Friday, August 1, 2008

Anti-Atheist Bigotry

vjack, over at Atheist Revolution, is talking more seriously in recent weeks about ending anti-atheist bigotry (or, at least, fighting it).

I recommend his most recent posting on the subject: Ending Anti-Atheist Bigotry.

As it turns out, of course, I hold that one of the biggest sources of anti-atheist bigotry is the government's own statement that those who are not "under God" are to be thought of as belonging in the sme family as those who do not support 'one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all'.

It is expressed by the government's own motto, "If you do not trust in God, then we do not think of you as being one of us."

Teach these messages to young children, and a great many of them will be anti-atheist bigots for life, more than eager to assert that atheists do not "share our values" and that, as "one nation under god" we certainly cannot allow atheists to be elected to public office or hold positions of public trust.

You certainly would not want your child to marry one.

3 comments:

vjack said...

Thanks for the link, Alonzo. I think you are absolutely right to point out that the government is setting the tone on this one. It is bad enough what the churches are doing by teaching that atheists are essentially demons, but now we have the government making it clear that we are not worthy of citizenship.

Zedge said...

Maybe we should all just slowly migrate to one or two states until we ave the majority vote there, then the feds have to listen. Wouldn't that be a hoot! ;P

Anonymous said...

Its going to take an atheist to get into office, to provide a positive image to the world, in order for atheists to be respected. The problem is that most of us who are "vocal" are people who are controversial, or they are comedians. Then, on top of this, we have new outlets like Fox demonizing us as "enemies of the state"... Either way we aren't taken seriously enough and there isn't enough of a positive image.
- The American Jedi -