[Chron] Presidential First: Obama Meets with Atheist Group

My boss is one of these folks, and it's not pretty. My blood pressure skyrocketed anytime I walked into the office because the first thing out of her mouth was something slamming Obama, the communist, the socialists, etc.

I don't see why this should bother anyone.

 

from The Guardian:

[rquoter]
Republicans v secular America

With blatant disregard for the first amendment, Republicans' intolerance of US secularism means things are turning ugly


Dan Kennedy
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 February 2010 19.00 GMT

If you're part of secular America – that is, if you're an atheist, an agnostic, a religious liberal or even a mainstream believer who thinks religion should be kept out of politics and vice-versa – then you should be very afraid of what the Republican party has in store for you in 2012.

No news there, you might say. The Republicans, as we all know, have been in thrall to the Christian right since the Reagan era. But there's something new, something more intolerant, something truly ugly in the works. And if you don't believe me, let's start with Tim Pawlenty, unassuming governor of Minnesota in his day job, fire-breathing Christian warrior and aspiring presidential candidate in his spare time.

"I want to share with you four ideas that I think should carry us forward," Pawlenty said on Friday at the annual gathering of the Conservative Political Action Committee, or CPAC. After invoking "basic constitutional principle and basic common sense," he continued:

<blockquote><blockquote>"The first one is this: God's in charge. God is in charge ... In the Declaration of Independence it says we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. It doesn't say we're endowed by Washington, DC, or endowed by the bureaucrats or endowed by state government. It's by our creator that we are given these rights."</blockquote></blockquote>
Never mind Pawlenty's fundamental and no doubt deliberate misreading of the founders' intent. (Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, is well-known for having cut up a Bible to remove all supernatural references to Jesus.) How, in practice, does Pawlenty envision "God's in charge" as a governing principle?

Pawlenty didn't say. But he oozed mild-mannered hatred for anyone who doesn't share his beliefs. In a bizarre closing in which he invoked the civil war general (and future president) Ulysses S Grant as some sort of rough-around-the-edges, proto-Tea Party role model, Pawlenty trashed anyone who attended "Ivy League schools" or who go to "chablis-drinking, brie-eating parties in San Francisco". (You can watch Pawlenty's address at CSPAN.org, starting at the 1:38:30 mark.) It sounded like a parody of Pat Buchanan's famous 1992 "culture war" speech. Except that Pawlenty is one of the Republicans' two most plausible candidates for president in 2012.

The other would be former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who fell far short of the prize in 2008, but whose legendary self-discipline has put him in a strong position for 2012.

The trouble is that Romney has already declared war on secular America. In December 2007, you may recall, he delivered a speech in which he defended his Mormon religion at a time when he was under assault from evangelical Christians. It was, in many respects, a sensible plea for religious tolerance.

Except that Romney called for tolerance only among believers, explicitly omitting non-believers. "Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me," Romney said. "And so it is for hundreds of millions of our countrymen: we do not insist on a single strain of religion – rather, we welcome our nation's symphony of faith."

As New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote the next day, "Romney described a community yesterday. Observant Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Jews and Muslims are inside that community. The nonobservant are not. There was not even a perfunctory sentence showing respect for the nonreligious." Brooks – a conservative, though a secular one – warned that Romney was calling for "a culture war without end".

Romney and Pawlenty are the early front-runners for the Republican presidential nomination, and it's a good thing: the most frequently mentioned potential fringe candidates are even worse. If you have not seen Sarah Palin asking God to build a natural-gas pipeline in Alaska, well, do yourself a favour right now (see also her recent speech at the Tea Party convention). Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, personifies the Christian right in its purest form. "I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ," Huckabee said in 1998. There is no reason to think he's changed his mind.

(I realise that I am leaving out Ron Paul right after he won the CPAC straw poll. As best as I can tell, Paul actually does believe in a secular government. But Paul is a libertarian who's entirely out of step with the Republican party, regardless of how adept he is at mobilising his devoted followers to pack events like straw polls. He was unable to establish himself as a serious candidate in 2008, and there's no reason to think he'll do any better in 2012.)

Barack Obama, in his inaugural address, said that "our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth."

It is that simple, inclusive vision that we're in danger of losing if Romney or Pawlenty – or, God help us (so to speak), Palin or Huckabee – is elected president in 2012. In truth, the founders made it clear in the first amendment that we need not just freedom of religion, but freedom from religion, especially given that 79% of Americans believe in miracles.

"While we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess, and to observe, the religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to them whose minds have not yielded to the evidence which has convinced us," wrote James Madison.

In contrast to Madison, the Republicans propose a theocracy of believers. It is an assault not just on anyone who isn't one of them, but on the American idea, and on liberal democracies everywhere.

[/rquoter]

 

oh..I get it. You mean to say that they've never had their own Lobby group. Yeah, that may be true.

but as individuals, they've had just as much say as I have.

 

if you seriously believe this, then I can't imagine Obama has done anything of any relevance.

seems like much ado about nothing.

 

Question: Is Atheism a One-Ideal group? There is no god. That is it?
Just seeking clarification.

Rocket River

 

from Gallup, in 2007:

 

Religion is too important to people, always has been.

I can't even tell my mom I don't go to Church, and its sad I have to lie about it. But she wouldn't be able to deal with something like that.

 

That is the one ideal that marks someone as an atheist. There are sub-groups who might follow a specific belief system (e.g. Secular Humanists) but there is no specific dogma that can be considered atheist.

Of course, individual atheists do have specific values, morals, beliefs and ideals, they just aren't defined by the term "atheist".

 

Yeah it sounds like Pawlenty has been spending too much time with Michelle Bachmann. At that same speech at CPAC he also called upon conservatives to behave like Tiger Woods' wife and take a 9 iron to big government.

What's interesting here in MN is that while he has been going around bashing big government his state budget proposal relies heavily on Federal money to make up for shortfalls for the state.

 

I agree, no hating but I really don't see the big deal. I know every now in then you get an issue about teaching creation in school, school prayer, etc but other than that what is there to talk about?

 

Atheists are Godless heathens.

Godless heathens have no morals.

Thus, atheists have no morals. I want my government officials to have morals!

 

I can see how it would be a big deal to atheists frustrated with the impact of religion on American governance. Just being recognized as a significantly sized group of people is a good first step towards being on equal footing with many other religious groups.

 

what impact?

 

You can keep your organized religion, and I'll keep god... if there is one.

 

on legislation? education? are you saying religious people have no impact on the government?

 

There are plenty of places that religion has impacted the government, although the point I was making is directed more at perceived impact. And it goes beyond governing to all things related to the state. For example...

The existence of spiritual adviser's to Presidents, the prevalence of political lobbying and campaigning done by religious groups, the invocation of God's name and religion in political speeches, the widespread use of prayer in government and political business (e.g. opening prayers), the references to God in things like currency and the pledge of allegiance.

Those are just a few examples. The fact that it was news that Obama included non-believers in the list of religions mentioned in his inaugural address indicates how rare it is for that group of people to be acknowledged. Right or wrong, it shouldn't be surprising that when they are acknowledged, many would want to celebrate it.

 

perceived, exactly I totally agree, its not a real impact

why should politicians give up their religious convictions, and really its just a show, it doesn't affect real policy, as you said earlier, perceived

its nice to be acknowledged, still I think its no big deal

 

of course they do, but not their religion. I guess I did leave out one big issue, abortion. guess what, its legal