The Future of our Beautiful Christian Nation by Dane Andrade

reposted from: http://www.daneandrade.com/2007/09/04/31/

September 4th, 2007 by Dane Andrade

“We began with freedom.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every day I read the latest articles railing and whining against the secular movements. Every day I read the same re-hashed arguments, the same tones, the same expressions of absolute faith and truth. I read that secularists are ruining America, I read that the Atheists are militant, dogmatic, and fundamentalists in their own right. I read that this country is a Christian nation, and be damned if you don’t agree.

Every article about atheism starts the same exact way:

“Atheism is getting a good press these days, but under false pretenses.”
“Fundamentalist Atheists are on the rise…”
“The only people more hard-headed than religious fundamentalists might just be
secularists.”
“A rash of atheist bestsellers…”
“Atheism has nearly always been with us in one form or another, but the atheists we’ve been hearing the most from lately—chiefly Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris—are a new breed.”
“A trio of atheist book sellers…”
“Militant atheists are on the march…”
“Although not yet organized into a marching army, we can identify a posse forming around malcontents such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris.”
“Atheist tracts are everywhere these days…”

This is it? There is nothing more truthful so far in this battle then the simple fact that a good rebuttal has not been made. Period. Nothing. Theists have offered nothing except attempts to keep their flock intact by simplifying the positions to pre-19th century levels. Of course an atheist is wrong, no matter what he says, because God is real. The articles take on the same kind of rhetoric and senseless repetitive phrases that mid 20th century propagandists excelled.

The arguments that are formed with any coherency are usually detailed with the express assumption that one must first be delusional to understand it, one must first believe wholeheartedly, then whatever I say will make sense.

This kind of sensationalism scare tactic works, for now. Keeping the general public scared and thinking that atheism has been defeated since the dawn of time, with the words, let there be light.

Well my belligerent theist friends, you are wrong. Allow me to make some things very clear to you…

Let there be light indeed. We are here. We do not believe in your god, or any gods, and we must certainly do not believe this country is a Christian Nation. We don’t think it is an atheist nation either. We think it is a fair nation, a compromising and promising experiment in man made governance. There is no divine right, and there is no state religion. Every person is allowed to worship or not worship as he sees fit. I’m sorry this upsets you. I’m sorry that we have to come out of the woodwork to stop the encroaching insanity. I’m sorry the idea of us marching on Washington is enough to get you all up in arms, heaven forbid you can’t live and let live. No.

You aren’t happy until other parents children are learning the nonsense you think makes the world work. You aren’t happy until your version of right and wrong is imposed on the country. You aren’t happy until your neighbors have converted, their children attending Jesus Camp, and the morning classroom opens up with the some protestant declaration and statement of evangelical faith.

You aren’t happy until life is defined as cytoplasm, and a person’s dignity is shred from them as they lay dying, with their shit shoveled from their ass every morning in a vegetative state. You aren’t happy until other countries are subdued, converted, and speaking the name of Jesus, your man god. You aren’t happy unless every leader in the public sphere believes how you do. You aren’t happy unless your marriage is justified by blocking of marriages that don’t match your Christian formula.

You aren’t happy until science declares only that god exists, and that anything scholarly that denies it is wrong.

…and here my dearest Christian friends is the kicker. You still won’t be happy. As the tide of melting freedoms starts to pit denomination versus denomination, congregation versus congregation, church against church, some of you might actually rebel openly against the destruction of the wisdom of our sacred secularity.

As other countries start to grow stronger economically and technologically, your staunch Christian defined patriotism might not be enough to hold this country as a superpower for long.

What then? Slip back into the origins of what made this country so beautiful? Hardly. That isn’t how divine leadership works. Slowly but surely, every family will feel the pressure, the fall in the global pecking order, and the pressure to return to greatness will thrust us further into a theocracy.

“Why am I angry” you might ask… “why am I a “militant” atheist?”

I’ll tell you. It is Because I am fighting for your rights as well, and you hate me for it.