Thursday, October 26, 2006

Atheists Are People Too... Right?

Newsweek contains a column called "BeliefWatch" which this week is devoted to atheists. Now, strike me dead for reading a rag like Newsweek, but this article is so offensive to atheists that it has raised my ire even beyond what Steve, "Lying Man" MacKay, or GWB could do. Here's the opening paragraph:
At lunch with Sam Harris, one is struck by how personable, how familiar he seems—a soft-spoken, thoughtful man with pleasant manners, a man who wrote two best-selling books while pursuing a degree in neuroscience. He is, in other words, an unlikely infidel.

Can you imagine the outcry if author Lisa Miller were writing about Christians, Jews or Muslims? Apparently the Newsweek ombudsperson is not too worried about the persecution of us little old godless unbelievers.

I have to put up with overt religious expression all the time - even proselytizing - and I find it offensive, but I keep my mouth shut and play nice. I've spent my whole life tiptoeing around not telling the rest of the kids that there's no Santa Claus because I thought it was bad manners, and yet there's no quid pro quo.

But that's all old hat. The Newsweek article takes the total disregard of unbelievers to new levels by implying that we're all rude, loud, thoughtless, stupid losers. If that's really what Newsweek readers believe, what's next, lynch mobs and lobotomies?

Well that's my rant for the day. I also sent a much more polite version of this to Newsweek. But I sure ain't buying another issue for a while.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm confused. My athiest friends have never had a problem with Santa. Do you view Santa as religious? If anything, I think Santa has had a part in taking religion out of Christmas.

Jay said...

Actually Santa Claus is what woke me up to the lies of religion! When my parents told me there was no santa and I asked why they would tell me such lies , they said it was to make things fun. I then realized, that it was not only santa and the easter bunny but god and jesus too. All told to people by some one older to make things fun and to pass along.

I'm not amused and it most definitely ain't "fun".

Graeme said...

I'm the same as Jay - when I realized that Santa and the Easter Bunny weren't real, it was suddenly obvious to me that God was in the same category. It was only later that I discovered that not everyone realized that.

Now, many people seem to think that "atheist" is one of the worst things you could call someone. People love to point out that Stalin was an atheist. Yes, perhaps he was, but remember, Osama bin Laden is far more dangerous than any atheist fighting for his "beliefs".

Anonymous said...

I just never saw God as true. It never made sense to me. I have studied religions very in depth, but there has never been anything to make me think that it was true. I wish it was true, I wish that God was looking after me and that there was a heaven, but that doesn't mean that it is true. Oh, and I don't have a problem with Santa and I celebrate Christmas because it is a nice, fun holiday. Just because I don't believe in God, doesn't mean I'm a monster.