From: bskendig@netcom.com (Brian Kendig)
Subject: Re: Atheists should mind their own damn business
Organization: Starfleet Headquarters: San Francisco
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 16:52:19 GMT

harry@timesink.chi.il.us (Harold Platypus) writes:
>I don't have anything against atheists really... just leave me and
>my world alone. If you don't like "In God We Trust" on US Currency,
>don't look for it - ya know it's there.

'Scuze me?

This is OUR world too, buddy.  How would you feel if US currency bore
the words "God Does Not Exist"?  Wouldn't you get a little riled?
Wouldn't you be the least bit annoyed that the stuff you're paid with,
the stuff that you pay taxes with, indeed the very stuff that
practically runs your life bears a completely pointless statement that
flies in the face of what you believe?  Money would still be money
without this statement; why oh why did they ever put it on?

I wish I could boycott money because of this, but I can't.  Doesn't
mean I have to like it, though, or that I can't try to right the wrong.

>If a religious symbol in a
>municipal seal is offensive to you, don't seek it out... After all
>it's not a blinking neon sign in your face, you have to look for it.

Again, try turning the tables.  If your county seal bore a bas-relief
of Mohammed supplicating to Allah and an Islamic benediction, wouldn't
you be just a a little annoyed?  In this country, a government is
supposed to represent the people it governs -- and when it displays
religious symbols in places as obvious as this, it isn't.

You're free to hold whatever religious beliefs you want to.  However,
you are *not* free to saturate every part of society with these
beliefs.  I don't want my government to spend my tax money on a glitzy
public nativity scene.  I don't, in fact, want my government to spend
any money at all promoting Christian myth; if a church wants to have a
nativity scene, then it can put one up, on its own property, with its
own money.  (But then again, churches don't have to pay taxes, another
wrong which I hope is righted someday.)

>If a book or movie or anything in my environment offends my
>sensibilities, I try to ignore it. Why do y'all have to stir up shit... 
>Most of us kinda like "In God We Trust" on the currency. It's kinda
>folksy and quaint, whether you believe it or not. Just look at it
>as if it were saying "When things are going down the toilet, and we
>can't stand to blame ourselves, we trust in God... 'cuz if there
>ain't one, we're all fucked!". That should put a new face on it...

Yeah, and a few decades ago it was "Most of us aren't black," and
these days it's "Most of us aren't gay."  You're defending your point
with "Most of us aren't atheist."  It's not folksy and quaint, it's
superstitious and wrong.  I don't trust in God.  I used to, many years
ago, but I went through such misery as a result that I learned my
lesson well.

-- 
_/_/_/  Brian Kendig                             Je ne suis fait comme aucun
/_/_/  bskendig@netcom.com                de ceux que j'ai vus; j'ose croire
_/_/                            n'etre fait comme aucun de ceux qui existent.
  /  Nolite te bastardes     Si je ne vaux pas mieux, au moins je suis autre.
 /  carborundorum.                                               -- Rousseau