Monday, April 2, 2012

"... our secular, religion-mocking media mostly skipped over this rally as one steps around a ranting homeless person. "

Brent Bozell has a great essay on the Reason Rally in Washington D.C.:

D.C. Reason Rallier pointing out that
only atheists are really good at thinking. 

Atheists darken D.C.


What if the atheists declared they were about to throw "the largest atheist event in world history" on a Saturday in Washington and few people showed up? Reason Rally organizer David Silverman estimated that "99 percent of all atheists are closeted." The closet must still be full, because they sure weren't in Washington. 
The Washington Post story on Sunday guessed there were "several thousand" people in the intermittent rain. But Paul Fidalgo of the Center for Inquiry told the Post, "We have the numbers to be taken seriously. ... We're not just a tiny fringe group."

It's interesting that our secular, religion-mocking media mostly skipped over this rally as one steps around a ranting homeless person. The networks were missing, as were the Associated Press, The New York Times and others. Perhaps they didn't think an atheist protest this explicit was worth getting behind. Their kind of secular, religion-mocking rally was 2010's Jon Stewart-Stephen Colbert "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear." 
The pre-rally publicity was too ridiculous to believe. At National Public Radio -- yes,they are interested -- Barbara Bradley Hagerty explained the rally was "not to tweak the faithful. It's to encourage closeted atheists to take heart." How NPR-thoughtful. Atheist blogger Hemant Mehta complained, "Every time you hear the word atheist in the media, you know, there's always an adjective before it. It's always angry atheist, militant atheist, staunch atheist. It's never happy, smiling atheist." There are also dumb atheists who don't know "happy" is also an adjective. 
On Saturday morning, as the rain began to pour on the atheists, NPR weekend anchor Scott Simon added more blather from his DC studio: "Rally organizers say they don't want to mock religion. A lot of nonbelievers I know and hear from are eager for atheists to be seen as more than just scolds who point out absurdities and inconsistencies in religion or the kind of grumps who file lawsuits against shopping-mall Santa Clauses." 
This from the man who cued up Christopher Hitchens to denounce Mother Teresa just after she died. Sadly for the atheist publicity team at NPR, reality came barging in. That lonely Post story explained that a Reason Rally attendee was confronting religious counter-protesters with a sign reading "So Many Christians, So Few Lions." This is also a T-shirt that atheists sell each other. 
Bill Donohue of the Catholic League noted that hate also came from biologist Richard Dawkins at the podium. Dawkins insisted religious people must be "ridiculed with contempt." Dawkins advised the cheering crowd to ask Catholics, "Do you really believe that when a priest blesses a wafer, it turns into the body of Christ? Are you seriously saying that wine turns into blood? Mock them; ridicule them!" 
But they won't "tweak the faithful." 
You didn't have to wait for the rally to know it was going to be angry and militant. Their star speaker, Professor Dawkins, wrote for The Washington Post beforehand that people should not come if they weren't wise enough to crawl "from the swamp of primitive superstition and supernatural gullibility." 
Or if they were idiotic religious conservatives who'd say, "I don't trust educated intellectuals, elitists who know more than I do. I'd prefer to vote for somebody like me, rather than somebody who is actually qualified to be president." He added, "What other than this mentality accounts for the popularity of Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum -- politicians who flaunt their ignorance as a vote-winning virtue?" 
The media don't want the atheists and the Obama Democrats to be too closely aligned in the minds of voters --even though atheist Congressman Pete Stark and Sen. Tom Harkin sent video messages.

The same media that regularly highlight nasty Tea Party signs and blamed the entire movement for them skipped the signs in the Reason Rally crowd. Donohue spotlighted a few. "Religion is Like a Penis," one sign read, "It's OK to have one ... But it is not OKto whip it out in public, shove it in my face, or tell me what to do because you have one..." A woman held out a sign telling Christians, Jews and Muslims to "Get Out of My Panties." It should not be shocking to report this woman was in no danger of sexual harassment.
Australian songwriter Tim Minchin thrilled the crowd with his jaunty piano ditty called "The Pope Song." The expurgated lyrics included: "I don't give a (F-bomb) if calling the pope a (MF-bomb) means ...You see I don't give a (F-bomb) what any other (MF-bomb) believes about Jesus and his (MF-bomb) mother." The entire song would be silenced by a seven-second delay. 
Let's remember: atheists don't want to be seen as angry, militant scolds who can't be civil. Only NPR is foolish enough to bite.

Most of the Christianity-hating media stayed away from the "Reason Rally". They understood that atheism's nemesis is candor.  Atheism only survives when its plain face is obscured. It has grown under Darwinism and consumerism and junk science primarily because it hasn't revealed itself. It merely peeks out from behind a curtain of scientism and narcissism and condescension.

When atheists "come out"-- when they say plainly what they believe-- ordinary people experience the emotion that is the appropriate response to the assertion that you're stupid if you don't believe that everything came from nothing and that there is no objective moral law.

That emotion is revulsion.


