If there is one thing that I care so strongly for I would die, it would definitely be my rights as an atheist. And saying the above is not a flimsy statement for me, as I believe this life to be the only one that I have; after my death, my body will disintegrate.
But I feel strongly, as a human being, that rights are inalienable truths. For, how shall I live this life of mine to its fullest if I am inhibited by the opinions and prejudices of others?
I encounter students at my high school every day who strongly disagree, and the difficult concept of this to grasp is that they are just as intelligent as me (sometimes more so) and they have gotten good grades in our history class and have made good points in discussing the rights of people, specifically Americans.
Why is it so easy for a teenager, roughly my same age, to be hypocritical in the matters to politics, ethics, and morals? Why can they preach, alongside me, freedom and justice for all and turn around and agree with former president George Bush Sr. when he says "...I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."
I'm positive that this argument has sprung up time and again: America was founded on principles of religious freedom and, obviously, economic freedom. The Founding Fathers were NOT all Christians, contrary to too much popular belief. And any and all religious groups who intend to take my rights away or kick me out of my country will be hard-pressed to do so; this atheist car-bomber for peace (my affectionate nick-name amongst my friends) will debate hotly and protest will all my might.
And I don't think that the issue of infringing non-believer's rights would exist if the atheists of America (or the agnostics, or the fence-sitters) would stand up or "come out" as RichardDawkins.net says.
America's Constitution is almost always being re-read. Atheists should re-read it, too. Re-visit your rights. Don't let anyone take your freedom away.
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Rights have nothing to do with religion. If anyone says other wise then they are not a true American. I'm a Christian as well as a proud American, and that's really important to me. Our founding fathers didn't intend our government to be ruled by one set religion (or lack of). Equal rights for all- no matter what religion, sex, ethnic group, ect.
[Krst]
I'm glad that there are religious people who agree with me.
But, there are some religious sects that would have us, as a country, ruled by a 'mandate-from-Heaven' white Christian male. I acknowledge that those people are few in number, but I try not to doubt what a small group can accomplish.
Please use the reply link when responding to a comment. It helps determine who exactly you are applying to when there are many comments on your thread.
I agree with the religious person, though. Rights shouldn't be dictated by religion and that's why many people support the opening of marriage or abortion, because the only arguments against them are religious in nature.
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
Want the highest rated list to change? RATE those blogs, then!
What infringement of rights are you talking about?
Whether either Bush likes it or not, not everyone is Christian. So Sr is almost as much of an ass as W for saying something like that. WHO CARES? We all understand that the Constitution gives us freedom of religion AND LACK THEREOF. Religion (or lack thereof) gives you no benefit or punishment in the eyes of the law. Just be glad Huckabee isn't going to be president.
So what is the argument?
-Sonja :)
"Democracy works only when you vote. When you don't take the time to vote for the candidate you find the least offensive, you run the risk of electing the candidate you find the most offensive."
I am very thankful that Huckabee won't be president!
And I apologize if my point wasn't so clear in the original post; I worry about the future of America because I watched the movie "Jesus Camp" and the statistics within scared me to death. It is evident, throughout human history, that small factions can and will seize significant amounts of power.
There is so much to say concerning theocracies around the world, their histories, and the Evangelical way of thinking that so many Americans posses, which leads my two ideas together: that, given the opportunity, the amount of Christian zealots in America will eventually come to the government.
I think that, although most Americans, the majority, do not believe in Bush Sr.'s statement. But I believe most distrust atheists and are unwilling to look upon a sect of their own religion as a terrifying force. I can see how doing just that would be extremely difficult.
But I think that indifference towards those who would start Holy Wars in our country cannot be an option.
Jesus Camp is probably the scariest, most sickening movie I've ever watched. I do know that there is a majority in this country of religious people, and that does worry me sometimes.
We don't live in a theology, we live in a democracy. A lot of people are forgetting that. I heard on NPR this morning that Florida legislation is trying to allow teachers to teach their choice of creationism, intelligent design, and evolution. Republican legislators are pushing for it, while Democratic legislators are against it, as teaching religious beliefs in public schools goes against the separation of church and state.
A lot of the Christian right is already in the government, either personally or through funding. You might be right about some religious people think that atheists and agnostics are immoral or just evil, which I find ironic since a lot of religious people need the threat of a higher power's vengeance to do what is right. I don't even think that's an issue here though.
The main religious-based appeals in government are abortion, gay marriage, and stem-cell research. We see where that is right now. Abortion rights are slipping. As poor women are getting charged with neglect or child neglect for doing drugs while pregnant. It's not a far stretch to just banning abortion altogether. Gay marriage, even if legal in one state, does not have to be recognized in any others, even though straight marriages are. Stem-cell research could save and improve lives. Embryonic stem cells have been proven to work better in research, but is "against God's will," according to the Christian belief that life begins at conception, even if it is conception in a petri dish. It's hard telling where it'll go from here.
Religious beliefs do sometimes overshadow a person's view of what our Constitution says. I don't think religion should ever be a factor in government relations, but it is. The only thing I can say is vote. Not every politician is in it for the money from the Christian right.
-Sonja :)
"Democracy works only when you vote. When you don't take the time to vote for the candidate you find the least offensive, you run the risk of electing the candidate you find the most offensive."
We don't live in a theology, we live in a democracy. A lot of people are forgetting that.
I think you mean theocracy, since we can't live in the study of god.
Stem-cell research could save and improve lives.
It has and it does. No legislation is stopping that.
