calling a spade a shovel

[rone]

Jym Dyer at meme_machine_go suggests that we call Pat Robertson's actions by their proper name: he has issued a fatwah.

Comments

[merde.livejournal.com]

sure. and as badly as the xtians who claim they're being "oppressed" do, as well. pierce once told me he wanted to put one of those fish things on his car, but he was afraid his car would be vandalized. because yeah, there are roving bands of atheists just walking the parking lots of virginia, looking for xtians to oppress.

i don't think Bush is going to make us all go to Baptist services. i just think he has blurred the line between church and state and would like to see it blurred even more, because he's unable to imagine a world in which Baptists might actually be oppressed and thus doesn't understand the dangers inherent in what he's doing. (i'm not saying that one day Baptists will be oppressed -- just that because he believes he'll never be oppressed, he's unable to grasp what it feels like to those who are.)

as an atheist, i've never felt particularly oppressed. i've been followed down the street by shouting zealots, angrily told i'll burn in hell, and various other things, but since all of that means absolutely nothing to me, i can effortlessly shrug it off. i get pretty pissed off about the pledge of allegiance, but it doesn't affect me personally. and they don't force you to swear on a bible anymore in court, so honestly i'm not sure how religion can ever touch me. i mean, i guess someone might read last rites over me against my will, but i won't be around to care anyway. i'm a lifelong atheist, but a laid-back one. i continued to celebrate xmas for years before i finally gave it up a few years ago in favor of a nice rational non-pagan-thankyouverymuch practice of lighting a lot of candles on the winter solstice, mostly because it's a nice thing to do and i like setting things on fire. i just don't, you know, care about what other people believe.

i respect their beliefs. i don't think everyone should be an atheist. i think everyone should believe whatever the fuck they want, even if it involves the Flying Spaghetti Monster and His Noodly Appendage. i even go to the occasional catholic mass because i enjoy the ritual of it. (i highly recommend the 9pm sunday candlelight mass at St. Dominics in SF. it's like going back a thousand years in time.)

my more playful side, on the other hand, finds me wondering if a group of atheists has ever lobbied for the right to equal space to display nothing opposite a municipal nativity scene.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

and they don't force you to swear on a bible anymore in court

Maybe not, but some version of this did bother me a little the last time I had jury duty. I didn't get on a jury but I did get into the courtroom and get sworn in. It was a collective thing: the court officer read off an oath that included the words "swear" and "so help you God?" and we were all supposed to say "I do" just like we were getting married.

I figured that as long as I was swearing to the Ceremonial Deist God described in certain Supreme Court opinions about how "In God We Trust" has nothing to do with religion, I was all right, since I fully intended to do everything I was promising to do; but in some part of my mind I was imagining a nightmare situation in which somebody figured out I was an atheist and tried to get a verdict overturned and me thrown in the pokey for contempt because in some bizarre technical sense I had committed perjury by swearing to a God I didn't believe in. And I was wondering if I should have approached the bench and annoyed everybody by asking for a nontheistic affirmation. (I figured probably not, since this was Massachusetts and not Texas.)

All this fretting because of some God-language that didn't legally mean anything anyway.

[ptomblin-lj.livejournal.com]

How dare you blasheme against the Flying Spaghetti Monster. His Noodly Appendage will smite you senseless.

[bramsmits.livejournal.com]

so honestly i'm not sure how religion can ever touch me.

Religiously inspired legislation. To name just a few (I don't know you personally, so I don't know which ones are relevant to you): abortion rights and attempts at the curtailing thereof, same sex marriage or rather the persistent lack thereof in the US (and sorry guys, I'm not counting MA - there's still a void there at the federal level), or more down to earth, your tax money being funneled to religious organizations; some of the middle-east policies have a religious background (and might lead directly or indirectly to trauma, injury or death of people you know, and definitely cost you tax money)... I'm sure this list could be expanded almost indefinitely.

[merde.livejournal.com]

hm, well, if my luck goes as it has been for the last 8 years there's no chance of pregnancy. i wouldn't get married again if the entire republican party stood outside my door and sang a merry little "please merde get married" jingle... but yeah, how they spend my tax money is an issue.

seriously, all those things are important to me. but that wasn't my point. i've forgotten what my point was, and i don't seem to have made it very well either... it's been that kind of year. i think i may have come down with a case of the Democratic Party.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

What we have now is just scratching the surface of laws. Same-sex marriage wasn't around anywhere in the world, what, 30 years ago? The tax money going to faith-based charities is new and barely worth noticing. Our Middle East policy is not at all different from our regular foreign policy over the last 100 or more years, and to call it religiously motivated isn't accurate.

Seriously, i'm aggravated to have empire-building Bible thumpers in charge, but big whoop. This'll blow over soon.