15 comments:

  1. Shorter version: far right wing media hack lacking originality reinforces Egnor's world view.

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    Replies
    1. Nice comeback. Are you saying that none of this stuff happened? Or that it doesn't matter that it happened?

      The Torch

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  2. How much hate must be documented at the rally before leftists will believe that hating religion and believers is the purpose?

    This from people who are usually very sensitive about well, sensitivities. They don't say homosexual, they say "gay" or "LGBTQXYZ". They don't say Indians, they prefer the racist "Native Americans". They get upset with team names like the Atlanta Braves and the North Dakota Fighting Sioux. They wouldn't dream of saying the words "black people" and "basketball" together in the same sentence because that might imply that black people like basketball, which they do. But you can't SAY that!

    But then when it comes to religion--my religion in particular--they stop at nothing to mock, to poke a stick in my eye, to snicker and to defame.

    "So many Christians, so few lions" is like saying "So many queers, so few AIDS viruses" or "So many black people, so few nooses."

    Can one of you sane atheists please have the decency to denounce this stuff? Just once, I'd like to see a non-bigoted atheist take these people to task. I know you're out there...somewhere.

    The Torch

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    1. "Can one of you sane atheists please have the decency to denounce this stuff? Just once, I'd like to see a non-bigoted atheist take these people to task. I know you're out there...somewhere."

      I second that!

      I would love to read even a single response denouncing the T-shirts, speeches, and placards that direct such vitriol at the faithful. It would give me some hope that you're not ALL bigots who scapegoat religious minded people.
      Think about it folks, you would not be 'breaking ranks' or conceding your position. You would simply be indicating your own personal tolerance of diverse beliefs.

      Delete
  3. Did any of you actually go to the rally? Or just made up your mind about how the whole thing went, based on a couple conservative cranks' observations?

    Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

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    1. "Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?"

      I'm not calling for anyone's murder by dismemberment. I don't want to see atheists thrown to the lions, or anyone else for that matter. That's the difference.

      So where's the log in my eye?

      No, I didn't go to the rally. I haven't been to any klan rallies either. I still criticize them. Perhaps if I went I would discover that klansmen are actually quite reasonable chaps. Until I go, I should just shut up. That's what you want, isn't it? To silence me?

      The Torch

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  4. Good point. Only people who went to the rally are allowed to have opinions about it.

    And I love when atheists quote bible passages. But don't you have to go to church in order to have opinions about bible passages?

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    1. Mulder,
      It is the hate in his eye and the arm band we notice. The speck we would gladly help him wash out.

      mregnor,
      Kudos.

      Delete
  5. Here's the log in the militant atheist's eye.

    "We're tolerant. We're reasonable. Believers are mean and nasty. Religious belief always leads to mass murder. Let's throw them to the lions! Ha! That would be funny if a wild animal would rip them limb from limb. Anybody got a silk screening business? We could put that on t-shirts and sell them at the upcoming atheist rally. There's really a market for t-shirts with funny slogans on them about killing people we hate."

    The Torch

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  6. Where? When? Give us details, KW.

    "While you guys are yet again ranting against atheists..."

    No one is "ranting".

    "...this time for having a rally..."

    Wow, you really didn't read any of this, did you? No one is mad that they "had a rally" but that it was clearly intended as an attack on believers and that some media outlets, NPR for example, reported the exact opposite.

    As far as abortion clinic bombings. I am opposed to them, although I must say that they are much, much rarer than liberals would have us believe. And they're a lot less rare than the terrorism that goes on inside of them. Jail abortionists, don't kill them.

    I'm going to check some news sites right now for info on this bombing. I hadn't heard about it.

    TRISH

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  7. I believe that you are referring to a bomb found outside a PP clinic in Wisconsin. I found this on CNN.com.

    http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/02/justice/wisconsin-planned-parenthood/index.html?iref=allsearch

    According to the story I read, there is no information about a suspect or motive. Also, PP didn't mention if this clinic kills children, er, I mean...provides abortions.

    So we don't know yet if the person who did it was a Christian, nor can we say that it's actually an abortion clinic.

    You're a nasty bigot, KW.

    TRISH

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  8. I'll make a deal with you, KW. I'll condemn the act of terrorism that occurred outside the abortion clinic that killed no one and is already illegal, if you condemn the acts of terrorism that happen daily inside the clinics that have killed about 55 million just in this country and that are completely legal.

    Shake on it?

    The Torch

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  9. "When atheists "come out"-- when they say plainly what they believe-- ordinary people experience the emotion that is the appropriate response to the assertion that you're stupid if you don't believe that everything came from nothing and that there is no objective moral law."

    From the empirical evidence, the emotion people feel is "those are the people I want to side with". Nonbelievers are the fastest growing segment of the American population, and the overwhelming majority of young adults. Religion is rapidly becoming a dying hobby of the aged.

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  10. All thinking men are atheists--Ernest Hemingway.

    Also look up Einsteins God, its nothing like you think :)

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  11. Infections 4:3--Deism is the result of exposure to theistic poison, in the same way smelling like a cigarette is the result of exposure to second hand smoke :)

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