Embryonic stem cells have been proven to work better in research
Compared to what? Other stem cells? That's not accurate... adult stem cells have actually been used to make a therapy treatment for a disease; embryonic stem cells have not. We've also found ways lately to make regular cells (such as skin cells) into 'embryonic' stem cells. The potential for embryonic stem cells may be there, but they are not (by far) the end-all-be-all of stem cell research.
Religious beliefs do sometimes overshadow a person's view of what our Constitution says.
The shadow comes when morals come into play. Our government does legislate based on morals (the sanctity of human life, for example, when it comes to murder, assault, etc), and the public has the right to vote according to their morals. While it shouldn't be a factor for some things (gay marriage, for instance), saying that people shouldn't vote based on their morals is just plain silly. By living in a Republic (not a democracy, contrary to what people think), majority rules as long as the rights of the minority are protected. In some cases, the rights of the minority simply don't come into play (for example, legislating about gun control).
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
Want the highest rated list to change? RATE those blogs, then!
THEOCRACY... yes, thank you for catching that. A little side-tracked today...
I guess I read a wrong report them. I read that embryonic was better than adult. Maybe it was just referring top research though, considering how hard it is to get adult stem cells. I know that embryonic stem cell research is still funded and the donations come from people have used in-vitro fertilization. I'm just saying that it is a religious debate because of the belief that life begins at conception and could be a political issue later.
Morality and religion are two entirely different things. Nonbelievers still do have morals. I'm talking about voting because people like Huckabee, who did talk about applying more biblical law into the constitution, are out there. The controversy in FL was another example, like gay marriage, of something that is not based in morality but in religion that is wasting time and money in government.
-Sonja :)
"Democracy works only when you vote. When you don't take the time to vote for the candidate you find the least offensive, you run the risk of electing the candidate you find the most offensive."
Yeah, like I said, treatments have actually been made with adult stem cells, and while embryonic stem cells have more potential (they can transform into anything, whereas adult stem cells are mostly limited to the organ they were taken from), they are not all the research. Actually, there's a lot of research being done on cord blood stem cells, which seem to have just as much potential as embryonic stem cells, and you don't have to destroy any embryos to get them.
I didn't say people couldn't have morals without religion, but most religious people base their morals on their religious beliefs, so they are tied when it comes to politics. In the case of gay marriage, it is based on morality, just that that morality happens to be based on religion. No one would care if the religion didn't say it was wrong.
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
Want the highest rated list to change? RATE those blogs, then!
I'm assuming that you don't like Huckabee because he's a minister. Well, that's kinda wrong. You are complaining about rights as an "atheist," but because he is a devout Christian, he isn't fit to be president? So you should have your rights, but he can't have his? Just because a president is uber-religious, doesn't mean that he has ANY power to force it on you.
Almost every elected and government official is religious. That's irrelevant. My problem with Huckabee is to what extent he wanted to keep his religious agenda coinciding with his political agenda. Some quotes:
"I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ." -Meet the Press
"Homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk." -CNN
Huckabee advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general population in 1992, a couple of years after it was proven that AIDS was not transmitted through general contact. He has said he doesn't believe it anymore, but it makes me uncomfortable that he had the idea in the first place. He also believes creationism should be taught in schools.
My reasons for not liking him as a potential president are not the fact that he was a minister. It's the fact that he wouldn't want a separation between church and state.
-Sonja :)
"Democracy works only when you vote. When you don't take the time to vote for the candidate you find the least offensive, you run the risk of electing the candidate you find the most offensive."
I once read somewhere that Americans are more suspicious of atheists than any other minority group in the country. As a former fundamentalist Baptist turned atheist for moral reasons, this breaks my heart. I agree with you--this country was founded on democratic principles of political equality for all. The Founding Fathers didn't seem to understand the hypocrisy of a Declaration claiming that "All men are created equal" while founding a Republic where a majority couldn't vote (as women, blacks, and in many states non-Protestants were excluded) and slaves were counted as only three-fifths the weight of a regular citizen. Thankfully, our democratic discourse has led us over the past centuries to understand their shortcomings in this area. Those who argue for "one nation under God," assuming the omniscience of the founding fathers, shoud recall this. Its about time that our values caught up with our opinions.
And there was more than the simple 'hypocrisy' of "all men created equal". Thomas Jefferson originally planned to have the Declaration of Independence be complete, as he said, for all of mankind. He had a phrase or two in the document that would denounce slavery, but at that time, the fragile state of the Union would not allow America to be divided so from the beginning.
We need not go much deeper than our original political leaders to see the strife over much of the system that they created. But what the Federalists and the Anti-federalists never fought over was a set religious system for the country. Some how, and some way, it was never brought up in conversation. (The reason for that, most likely, being that the majority of those men were Deists...)
I think the majority of Americans should participate in AP American History, which is where I have gleaned my knowledge from. (Shout-out to my teacher!)
My sister would die if she had to take AP American History. Regular American history is creating a ton of problems for her already, and the fast-paced nature of APUSH would probably kill her. She's just not smart enough for it.
~C
Check out the latest entry in the Between The Lines column!
Want the highest rated list to change? RATE those blogs, then!
reading the paper this past weekend i came across an artical about an atheist soilder who was discharded from Iraq because soliders on his own side were threating him.
a general told him that the 1st ammendment doesn't cover him because it give us the freedom of religion, not the freedom not to have one.
i feel bad for people who are too blindsided by there up bringing to see that everyone is right.
if you believe in your god, then who is to say your wrong? its what you belive in, and if someone believe differently then they are also right. for your beliefs to be justified doesn't mean for others belifes to be false.