[Vision2020] vandals strike again

[Paul Rumelhart]

Donovan Arnold wrote:
> Paul,
>  
> I agree that there are a great number of Atheists that are not out to 
> do harm, and just want to be left alone and want to leave believers 
> alone. Unfortunately, that is not the case for all Atheists.
>  
> Many Atheists ridicule believers. Attack them as people. Make fun of 
> their belief in God as equivocal to that of Children believing in the 
> Easter Bunny. But also want to bring real harm by the elimination and 
> change of US Culture to completely remove God and replace it with the 
> United States Government as the head of all authority. They want to 
> tax, and consequently, shut down churches that provide food and 
> clothing banks, homeless shelters, schools, and even religious burial 
> grounds, etc.
>

There are a number of issues here that are being conflated together. 

Some atheists do ridicule unbelievers.  Some go way out of their way to 
make sure that their points about the perceived damage to society from 
religion don't go unheard.  That is their right under the First Amendment. 

Some people, atheists among them, are trying to eliminate the preference 
for any one religion from a government that is tasked with governing all 
of the people, some of whom hold minority religious views.  This is not 
replacing God with the Government.  They don't have the power to do 
that.  Not showing a preference is not the same as persecuting the 
majority view.

The idea behind not taxing churches and other non-profit organizations 
is a deal in which the organizations get a relief from having to pay 
taxes in order to better help the needy, provided that they stay 
apolitical at the same time.  There is a push by some people to tax 
churches because they have become more political in the past decade or 
so.  Thus, in that view, they are breaking their deal with the 
government, so they are no longer deserving of a tax break.  In effect, 
everyone is paying for them to provide charity by not making them give 
back to the common good, raising taxes for everyone else.  Some people 
take offense at this when some of the organizations involved are 
actively trying to pass legislation that would force their religious 
views upon others.

>  
> Atheism not only brings a cultural breakdown of basic American Values 
> and Traditions, but at its very core promotes the principles of 
> Satanism, which is self worship and rejection of God, Jesus Christ and 
> the Holy Spirit.
>

Atheists don't "reject" God any more than you "reject" the Easter Bunny 
or vampires.  They don't believe in God and they don't believe in 
Satan.  They don't, as a general rule, worship anything (self 
included).  If the numbers of people who believe differently changes, of 
course our culture will change.  This is not a cultural breakdown, it's 
simply change.  One of our most basic American Values, by the way, is 
freedom of religion.  There is no freedom of religion if one religion is 
pushed above all others (including the absence of religion).

>  
> Many Atheists want the 95% of the people that believe in God to bow 
> down to them, and not say "Merry Christmas", "God Bless you", or "One 
> Nation Under God".
>

Many do apparently believe that, and I think they are being 
thin-skinned, for the most part.  The "One Nation Under God" bit is one 
phrase I can get behind them on, though.  Look up the history of that 
phrase, it wasn't there originally.

>  
> They don't care that 90% of Americans are offended that God is removed 
> from their daily lives. Nobody is forcing Athiests to go to church, or 
> be buried in a cemetary, or to celebrate Christmas. But they want all 
> of it to be removed from any public area to accomodate their personal 
> belief system..
>

Atheists aren't removing God from the daily life of Americans.  
Especially not by putting up a billboard in the hopes that people would 
see another  viewpoint and remember that it exists.  They don't have the 
power or ability to make you or anyone else stop believing in God.  They 
provide another viewpoint, that's the extent of it.

>  
> Understand, whenever people denouce God, there will ALWAYS be 
> oppostion. It is our freedom and right to invite God into 
> everything we do. Many Athiests piss people off because we don't think 
> of them as people that want to be free to practice their non-beliefs 
> but are hostile people instead, that are out to stop us from 
> celebrating ours.
>

They are not denouncing God, they don't even believe He exists.  They 
are certainly not trying to stop you from celebrating your beliefs.  
Some of them *are* trying to keep the playing field level so that no one 
religion can lord it over the others.

>  
> Merry Christmas,
>  
> Donovan Arnold
>

Have a happy solstice!

Paul