The Atheist Spot

There is a new service out called the Atheist Spot. It is an article rating system similar to Digg, but exclusively for Atheists. As someone who is frustrated year after year by the fact that there's nowhere for an Atheist to get some food on Christmas, it's nice to see that someone has made something just for us.

I'll be adding some of my articles over there so if you like something I write, please feel free to go to The Atheist Spot and vote it up. And, while you're there, look around, because there's a lot of great Atheist content on there and it's only going to get better as the site grows.

www.AtheistSpot.com

Atheism in Communist nations

The religious have a tendency to tout Stalin, Polpot and other communists as evidence that Atheism is evil and does more harm than religion. They look to the wrongs perpetrated by communist nations in general as a sign of the dangers of atheism. The problem with that reasoning, of course, is that the people of these nations are in no way atheists. These people do not just one day say “The communists have taken over, now we can stop pretending to be religious and show our atheism to the world!” No, their ability to practice their religion is a right that is stripped from them just like all their other rights.

See, Communism is like fascism in that it stresses a nationalist agenda above all else. The practicing of religion is banned because there should be nothing held in higher regard than the Homeland. As the Abrahamic God commanded that “Thou Shalt Not Worship False Idols,” He, Himself has been deemed a false idol in the eyes of Communist dictators who seek to establish complete control over their people. Worship none but the Homeland.

Let’s take a look at America’s stance on communism over the past 60 years, shall we?

Nearly the moment the Communists took control of Russia, we in America were Anti-Communist. We had a cold war with the USSR that lasted half a century. In the fifties, people’s lives and careers were ruined in Joe McCarthy’s communist witch-hunt. I’ve often wondered what the big deal was. It was, after all, membership in a political party. There was nothing illegal about belonging to a particular political party, was there? On continued our hatred of the “Ruskies.” We were determined to prove that democracy was better, that we could advance more. We developed the Nuke first, triggering a half-century-long arms race. We raced them to the moon. When a volley ball-sized satellite called Sputnik was launched into space by the Russians in 1957, we panicked. They got to space before us.

When the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, it was a great day for Democracy...Communism had been defeated! Hooray! But, wait...there were still over a billion communists! We had forgotten about China, a gigantic, powerful, populous nation...a communist nation...with Nukes! Surely, the cold war wasn’t over? We still had to protect the world from the 1/6th of the population that was still communist, right?

Apparently not.

It seems that our problem with Communism really only stretched as far as the Soviet Union. Why, though? Why, once the Soviet Union was dissolved, did we no longer seem to see Communism as such an ever-present threat? Because communists are not atheists.

I know that seems like shoddy logic, but allow me to explain. Russians were, prior to the Communists taking power, Christians. They had very devout orthodox and protestant churches. Stalin and his cronies saw the worship of God as a threat to their power--you cannot control the people if they answer to a higher power. So they took that higher power away from the people. The practice of religion was banned. Of course, these are people of faith. They worshipped in secret or at least within the confines of their minds. For proof of this, you need look no further than modern-day Russia. Putin has been systematically trying to control the practice of religion, shutting down protestant churches and creating the Russian Orthodox Church as the de facto official religion. These denominations began showing up very shortly after the fall of Communism. Did a nation of Atheists decide to find God because their political situation had changed? Was there something inherently Christian about Democracy? Well, that’s what the religious right would have you believe. The real answer, of course, is that the religion was always there. It never went away, it just went into hiding. When a political atmosphere arrived that would not persecute the religious, it was once again safe to practice religion publicly.

China is a different story. When China became a Communist nation, religion was similarly banned, suppressed and persecuted. But, on the whole, it was not Christianity being persecuted. It was Buddhism, Taoism, and Chinese Folk Religion. Those people are already going to Hell, so Communism is okay in that circumstance, see? Communism is bad when it stops Christians from worshipping the Christian God.

Of course, all throughout China, people still practice their religion, though they are “officially” atheist. To call a communist government atheist is like saying that, if America were to officially become a Christian nation, with Christianity mandated, that I would be a Christian. Not on your life.




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I Believe in License Plates

The AP today is reporting that a Florida group called Faith In Teaching Inc. is pushing for a specialty plate depicting a cross and a stained glass window with the legend “I Believe.” (See Above).

There seems to be a bit of a hubbub over this, as might be expected. The ACLU, among others, see it as a violation of the separation of church and state, an endorsement of Christianity by a constitutionally secular government. I, for one, am vehemently opposed to “In God We Trust” on our legal tender, as well as “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance--but I am not opposed to this license plate, necessarily. First of all, the plates would be paid for by the people paying the extra fee to use them, not with tax dollars. Secondly, the phrase “I Believe” is a personal statement, clearly reflecting the views of the owner of the vehicle and no one else. Lastly, I don’t feel that it can be construed as the state endorsing Christianity anymore than the state endorses large mouth bass, Nascar, soccer, John Lennon or any one of the many sports teams in Florida.

Where I do have a problem, however, is that the bill that would approve this plate would also approve one bearing the legend “In God We Trust.” Here, I have o problem with “In,” “God” or “Trust.” I have a problem with “We.” “We” clearly indicates more than an individual. It could just mean the people in the car. It could, however, also mean “we, the people of Florida.” Individual expression of religion on a license plate is fine with me, “we” gets into the gray area wherein it can be construed that the state is endorsing a religion.

Furthermore, the State Representative who is sponsoring the plate, Rep. Edward Bullard, states that he would oppose an Atheist equivalent, with a slogan like “I Don’t Believe.”

Bullard, an Episcopalian Democrat of Florida’s 118th District, says that people who "believe in their college or university" or "believe in their football team" already have license plates they can buy. The new design is a chance for others to put a tag on their cars with "something they believe in." Yet, apparently, Atheists are not counted as a group whose beliefs are as important as your average Dolphins fan. I find it troubling that an Atheist such as myself, who is vociferously opposed to any breach of the government’s secularism, can be willing to accept this license plate, while a man who took an oath to uphold the constitution and its secular nature is not capable of reciprocating in kind.

I have the number to Rep. Bullard’s Tallahassee office and will be giving him a call tomorrow to discuss this, if I can get through to him personally.