Found this link via my pals the Skunkfuckers: “Godless Americans™ March on Washington.” Slated for November 2 of this year.
The Godless American™ message? Glad you asked! According to their website,
The Time For Us To Be Heard Is Now! [though evidently November’ll do — ed.]
There are millions of Godless Americans. The latest American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) reflects that nearly 13% of the population has no religion. This includes millions who identify themselves with labels such as Atheist, Freethinker, Humanist and others. There are over 30,000,000 of us, a figure larger than most American religious denominations. And it’s time for us to be heard!
Indeed! And be heard you shall!
In fact, allow me to help get the message out: “Listen up, people! Godless Americans don’t believe in God! They’re 100% God-free! No bearded dude in a heavenly robe for these non-believers, no sir! Because as they say, they’re Godless! Sans the Lord! Without the Big Guy! Are you listening, people? — ’cause they can’t make it any clearer: they simply DO NOT BELIEVE in a Higher Power!”*
There. Now no need to tie up DC traffic or wear out a nice pair of rubber-soled walking shoes.
You’re welcome™.
*Full disclosure: I’m comfortably agnostic. And I hate parades. The thought of a giant, Godless Underdog balloon being pulled along the streets of Washington, D.C. by Godless Americans™ is simply too much to bear.
[update: Dave Trowbridge digs deeper…]
As an unbeliever who has always detested evangelical unbelief, I love this (particularly the disclosure).
Pious posturing lamers, taking on the worst attributes of the dumbest sort of believer. Yeah, you big bad shocking iconoclasts…
The worst form of atheism is the kind that becomes a faith of its own. Madelaine Murray O’Hair, for example (may she rest in peace, or not, according to her preference). Proseletyzing unbelievers are just as annoying as Jehovah’s Witnesses.
I’m suffering cognitive dissonance with your Godless Underdog balloon remark, though. I can’t help thinking the we have the solution to the Ninth Circuit’s Pledge ruling.
Simply allow one of two optional usages:
One nation, under God
or,
One nation, underdog.
It works! Everyone can say the Pledge with the wording of choice, and there are no telltale gaps or insincere mouthing of the objectionable words! Jeff, you’re a genious!
I’ll have another bourbon now, thanks very much.
Ummm, hooch.
But what do Americans who happen to <i>be</i> gods do? When do (modest cough) <i>we</i> get our own parade?
Oh—how silly of me! I will simply use my omnipotent powers!
(ZAP)
There. That was a nice parade. (It was .00000025th of a nanosecond long. I hate long parades.)
*snicker*
“One nation, underdog”
Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and
manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible to restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as
well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only
true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time: That to compel a
man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; … that our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or
geometry; … that the opinions of men are not the object of civil government, nor under its jurisdiction; that to suffer the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of principles on
supposition of their ill tendency is a dangerous falacy [sic], which at once destroys all religious liberty … ; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing
to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing
to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them. We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no man shall be
compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on
account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities …
(Thomas Jefferson, “Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia,” 1779. ) From Edwin S.
Gaustad, ed., A Documentary History of Religion in America, Vol. I (To the Civil War), Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1982, pp. 259-261.
“One nation, under the Constitution” or simply delete the divisive “under god” which respects, endorses and advances religion.
“In god we trust” should also be revoked and replaced w/ the original and unifying motto “E Pluribus Unum.”
How do you think other “minorities” received their rights? By marching on Washington D.C.
Pompous whining will not help unbelievers secure a rightful “place at the table.” A march will.
I’m betting the weather’s gonna suck for that march.
I’ll bet you Walter. In Virginia, I ride my motorcycle until the end of November. However, I will admit that December in VA is cold.
While you’re petitioning to get rid of that nasty “In God we trust” scribble, can you throw in a word for us despisers of green? For too long have we been subjected to the degrading condition of having to carry legal tender of such loathsome hue—so much so that I now carry nothing but coin (I recently purchased a DVD player using 887 quarters; I think I made my point, though I strained a hamstring). Greenless Americans™ must rise and march. Down with green! Begone foul foliage! Trees suck!
We godless Americans don’t need a parade. If we want a parade of atheism, we can just turn on the TV.
Eternity is a long time to be wrong.
As another agnostic (who labors under the horrible fear that he might have single-handedly put an end to Steve den Beste’s forum by expatiating at length on this very topic) I have two observations: l. Someone who thinks atheists labor under the disadvantages of pre-civil rights blacks. . . . (But no one could believe this. I almost fell victim to another bit of satire! Silly me!)
2. I’m with Ms. Harris in finding evangelical atheists mystifying. (Or maybe she merely finds them annoying.) What MLK and his followers were agitating for was a chance to enjoy the same inalienable right the rest of their countrymen enjoyed. If Jefferson got rolled when he put that bit about our rights being bestowed on us by a Creator, where did those rights come from? Or, more properly, in what sense can they be said to be inalienable? Athiesm may be the right intellectual response to the science available to us, but it is not without its problematics, and, like Voltaire, I would hope, as an atheist, that my beliefs were not shared by those whose honesty and diligence I depended on.
I just noticed that the prepostition function of the server screwed up during the posting process: Please insert the following as needed: in, of, to, about, The phrase “that bit” was probably deleted by the management to mak me lok iliterit.