Another Hollow "Victory" For Atheists

The American (In)Humanist Association threatens to sue schools for participating in the "operation Christmas Child" program:

 http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/11/15/school-cancels-operation-christmas-child-over-lawsuit-threats/?&co=f000000013912s-1248979084

Operation Christmas Child is a program that collects shoe boxes filled with treats, small toys, school supplies, and even articles of clothing to needy children in 3rd World countries.

Some charter Schools had been participating in this program for years, until one disgruntled Atheist parent got wind of it and complained to the AHA. His letter to the AHA contained this gem:

“The boxes of toys are essentially a bribe, expressly used to pressure desperately poor children living in developing countries to convert to Christianity, and are delivered with prayers, sermons, evangelical tracts and pressure to convert,” read a letter the AHA sent to Mathews.

"Pressure to convert?" Really? What does this guy think? Does he think the workers wave the shoebox in front of the kid and say:

"Sorry, kid, you have to recite the Sinner's Prayer before you get the surprise!"

Well pardon me, but I don't see any atheists collecting boxes of gifts to some of the worst places on earth, so that a desperately poor kid can have a few things. I do see a number of Atheists sitting on their ample bottoms, making sure that Christians have a more difficult time taking boxes of gifts to some of the worst places on earth, so that a desperately poor kid can have a few things.

The AHA sent a spokesperson to Fox News to explain their excuse for threatening the schools with lawsuits, which of course, was the usual distortion of the First Amendment of the Constitution.

The Fox anchorwoman asked the AHA spokesman if the AHA had an answer for all those kids who may not get gifts, now that some of the Operation Christmas Child participants were shut down. The AHA spokesperson replied that the AHA supports secular programs like Toys For Tots.

Last time I checked, Toys For Tots didn't deliver gifts in Brazilian ghettos or war-torn southern Africa.

But that's not AHA's problem, is it?

Evidently, Atheism IS Lacking....

..as evidenced by the advent of Sunday morning Atheist fellowships in the US, Great Britain, and Australia:

Atheist 'mega-churches' take root across US, world

http://news.yahoo.com/atheist-mega-churches-root-across-us-world-214619648.html

From the article:

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It looked like a typical Sunday morning at any mega-church. Several hundred people, including families with small children, packed in for more than an hour of rousing music, an inspirational talk and some quiet reflection. The only thing missing was God.

Sorry, folks but God wasn't missing, He just wasn't invited. He was ignored.

They don't bash believers but want to find a new way to meet like-minded people, engage in the community and make their presence more visible in a landscape dominated by faith.

Basically, Atheists are admitting that they are missing out on some of the most wonderful aspects of religious faith: fellowship and a sense of purpose.

As far as "not bashing believers" goes, check out these handouts:

"Born Again Humanist? "God-Less is more?" "I believe in life before death?" Nope, no jabs there.

Sunday Assembly — whose motto is Live Better, Help Often, Wonder More — taps into that universe of people who left their faith but now miss the community church provided, said Phil Zuckerman, a professor of secular studies at Pitzer College in Claremont.

Sunday Assembly... sure has that "churchy" feel, doesn't it?

Wonder more... as long as you don't wander in the direction of the existence of God.

Not all atheists are excited about this movement. here's what one godless person had to say about it:

"The idea that you're building an entire organization based on what you don't believe, to me, sounds like an offense against sensibility," said Michael Luciano, a self-described atheist who was raised Roman Catholic but left when he became disillusioned.

"There's something not OK with appropriating all of this religious language, imagery and ritual for atheism," said Luciano, who blogged about the movement at the site policymic.com.

Really, Mr. Luciano? Then, how do you feel about political activist organizations like American Atheists? I guess it's OK for non-believers to join in frivolous lawsuits propagated by groups like the Freedom From Religion Foundation, but fellowshipping on a Sunday? Bad, bad!

Personally, I'm all for Atheists gathering on  Sunday mornings. If they take the idea of "wonder more" seriously, perhaps they'll begin to wonder why people desire this kind of activity. They may even take a greater leap of faith and discover that they are part of a weak imitation of something that is plainly spelled out in the Word of God:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of God."
 --Matthew 5:3 (The Sermon on the Mount)

God reaches out to those who understand their inborn need for Him.

Michael Luciano, Atheist blogger, wouldn't like to see an Atheist "church" open somebody's eyes to why they seek out "church" in the first place.

Keep wondering more, atheists! 

Atheists, Where's The Outrage?

A stone monument depicting the 10 commandments, located on private property across the street from the U.S. Supreme Court, was pushed over onto its face.

http://www.wistv.com/story/23507275/10-commandment-monument-vandalized-near-supreme-court

This was no mean feat. It weighs 850 pounds. It took several thugs and some hardware to do this.

This totally offensive piece of rock denounces lying, murder theft, enviousness and adultery.

And then there's the part about honoring God and your parents, which is just too over the top for today's enlightened society.  

So, I'm pretty confident it wasn't a bunch of wacko, right wing, sky-daddy worshiping theocrats who did this.

So, Atheists, is it now coming to this?

And why aren't more of you denouncing this destruction of private property?

Atheists and Bragging Online

In internet forums, it is common for the local Atheist to claim, "We Atheists don't need a god to tell us to good things, we just do good things on our own."

I might respond with something like: "Okay, what good deed have you done?"

Most of the time, the response is " I do good things" or else nothing, followed by the sound of chirping crickets (Ok, I'm being a smarty pants).

