World News Korner

A little inconvenient truth for Atheists and Liberals. We think we are winning, but we are losing.

This comes to us courtesy of Alternet:

We are winning the wrong game!

We are losing the right game. We are winning the cultural war, but the Christian Right is winning in the race to control the levers of power. They hold the keys to our democracy, while we have clever bumper stickers, funny t-shirts, and books that deride virgin births and angry sky gods. The soldiers of God are playing a game that can only be described as Jedi Knight-ish. Meanwhile, we are being made to look juvenile, bellicose, and down right moronic. The Christian Right is ripping our arms off at the shoulder and then slapping us in the face with the soggy bits. It’s embarrassing, and if this were a football game the scoreboard would read: Christian right –120 versus free thinkers – 3. Someone invoke the mercy rule! Also, I hate football metaphors.

You see, all around this great country, atheists are meeting in cafes, living rooms and Holiday Inn conference rooms to meet, share donuts and talk about how we can remove “In God We Trust” from the dollar bill; and how best we deal with removing “One nation under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, in an attempt to reverse the sneaky-handed 1954 bill pushed through congress in 1954 by Christian zealot President Eisenhower. We protest home school conventions; any display of the Ten Commandments; and there are even atheist groups who file lawsuits every winter in their respective cities to ensure nothing but the secular “meaning” of Christmas is promoted.

Look, all these actions are fine with me but, let’s be honest, they make us look like assholes. And frankly, if you’re filing legal action to prevent others from declaring, “Merry Christmas”, then you most definitely are an asshole!

What’s worse is that atheists are wasting far too much intellectual and emotional energy on battles that lack real political gain or consequence. In other words, we’re taking pot shots at an ideological enemy that’s out of range and forward marching in another direction, and where they’re dropping their ordinance is hurting us. Greatly! While we are busy playing the role of the nation’s police force for political correctness, they are gerrymandering voting districts to ensure they regain and maintain control of the levers of congressional and gubernatorial power.

While we chant, “Keep the Bible out of the classroom”, they are helping legislate voter ID laws that disenfranchise millions of black, Hispanic, and student voters. While we demand a removal of God from the Pledge of Allegiance, they are stacking the courts with their ideological judicial wingnuts. While we are correcting Christmas carolers with, “Happy Holidays”, they are mobilizing to ensure money buys them judges, congressmen and governors, which not only protects the interests of big corporations at the expense of the little guy, but will also protect the interests of the Christian Right – namely, putting an end to the gay, secular, liberal agenda, and, in turn, setting gender and racial equality back 50 years.

Poll after poll shows that a majority of Americans favor liberal policies, but our courts and legislatures are increasingly becoming controlled and driven by the Christian Right. Their victories are having a far more reaching impact on our lives and our secular democratic values than our small-minded wins to remove the 10 Commandments from some hick town’s courthouse.

Dare I say "Amen?"

He is exactly right.

Our numbers may be growing, and perhaps the future is ours for the taking, but today the battles are being fought in school boards, town assemblies, and political backrooms all of the country and not only are we losing, we don't even have any soldiers on the field.

One of the purposes of this blog is to demonstrate both the harm that fundamentalist religions do in the country, but the other is to demonstrate that one can be a good, loving, and moral person without religion.

Believe it or not there are a great number of people in this country who flat out do not believe that is possible. And before we can be leaders we have to accepted as actual human beings first.

After all how many out of the closet Atheist Congressmen do you know?

Time is on our side, the erosion of religion is happening all around us, and the conservative movement is literally dying out, but we also have to prepare for the potentially devastating damage caused by the death throes of a group that has long held ultimate power in this country, and which will do ANYTHING it has to in order to hang onto it as long as possible.

There are going to be some rather serious conflicts. Some political, some intellectual, and perhaps more than a few, even physical.

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