American Atheist Group Rips BP Oil Spill Prayer-Fest
"At best, a throwback to primitivism -- at worst, unconstitutional political posturing and manipulation..."
An Atheist public policy group denounced Sunday's "Day of Prayer" by Southern governors as a political stunt which is exploiting an environmental tragedy in order to win votes and promote religion and as, incidentally, a clear violation of Christian biblical principles.
"At best, this is a bronze age response to disaster," declared Dr. Ed Buckner, President of American Atheists. "This is just another example of how some political leaders use religion to win votes, garner public sympathy, and lead people to believe that superstition trumps the need for good planning and responsible public policy. These governors are plainly hypocrites as defined, allegedly in words from Jesus, in Matthew 6:5-6."
The Governors of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, along with the lieutenant Governor of Florida, all issued proclamations declaring Sunday, June 27, 2010, a Day of Prayer and urged citizens to engage in religious ritual in hopes of finding a solution to the growing oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
"This is about as deep as you can get when it comes to promoting irrationality and faith-based superstition," added Dr. Buckner. "We have another example of public officials telling citizens when and how to pray, whether to pray, and what to pray for."
Dave Silverman, Vice President and Communications Director for American Atheists, said that prayer is never a suitable substitute for sound public policy, environmental safeguards, and sensible planning for catastrophic emergencies.
"I doubt that Jesus or some angel is suddenly going to descend from the sky with millions of feet of boom, or more barges to suck up the leaking oil," said Mr. Silverman. "If prayer really worked, why is it that so far, anyway, God seems to be ignoring the suffering all along the gulf?"
Dr. Buckner added, "Perhaps the politicians need to get up off their knees and spend more time mobilizing the resources to deal with this catastrophe. That should not include offering false hope or ridiculous suggestions for the people being affected by this event.”
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!!
ARENT SOMEHOW ... GODLY? EVEN SAINTLY?!! WHAT U THINK, AETHEIST!
DO U WANT TO KILL ME? HUH ??? ADMIT IT- ISNT UR RAGE GROWING? CAN YA FEEL IT SWELLING INSIDE! oooooooh!! BET UR OUTRAGED, ARENT YA.
TYPICAL LIB-AETHIST:
WORRIES MORE ABOUT A THAN A SENSELESS, NO-POINT ARTICLE.
MAKE SOME MORE SENSELESS POINTS, AETHIST. WE'RE LAUGHIN... uh, I MEAN LISTENIN... of course.
In just one post, you've done more damage to the message of Jesus Christ than every atheist post on this entire website combined.
Unless that is your goal.
Hmmm, looks like just another idiot pretending to be a Christian to discredit Christians . Seriously, atheists need to get a life. It's one thing to be ignorant, it's another thing to do it on purpose...
The_Pilgrim
HAVE ALWAYS FOUND IT EXTREMELY INTRIGUING & A DOWNRIGHT PHENOMENA THAT A PERSON WHO BELIEVES NOT IN THE LORD SHOULD ALWAYS KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT HIM & HIS GOSPEL! DONT U FIND THAT EXTREMELY ODD? THEY R WALKING, BREATHING CONTRADICTIONS... of THEMSELVES!
AS FOR THEIR "TAUNTING" ABOUT PRAYER, "THEY" R the HYPOCRITES THEN BECAUSE THEY UNDERSTAND THIS ONE WELL:
"As Jesus walked throught the forest, the Devil tempted him by saying 'If your GOD will protect you, call on Him. Lets see Him save you now.' Jesus responded: 'It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord, your God’ ' (Mt. 4:7).
The doctrine of Scripture is that we prepare and work , but "trust" the outcome to God, for we r not worthy...
Especially the part about caps-lock and reading the articles you respond to.
AA is specifically making your point to the Governors. The only hypocrisy is the flip-flopping the bible does as to what the point of prayer is.
Incidently, considering how ridiculous the scriptures are, it makes sense that those increasingly familiar with them are often the most critical of them. I have read the bible many times over throughout the years, though in rather piecemeal fashion at times.
So, what do you do, surf the net and attack anything "notatheist?"
