity of your own conviction unsupported by anything, or on citation of any false-authority who’s comments you can present as though they agree with you. Announce in advance that you will never admit when you’re wrong; that you will continue to defend your biased preconceptions to the automatic rejection –without consideration- of any evidence or arguments that will ever arise to the contrary. This is what every creationist organization says in their ‘statement of faith’. Look them up. This is where they openly admit that they have no accountability.
Neither do they have any responsibility, largely because they externalize blame. Even if the devil didn’t make them do it, they can still get forgiven for whatever they’ve done simply by pleading with an imaginary friend, who –not surprisingly- always agrees with them. If they continue to do deplorable things, their god will either forgive them for it –indefinitely- or their god will actually condone and endorse that behavior. If it’s something really evil, their god might even command that they do it. Wherever justification need come from, they will find it. They don’t have any responsibility for the same reason they have no accountability; it doesn’t matter if they’re wrong or how wrong they are. Facts don’t matter. Evidence doesn’t matter. Ignorance is bliss, might makes right, and the ends justifies the means. If we destroy the environment and leave our heirs without resources, that doesn’t matter either, because these are the “last days”, the “end times”. So we don’t have to be responsible or accountable for anything. We can even feign innocence overriding the judge’s conviction on the excuse that we are “soaked in the blood” (like Bobby Brown did) –as if that were ever an excuse for anything.
Now let’s talk about existence. Any eternity would eventually become a nightmare from which there can be no escape. That’s especially true in this case, where the god in question is so similar to little Anthony Freemont from the Twilight Zone.
I mean it; the Bible-god of western monotheism is just like that horrible kid. Who would want to be trapped in a house with an indomitable telepathic despot and have to guard your thoughts –or be voluntarily mindless- and endure that existence forever and ever?
Religion doesn’t want to talk about life either. They hate practically everything that goes on in life. They want to talk about death and pretend that THAT is life. And those of us who know life, live life, and love life, they accuse of being dead already. Every aspect of their world-view is upside-down or backwards -as DogmaDebate brilliantly illustrated.
What these religionists preach actually diminishes the very meaning of life. Humans tend to value most that which is rare and fleeting. Such is life. The more you have of anything, the less valuable it is. They’re claiming immortality for eternity, rendering the value of life infinitely worthless.
They sell their imaginary after-life as if it is sooo much better than this period of discomfort we have to endure before we achieve paradise. Having to toil in this fallen, sin-corrupted, dead-and-damned world. They hate existence itself so much that they actually long for the end-of-days, and only seem to get happy when they think Armageddon is upon us.
If what we can honestly claim to know is limited only to what we can show –which it logically should be, then we would LOVE to talk about all this stuff in schools, to present to our students the best case of both sides equally, because there is no equality here. We own the facts. If truth is defined by what can be shown to be true, then religion has no truth in it, because all the evidence is on our side, and all the frauds, fakirs, and faith-healers belong to them.
But we don’t do that. We don’t because a position that is based on the scientific analysis of evidence is quite the opposite of religion, and our constitution prohibits state-funded institutions from enforcing religious beliefs. That would be a violation of BOTH clauses of the 1st Amendment. Insuring equal rights and accurate fact-based education is not the same thing as ‘removing God from schools’. If God existed, it wouldn’t need to thrust upon under-developed minds as an imposition of faith -even if it is the favorite faith of this area at the moment. We are not a democracy, where majority rules; we are a republic, where even the majority must bow before the law. We only have freedom of religion because the state is forbidden to indoctrinate the children of families who do not share the beliefs of whoever happens to be in power at the time. When Islam takes over, then Christian extremists will wish that they did more to preserve the separation of church and state.
So this Huckster says that tragedies happen because we don’t impose theocracy onto sequestered students. As if his belief system had any relationship at all with morality. Hasn’t he read the Bible? There’s no hint of morality to be found in any of the psychotic ravings of those anachronistic provincial sexist, racist, superstitious savages pretending to speak for God. The Bible god isn’t to be found in community consolation. That god was always the one commanding the self-righteous bloodshed.
Then Hucky says his god will judge us, but even if that could be true, HIS god (the Bible’s god) never cared whether we were good or bad; all that matters is whether we were obedient and subservient enough to believe impossible nonsense for no good reason and without question. Wisdom and inquiry are treated as damnable sins while gullibility is the only criteria for redemption. Huckabee said it himself; if we don’t believe that, we won’t fear it. This is a veiled admission that whether we believe it matters more to him than whether it is actually true. That’s why all may be forgiven if you but believe, but you will never be forgiven if you don’t believe.
Worst of all, Huckabee thinks that bad things happen because we teach our students evident truths instead of lying to them with tabloid sensationalist pseudoscience that any reasonable person can prove to be wrong –conclusively- beyond all reasonable doubt.
