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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
So you are saying atheism is a religion now? I thought it was just non-belief. So what is this speech you want to protect for atheists?
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The courts have consistently ruled that atheism is considered a religion for the purposes of protecting it under the 1st Amendment "freedom of speech" and "freedom of religion" clauses.
This had to be done to protect US from people like YOU who would ban us, censor us, and do everything in their power to strip us of our rights. As I said -- and as an entire thread said -- even an Alabama supreme court judge claimed that atheists have no Constitutional rights. A former U.S. president even said atheists weren't American citizens.
This is serious business, Jeff ... and since the media has pretty much already elected Trump, and since Trump is crowing about banning Muslims and building a wall, who the hell knows what the religious right will convince him to do about atheists.
Like it or not, Jeff, you're the kind of Christian that causes all of the
other Christians to say, "We're not all like that."
You don't like the billboard. Too bad. Because I've seen enough smack said and written about atheism to last two lifetimes -- including some rather nasty billboards. And guess what. Yeah. You don't see we atheists throwing a colossal hissy fit demanding that the Christian right to free speech be curtailed. But when an atheist does it, just once, on a single billboard, the damn NEWS shows up to cover the story, much less having every fascist in the vicinity crawling out of their churches to express how we shouldn't even be allowed to express anti-religious thoughts.
In a way, your over-the-top objection to this billboard is helping me prove my case about the dangers of theological fascism in this country -- and how it is alive and well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
The problem is you want to see the laws favor your own brand of ideology which is extremely hostile to religion.
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Wrong. The laws are already in place -- and they've been in place for over 250 years. We're just making sure those laws are now enforced, something that is long overdue.
Now, do I particularly care if there are Bibles in a government-run hotel room? No, not really. But someone did and made the hotel obey the law. If you understood the Constitution, you would realize that none of the laws we cite are new ones; we atheists have NOT lobbied congress to pass a plethora of new pro-atheist laws that are now suddenly being enforced.
Nope. Atheists don't have that kind of political clout. We don't have an army of well-paid lobbyists floating around Capitol Hill trying to influence the direction of politics to favor our religion. No, that's YOUR arena (which is why your church, as well as all the rest of them, ought to be paying taxes). If atheism wins a case, it's because religion had been violating the Constitution even before the ink was dry.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Christian fascism? Can you even give one example how Christians are being fascists?
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Fundamentalists are fascists all the time. They are CONSTANTLY trying to enact fascistic rules and laws, most of which never make the news unless it's a very local story. As an employee of a county library in a small southern town myself and my colleagues had to deal with Christians on a daily basis trying to get books banned or removed from the shelves. There's an organization called One Million Moms which has a website consisting of dozens upon dozens upon dozens of pages listing various television programs, commercials, signs, and other forms of communication that they want banned, pulled off the air, or taken down. All of these media expressions somehow violated some religious sensitivity, taboo, or commandment and thus had to be squashed. One commercial was even accused of blasphemy and thus had to be banned. Blasphemy? Are we in Saudi Arabia now?
It's gotten so bad that the Southern Poverty Law Center have even declared several Christian organizations "hate groups" for their efforts at demonizing both gays and atheists.
You have no idea how often your fundamentalist pals try to stomp on everyone else's freedoms. I, myself, have had several personal experiences with Christian fascism as they tried to ban everything from the teen dances we had every weekend at the firehall to our damn senior prom. Music and dancing just aren't allowed. A Christian group picketed the local bookstore when a new Harry Potter book came out saying the usual crap about exposing children to the evils of sorcery and witchcraft. They even had a book burning party that would have made the Nazis proud.
You ask me when have Christians been fascists? I could write a book about that, Jeff. And it would have a lot of pages.
And let's not forget the little tiff I had with Vizio because he, too, was so offended over atheist signage at a Nativity scene that he said our message about not having to go to church should be censored -- because children might see it. One would think that the atheists were espousing murder, rape, and pillaging instead of letting an America smothered by Christianity know that there ARE other choices.
But Vizio, obviously, doesn't WANT the children to know there are other choices, that Christianity isn't the ONLY path available to them. I don't even think he wants adults to know that ... much less a sign that signals to every closeted atheist in town that they aren't alone.
Now here you are pitching a fit because atheists had the temerity, the audacity, the unmitigated gall to rent a billboard and present an atheist message to those who drive by. How dare they!
And ... to be completely blunt, I'm more than fed up with the number of times right here on this forum that we atheists were told that "this is the Religion and Spirituality forum" and that we should be confined to posting ONLY in the Agnostic and Atheist sub-forum. Thus, even here, atheists are subjected to Christian theological fascism in that we're not even "allowed" to challenge religion in an open forum about religion.
Because people like you want Christianity to be the only voice anyone ever hears.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
You should be free to share your beliefs, but you should also learn to respect other people's beliefs. This billboard was an unnecessary offensive message.
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Well, sorry to say, but that train left the station a long time ago.
The fact that the religious right has vilified atheists so much that we're now the most hated, least trusted group in America has pretty much absolved us of any responsibility or moral imperative to play nice. After all, why should we when obviously fundamentalists do not?
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