George Orwell on Embittered Atheists

Steve Martin: "Atheists Don't Have No Songs"

Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers tried to bridge the gap between seemingly insurmountable points with their tune "Atheists Don't Have No Songs".  

G.K. Chesterton on Gratitude

Faithful Simile for Constitution Day?

h/t: Dixon Diaz

Cultural Catalysts Clash on Social Media Debating the Disposition of Down's Syndrome Children

Richard Dawkins, the acclaimed atheist ethologist from Oxford University stirred up a cyclone of controversy on social media with a Twitter posting on the morality of aborting a Down's Syndrome child in-utero.  When someone commented that she would not know what she would do if she were pregnant with a child having an extra chromosome, Dawkins doubled down on his "progressive position".  Dawkins answering like "Dear Abby (the atheist edition)" wrote: “Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.”  So abortion was not only an option for "The God Delusion" author, Dawkins demands that it is immoral for women to deliver a child afflicted with Down's Syndrome.

Reading Dawkins declarations closely, it is quite revealing of his weltanschauung.  As an atheist, Dawkins does not draw  from any moral compass. So it is not surprising that he liberally latches unto "an individual woman's right to choose. Later referring to a fetus as "it", Dawkins detaches personhood from an unborn child. Dawkins pontificating that the only moral choice is to kill a defective child ought to please both Social Darwinists (survival of the fittest) and the ironically named humanists (the banner which binds British atheists activists).

Two things should trouble the intelligentsia from Dawkins Down's Syndrome declarations. Firstly, Dawkins prefaced the right of women for early abortions, not abortion on demand until childbirth. So it seems at some point personhood is bestowed on an unborn fetus.  Or is abortion just less mentally messy when the victim does not look like an unborn child.  The other aspect which can be inferred from "Abort it and try again" aspires for a utopian perfection in offspring.  Such a callous attitude can easily devolve into getting rid of undesirable elements in society, be it physically deformed, mentally challenged or part of an undesirable group.

Sadly, Dawkins Social Darwinism for Down's Syndrome children seems prevalent in the United Kingdom.  Currently, 92% of pregnant women diagnosed with Down's Syndrome children aborted their unborn children. Moreover, half of all such cases go unreported. There are concerns that if the National Health System (NHS) expands the super accurate Ariosa Harmony testing, this figure will become nearly total, especially if NHS threatens to withhold special care for Down's Syndrome children.

It did not take long for former Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK) to respond to Dawkin's dialectic. Palin famously campaigned for Vice President in 2008 with her young son Trig, who has Down's Syndrome. Palin took her seven years of experience being a mother of a Down's Syndrome Child when she reached out to Richard Dawkins via Facebook. 

. Palin's folksy riposte to Dawkins displays a positive sense of humanity that the learned professor lacks.  In addition, Ms. Palin's Facebook posting alludes to her Down's Syndrome child as having a unique kind of absolute beauty.  This echos Governor Palin's peroration when speaking before a Right to Life Conference.

Many will dismiss the message as it came from Sarah Palin, who our "intellectual betters" from academia and the media deemed as dumb "Caribou Barbie". Yet Palin's testimony rings true and advocates valuing the individual  whereas Dawkin's tweets sound abstract and collectivist.

Even though Dawkins may have coined the concept of memes, however Sarah Palin has perfected the social media tactic. Palin dubbed Obamacare IPABs as Death Panels to deftly defending Down's Syndrome children.

So as these cultural catalysts clash on social media, perhaps it can bring us to understand how we approach ourselves and society.  Our we driven by the selfish gene as Dawkins theorized in genetics or can we inculcate altruism? Palin preaches that mothers should be open to Downs Syndrome children, but is that openness a moral imperative?

Penn Jillette on Religion

 Strong believer Glenn Beck discusses religion and the Founding Fathers with atheist Penn Jillette.  

 

Atheists Fight to Forbid High School Wrestlers from Wearing Shirts with Bible Verse

For over a decade, wrestlers from the Parkersville South (West Virginia) High School have chosen to wear shirts which bear the scriptural verse: "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me."  This motto was also emblazoned on the team's website.

After a complaint from the Wisconsin based Freedom from Religion Foundation, Wood County (WV) School Superintendent Pat Law, demanded that the team take the motto off their web presence, but for the time being the students can continue to voluntarily wear the shirts. It was prudent for the grapplers to take the verse off their website so that there is no question about the separation of church and state.  But the privately funded tee shirts with the empowering message are another story altogether.