Atheists, it's time to come through. If you have hours on end to hunt down blogs like mine, and leave snarky comments behind, then you have 5 minutes to log into a website like UNICEF site and make a 5 dollar donation through Paypal.

Or, go to a park or beach during a planned cleanup, give the community an hour of your precious time and pick up trash.

Or donate some school supplies at your nearest Office Depot store.

Or mow your senior citizen neighbor's lawn.

Get the picture?

But don't sit there on your ample booty, log into my blog, dump a half page retort loaded with links you spent hours hunting down all over the web, and then tell me how much better you are than I am.

Talk is cheap. If you're better than I, prove it through positive action.

How To Suck At Atheism

WARNING: the link I have supplied contains crass references and foul language, which isn't surprising when it's come from an anti-Christian source. This one got my attention because it features most of the popular anti-Christian memes that Village Atheists toss around the internet, ad infinitum.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/religion

My answer is:

 How To Suck At Atheism

1. Assume all believers are judgmental.

2. Assume Christianity has held back scientific advancement, in spite of visionaries like Isaac Newton, Galileo, and even Georges Lemaitre.

3. Assume teaching your child the family's faith tradition is tantamount to forcing dogma on them.

4. Adopt a cartoonish unrealistic worldview of Christians.

5. Assume religious believers fear sex.

6. Pretend that anybody who mentions God is "forcing their religion down your throat".

7. Lump all religions in one basket and ignore the great differences between them.

8. Convince yourself that you're nothing more than a purposeless "bag of meat", a completely insignificant accident, despite your internal wiring that tells you otherwise.

9. Focus 99% of your hatred on Christianity but use the terms "religion" or "theism" to make it look like you're being more fair.

10. Spend hours on the internet trying to badger people into believing the same crapola you've been indoctrinated with.

Fascism Is Alive And Well With Atheist Crowd

Once more, that wonderful atheist activist non-profit organization, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, is  taking its Wisconsin liberal political views and shoving them down other peoples' throats.

This time, they got mad at Ball State University letting assistant Physics professor Eric Hedin discuss the limits of science and the proposition of Intelligent Design as an argument.

http://news.yahoo.com/more-7-000-petition-ball-state-university-protect-184300206.html

Remember, this is a university, and it was an honors course... completely voluntary attendance.

You know how this works. Some atheist either attended the seminar or else heard about it from another atheist, and then complained to the FFRF to put a stop to this terrible injustice.

It is not a course on Intelligent Design, but even mentioning this taboo subject is so offensive to thin-skinned atheists, that they must immediately hunt down an attorney to make sure this horrendous crime against humanity is stopped dead.

Atheists like to call themselves "freethinkers", yet they seem to take great joy in limiting the expression of politically incorrect ideas in the public arena. How can a person arrive at a decision on something if "freethinkers" effectively censor ideas that they find offensive?

Evidently freedom of thought is just a thin disguise over fascism, as propagated by liberals who will not tolerate opposing points of view.

So you atheists think Intelligent Design is intellectual doo-doo? Fine. Let the subject be discussed. If you liberals are all for an open forum of ideas, then LET THE IDEAS BE PRESENTED and let the hearers make their own judgement as to the merit of those ideas.

THAT is what a free exchange is all about.

Grow up, atheists.

Just For Laughs: The New American Atheist Monument

Here we go again... American Atheists lost their bid to get a 10 Commandments monument removed from a Florida courthouse, but they were allowed to put up their own tribute to Atheism, which looks like this:

According to David Silverman, the current President of American Atheists, his objection to the 10 Commandments monument was:

“There is no secular purpose for the monument whatsoever and it makes atheists feel like second-class citizens."

The origin of the moral codes behind our system of laws has no secular purpose? And what about the mentioning of God makes an Atheist feel like a second class citizen? There is nothing specific in that 10 Commandments monument that attacks the non-religious.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said about the American Atheists bench.

Ironically, this 3/4 ton granite masterpiece (which looks like the full-sized rendition of a model made from Lego play bricks), is more of a monument to the nerny-nerny boo-boo attitude of a bunch of sore losers.

It is festooned with old, overused, cherry-picked anti-religious quotes from Founding Fathers like John Adams (who in reality was a deeply faithful man of prayer). It also prominently features this gem from Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the founder of American Atheists:

"An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An Atheist believes that a deed should be done instead of a prayer said. An Atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty banished, war eliminated."

Let's look at this quote more closely.

"An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church."

Ms. O'Hair chose to ignore the fact that The Church was among the first to build hospitals.

"An Atheist believes that a deed should be done instead of a prayer said."

Ms. O'Hair didn't bother to mention how many great deeds were preceded by prayers. 

"An Atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death."

And Christians aren't? Does American Atheists to this day realize what a silly assumption this is?

"He wants disease conquered, poverty banished, war eliminated."

So did Jesus. The difference is, Christians actually get out and do the work. Ironically, the Salvation Army has no atheistic counterpart.

I still cannot understand why American Atheists idolizes Madalyn O'Hair. She was an intolerant, hot-tempered pottymouth who was fleecing American Atheists for all the money she could get her hands on. She was hardly the saint and martyr that she is portrayed to be, as was revealed by her son, William, who she kicked to the curb after he became a Christian pastor.

But free speech is free speech, and if American Atheists wants to waste their money in this fashion, so be it.

I just wonder how many kids could have been fed by the cost of this one bench.

'Nuff said.