No Mr Huckabee, history –and criminal statistics- have both shown that tragedies will only increase, the more religious any society becomes. The more influence religion has over law, the lower our quality of life, and the more human rights are violated. It is true that any population of hundreds of millions will produce a proportionate percentage of sociopaths. But what we need there is more efficient provisions of mental health care –so that those suffering dementia and other disorders will be identified, treated, or isolated as need be –BEFORE they go berserk. Religion doesn’t want that either –as a matter of self-preservation. Because a fair amount of divine revelation can be cured with the same medications that treats schizophrenia. Where would the churches be if that many of their clergymen were clothed in straight-jackets?
I know Fox News and affiliated hate groups have herds of reactionary sheep bleating similar mantras, but I mean, wow. What an immoral irresponsible irrational reprehensible unaccountable disrespectful dishonest opportunist this fukenuckabee is.
I read somewhere, possibly on FTB, that there’s two choices. Either Huckabee’s god is so powerless that he’s stymied by man-made laws and cannot “enter” schools or he’s having a snit and won’t enter schools. So Huckabee’s god is either a wimp or an asshole.
I think we all missing their point. They claim that because secularism is allowed out of the cupboard, this makes people think that they can get away with anything, murder included. They really believe this, it is real to them, if there was no god, a good lot of them would be a raping and a killing, until the secular police arrested their asses.
They are only good because Jesus commands it, they know no other reason to be good, because that is how they have been brought up for the last 50 years.
So when this god of these is removed from schools, and this tragedy happens, the only way they can did with it, is blame the people who removed their god from the schools. It does not matter what the reason for the removal of god from the schools is, whether or not it is legal or right, all they know is that is the reason for the massacre.
Yes, I know some of your are grinding you teeth, but they really do think this way. And we need to do something about how we are going to handle it.
Good post! Everything is right on the head. As mike points out ‘They really believe this, it is real to them’ but that does NOT make it TRUE or REAL. We all must continually point out that their beliefs are essentially full of BS.
The biggest problem with Huckabee’s irrational rants is that he has a much bigger soapbox to stand on than we do. As long as he can convince sponsors to pay for his soapbox because he says what their customers want to hear, we are stuck with his bile. Having the facts right has nothing to do with his ability to spread his views.
I am no longer surprised that Americans don’t know what communism is, but I’m still surprised when they can’t tell what democracy republic mean.
Hint: neither implies Rechtsstaat.
That’s really a damned (and damning) good point.
THE MAYAN SKEPTIC APOCALYPSE 12/21/2012
we really enjoy your atheist forum
do a search on youtube for skepticality
a little souvenir
it is the video about the PIGS
Believe it or not, some theists, such as Lee Strobel, believe that eternal torture is actually MORE compassionate and merciful than annihilation. That would explain why they so steadfastly oppose end-of-life compassion.
http://www.caseagainstfaith.com/critique-of-lee-strobels-the-case-for-faith.html
Strobel talks about hell, judgement and mercy in Chapter 6.
eternal torture is actually MORE compassionate and merciful than annihilation.
As if George Carlin wrote that line
Huckabee’s absurd arguments carry with them the notion that nothing bad ever happened before organized prayer was……correctly…….removed from public schools. At the time school prayer was banned, Jim Crow law’s were still widely in effect across the south. Does Huck think we should rewind the clock on that too?
Christianity has some peculiar features that make it particularly harmful as far as religions go. Among these features (most prevalent in Protestant varieties) is the idea that one is saved or damned entirely because one is willing to believe in preposterous mythology, and all you have to do is spout the right platitudes and you’re forgiven. It’s a flight from accountability or responsibility; if the world is ‘tainted by sin’ then any attempt to make things better here are bound to fail. The problem is it’s obvious that people can solve social problems, and do a better job of it when they get religion out of the picture.
On secularism and such, I think most Christians are sheep – they can’t function without a shepherd telling them what to do, and the idea of a free, democratic society governed by a social contract and an open exchange of ideas where people choose the rules they want to live under just can’t make sense to them. Perhaps without the carrot and stick they’d be as bad as they could be, but I wish they’d stop projecting their own deficiencies onto the rest of the population. I also think that the need for authority is something that isn’t healthy and isn’t a natural outcome, but if you raise kids to believe that obedience to authority is what is best and good, then they won’t be able to conceive of any other way of thnking.
Agreed. These are truly the rantings of a lunatic. First of all students can pray any time they want. It is their constitutional right. It is obvious that what Fuckaby is talking about is losing their religious privileging. So, secondly, what Huckshit is talking about is losing government sponsored prayer, which is a clear violation of the first amendment. Should Huckafuck really care about the law he would know this fact.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=242373652560655&set=pcb.242373785893975&type=1&theater
“We are not a democracy, where majority rules; we are a republic, where even the majority must bow before the law.”
The US is a democratic republic. A type of representative democracy. Limiting the power of the majority through a constitution doesn’t mean you aren’t governed through majority rule. I always hate it when people make this absurd fallacy, the US is just as much a democracy as the UK or any modern Western-style democracy, saying it isn’t is an absurd quibbling with words.
Otherwise a wonderful piece, thanks.
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