Might want to try getting a life...
The_Pilgrim
Like full time college in Computer Science and Philosophy and a few things in between, lead a tactics trainer team and some curriculum development at the Navy's number one submarine warfare training center, corral a darling wife and three children , compete at semi-pro card tournaments, and try to keep up with contemporary arts and entertainment like "Dexter" and "Star Wars: The Old Republic" and such.
I guess my point is, you should show some appreciate for my precious time. And cough up some tuition money , based on the signal to noise ration that is my discourse with you on this site.
Another wet-behind-the-ears 20-something college student ...
Go figure...
Well, like they say, if you're not a liberal in your 20's you don't have a heart, if you're not a conservative by 30, you don't have a brain.
Seriously, it seems the ONLY argument atheists (actually, anti-relgious bigots) have against Christianity is ridicule, and that's a fallacy.
Perhaps you should go discuss something else? History has shown that your anti-religious ideas are reprehensible and horrible, especially when practiced. You may wish to do a google search for "Holocaust." Then look up a few of your fellow atheists' achievements: Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Tse Tung, Idi Amin, to name a few.
Liberals like to recite the tired old lie that most wars are fought over religion , but seem to ignore the fact that most mass-murderers are atheists. Just from the list above, at least 100 million to 200 million murdered over the religion of atheism . Satan must be very proud of his spawn...
The_Pilgrim
I'm 35 on the 31st. I have 15 years of active military service and a combined 22 years of active parenting service, not counting raising myself a few years.
Not that more 20-somethings than not are going to be quite able to manuever around your barrage of nonsense...
You are not a conservative. Conservatives would put brains before heart, even metaphorically, and the respectable ones would not rely on cliche to justify their entire way of thinking. Liberal's don't extol sentiment and spirituality over intelligence and intellectuality either.
Maybe you should study something beside fortune cookies and church fliers?
The Holocaust had nothing to do with athiesm politically or philosophically, and major lobbies sue people for defaming the event that way. Conversely, athiesm is a sometime attribute of revolutionary efforts because the insurgents typically need to extricate their comrades from the conventional dogma's in order to succeed. Incidently, it is historically known that "the masses" are frequently willing to discard their religious particulars for their own good, even when not under real duress (interestingly, the Mongols were very progressive in this way). This is all besides the questions of wether god exists or wether god is worthy of our attention; speaking of fallacy.
If you ever took care, you might realize that those millions that were killed were not killed in war , and most wars have at least ostensibly (which is significant considering the politics of war) been motivated or justified by religious controversy or edict. The fact that the enlightenment happened, and that the modern explosion in population coincided with widespread secularity really has nothing to do with worship or the lack there of in counties where these genocidal activities occured.
Despite this constantly repeated antithesis, no one can find any demonstration of any mass- murderer , tyrant, or warlord trying to justify their actions with atheism (although existential angst and even suicides abound) and many cases of religion being used to justify these actions. This criteria is central to the periodicity and transition from the dark ages (and equivalent periods out of the occident). If you want to blame someone for most death , you should look to the gods; more so than their spokesmen I should think.
Atheism is not a religion. The semantical position that it is is not only nonsensical, but erodes whatever meaning there is to religion itself. Most atheists in history have been philosphers and pacifists, and most today are at least socially progressive, but whatever spirituality self-described atheists have, it does not come from their atheism but in spite of it. That is the difference between a nihilist (still a far cry from your silly Satan spawn idea) and a realist.
What authority, I wonder, supports your interjection of Satan into this discourse? If you would read the bible , you would find that not only does he not get a lot of camera time, but he somewhat distanced from any real action, where as all the genocide, murder , rape , and destruction are committed by/for zealots, angels and god. Is there some other book that describes all this nonsense about Satan that dogmatic fools take for granted based on their time in Sunday school ?
Another series of appeals to ridicule and a few other assorted fallacies including gainsaying... I suppose I could point them out, but the fact that you used them would make that seem to be a waste of time.
When you are able to form a logical argument, please, come back and see me.
The_Pilgrim
I guess my only comment is that "Denial" isn't a river in Egypt...
The_Pilgrim