The school is concerned about agitation from aggressive atheist groups who want to wipe any expression of Christian faith from the public square, while balancing the rights of citizens.
Even though the Parkersburg South wrestlers had been voluntarily wearing these shirts (paid for by parent boosters), the school system rolled at the raising of one complaint.  Presumably this was to avoid costly law suits.  It is dubious if the Wood County will dare to bar other t-shirts which others might find "offensive".

The Freedom from Religion Foundation proclaim that it "works as an umbrella for those who are free from religion and are committed to the cherished principle of separation of state and church." Yet their news over the past three months only consists of Judeo-Christian agitation.  No mention is made on the FFRF website about the many municipal accommodations which are made for Muslims. None of their current lawsuits tackle topics like the incorporation of Sharia law, New York schools taking days off for Muslim religions holidays, public foot washes etc.  Their fight to enforce the separation of church and state could be given more credence if it took on those troubling topics instead of just being contrarians curmudgeons against Judeo-Christian traditions.

Even though the Parkersburg South wrestlers had been voluntarily wearing these shirts (paid for by parent boosters), the school system rolled at the raising of one complaint.  Presumably this was to avoid costly law suits.

[***]

Aside from the outcomes of games, high school sports teach valuable lessons. The Parkersburg South Wrestling kerfluffle demonstrates that a lone dissenting voice can overcome an empowering message with the quisling support of a politically correct administrator.  The Plymouth/Canton bleacher imbroglio exemplifies that a politically correct America will enforce equality at all costs and the PC government  can override and rip out privately funded improvements to make its point.

SEE MORE at DistrictofCalamity.com

Divining Fault Lines With the Fairer Sex?

Several years ago, Iranian imam Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, a rival to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadejad, gave a special sermon for the Friday Noon prayer.  Kazem Sedighi criticized women for dressing immodestly and behaving promiscuously for causing earthquakes   and that Iranian women needed to adopt their lives to Islamic codes lest they be buried in the rubble. 

This  unusual intellectual interruption inspired some satire in the belly of the beast of Iran's arch-nemesis --America.

"Boobquake" agitator Jen McCreight in 2010

Sedighi's  inflammatory opinion about feminine wiles widening the fault lines for tectonic temblors also shook up Western feminists.  In 2010, Jennifer McCreight was a skeptical atheist senior at Purdue University, who suggested organizing a "Boobquake" in reaction to the imam's sermon.  

 McCreight urged readers of her blog to dress in immodest clothing on April 26, 2010 to represent "Boobquake".  It was postulated that so much concentrated female immodesty would either trigger a trembler or that "...Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn't rumble." Well the ground did not rumble despite an estimated 200,000 women world-wide participating.   At Purdue, the male spectators outnumbered the women with risque couture. 

Pat Robertson

Sedighi is not the only prominent religious figure who have been blowhards which equate natural disasters with divine retribution. In 2011, Pat Robertson said on the 700 Club  that the massive earthquake in Haiti was prompted by voodoo doctors who enlisted Satan's help to be liberated from French rule two centuries before.  Robertson also claimed that God sent super-storm Sandy in 2012 to prevent America from electing a Mormon. 

Atheists are unmoved by scripture and Islam tends to take a different tact of Judeo-Christian eschatology, but perceiving God as a hairy thunderer is counter to my understanding  salvific history of a God of both divine justice as well as mercy that is unfathomable for humans.

There is the Noahic covenant, when Yahweh promised not to destroy humanity in a flood, especially to eradicate sin as man is born with a wicked heart.  This would seem to cover a hurricane or even a super-storm as an instrument of divine justice. 

Also consider how scripture conveys how Moses eased the divine wrath after the Golden Calf incident.  Of course, there was some consequence for diverted sin sentences. God's chosen people had to wander in the desert for 40 years (which symbolically seemed like an eternity), and Moses was never able to set foot in the Promised Land.  And man's sin had to be redeemed in a blood sacrifice where the innocent blood of God's only son was shed to buy our eternal freedom. 

Perhaps it is easier for Fire and Brimstone preachers of many faith persuasions to attach calls to piety with natural disasters or claim divine wrath.  Moreover, targeting the fairer sex as the cause for sinful behavior which sparks divine retribution seems primitive.

As  believers of "The Way", we should make the Earth shake with the love of Jesus. But the heaven wrath motif makes punchier copy and better laugh lines for cynics.