Atheist Meditations

This morning on Google News I saw this: "Sharpton Remark on Faith was Bigoted." Rev Sharpton, who 'led the attack on poor Don Imus', is 'now in the cross-hairs himself.' While having a rather informal, sit down style debate with Christopher Hitchens (an Atheist, but someone whose political opinions have drifted . . . basically, I think he's a literary gun for hire. Few on the hard right have the skills to opine in favor of the Iraq War in front of a hostile crowd. C H has those skills, honed to an arrogantly fine edge), Rev Sharpton said something about 'those who really believe in Gawd.' Governor Romney's team wasted no time playing the 'Offended Christian' card.

Here's my thoughts, as I delay going to work this morning.

Listening to CNN's pundits talk about 'the problem here is we don't have the whole context of his statement.' Oh really? You can't, as a major 24 hour 'news' program, have an intern track down the transcript of that debate and take ten minutes to read it? Obviously the whole damn thing was filmed. The problem is that modern pundits can't put any thing into context. That is a critical skill practiced by real journalists, purposefully lacking on the cable networks.

Secondly, does this lame fiasco mean that all Atheists are bigots? Mr. Romney seems to be able to allege the victim stance just because someone may have questioned the legitimacy of his religious faith, yet to an Atheist no religion is legitimate and Mormonism is one of the more blatantly rediculous. Divine texts that vanished whenever they were critically questioned, polygamy, Brigham Young? Five million followers or not, it's still a funny belief system.

I don't get the controversy. Clearly Al Sharpton is being held to a different standard than any other religious leader. Evangelikals accuse Jews and 'weak' Christians of worshiping the wrong god. Catholics have long been disparaged by proddies as having fallen into a confusion of latin mumbo jumbo, of having lost the true meaning of Jesus' message. Ten minutes of 'Christian' radio will give you ten examples of 'we're real Christians, these other groups are wrong.'

As Atheism is Self-Evident, many religious belief systems are a house of cards. To a house a cards, even a breath - even the spoken word - can be devastating. The Fragile Construct must be defended at all times. Surround oneself with fellow believers, condemn critical thinking, we see this behavior over and over again.