How much of an uphill battle are atheists and secularists really fighting in the US?
As a person who has grown up in a very much secular country, this leaves me a bit puzzled:
Either, the lovely lady in red is right: God does not have the power to stop hurricanes. So why is she praying to Him, then?
Or, God does have the power, but He doesn't necessarily want to use it, being, after all, quite wrathful and vengeful. Or He's frequently distracted somehow. But this doesn't really seem to jive with the notion of God being a thoroughly good guy.
So here's a serious question. No offense intended.
Is the World's only superpower and the number 3 most populated country inhabited by a majority of religious fundamentalists? Keep in mind, fundamentalists believe that religious dogma describe facts -- that what their holy book says, is literally true. How many US Senators and Representatives believe this?
There are several reasons why I find the contempt for atheism to be more than a bit unsettling. One is that religious fundamentalism in government is always a bad thing. Furthermore, three of the most popular Republican candidates, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin have all flirted with crusader-friendly Christian Dominionism.
And then there's stuff like this:
Millions of taxpayer dollars used to convert soldiers and their children to Christianity By Justin Griffith, on September 3rd, 2011Chris Rodda wrote an extensive exposé on the amount of your taxpayer money being spent on converting soldiers and their children to Christianity.
Your money.
The Soldier Fitness Tracker that includes the mandatory Spiritual Fitness testing and the equally mandatory remedial training. $125,000,000 ...
Why We Fight: Open Iraq to Christian Evangelization, Corruption ... The Colorado Springs Gazette reports (via Carpetbagger) on a forum hosted by James Dobson's Focus on the Family for Colorado political candidates:[Republican] Bentley Rayburn spoke of opening Iraq to the word of Jesus. [...]
Rayburn, a retired Air Force major general, framed several answers in terms of what “we as Christians” would do. As he has throughout the campaign, he described the war in Iraq as a battle against radical Islam and said establishing a democracy in Iraq would send a message.
“That will open up hope within these countries for the gospel of Jesus Christ to change hearts,” he said.
The top soldier assigned to track down Bin Laden and Hussein is an evangelical Christian who speaks publicly of 'the army of God.' by Richard T. Cooper ... WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has assigned the task of tracking down and eliminating Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and other high-profile targets to an Army general who sees the war on terrorism as a clash between Judeo-Christian values and Satan.Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin, the new deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, is a much-decorated and twice-wounded veteran of covert military operations. From the bloody 1993 clash with Muslim warlords in Somalia chronicled in "Black Hawk Down" and the hunt for Colombian drug czar Pablo Escobar to the ill-fated attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980, Boykin was in the thick of things.
Yet the former commander and 13-year veteran of the Army's top-secret Delta Force is also an outspoken evangelical Christian who appeared in dress uniform and polished jump boots before a religious group in Oregon in June to declare that radical Islamists hated the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the enemy is a guy named Satan."
Discussing the battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia, Boykin told another audience, "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."
"We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this," Boykin said last year.
On at least one occasion, in Sandy, Ore., in June, Boykin said of President Bush: "He's in the White House because God put him there."
He found his lieutenant, John D. DeGiulio, with a couple of sergeants. They were snickering like schoolboys. They had commissioned the Special Forces interpreter, an Iraqi from Texas, to paint a legend across their Bradley’s armor, in giant red Arabic script.“What’s it mean?” asked Humphrey.
“Jesus killed Mohammed,” one of the men told him. The soldiers guffawed. JESUS KILLED MOHAMMED was about to cruise into the Iraqi night.
Then-Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich [who conducted the second investigation into Tillman's death which lasted a week], Regimental Executive Officer at Forward Operating Base Salerno on Khost, Afghanistan, under which Tillman was serving at the time of his death, and who led the second investigation into Tillman's death, made statements about the Tillman family’s search for the truth based on Tillman's atheism. In comments to ESPN, Kauzlarich said: "These people have a hard time letting it go. It may be because of their religious beliefs" and "When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don’t believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing and now he is no more... I do not know how an atheist thinks, I can only imagine that would be pretty tough.
It's easy to dissociate oneself from different kinds of crusader rhetoric, but nevertheless: It doesn't seem to require any huge leap of faith to move from a belief in Biblical biology and eternal damnation, and condemnation of atheism, to the notion that Satan really does live in Falluja.
The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He lives in Falluja. And we're going to destroy him Lt Col Gareth Brandl
-LL Norway
