Atheists UNITE to Fight the RRR Cult. Will this awaken Actual Christians to the need to JOIN them against that common foe?

E. Iowa atheists speak up.

They unite to fight sway of religion over government.

by Molly Rossiter
The Cedar Rapids Gazette

Jaime Sabel and her husband, Brian, started Iowa Secularists in 2004 to form ‘‘a community of non-believers’’ in the Iowa City area. Now their non-profit organization has 150 members statewide and 50 more on mailing lists. They are part of a growing group of atheists across the country becoming more vocal fighting what they call a budding ‘‘theocracy,’’ caused by an increase in religious issues they say are being injected into government.

Made up mostly of atheists Jaime Sabel Started Iowa Secularists and agnostics, Sabel said, Iowa Secularists has provided a forum to ‘‘fight for the separation of church and state.’’

‘‘Last year there was proposed legislation that didn’t go anywhere saying that the Pledge (of Allegiance) had to be recited, and those who didn’t want to say it had to keep a respectful silence,’’ said Sabel, 29, of Iowa City.

‘‘That was in contrast to what atheists and secularists in general want to keep separate. I think secularists are more aware of what they have to lose because of this push by the religious right.’’ According to a new study by the Barna Research Group, about 9 percent of the American population, or roughly 20 million people, openly identify themselves as an atheist, agnostic or having "no faith." Of those, 56 percent say radical Christianity is a threat to the United States.

Meanwhile, 63 percent of Christians perceive the nation is becoming more hostile and negative toward Christianity.

‘From many points of view, the militant atheists and the militant evangelicals are peas in a pod — they both advance an array of question-begging arguments and act uncharitably toward their opponents,’’ said Howard Rhodes, a University of Iowa professor of religion, ethics and politics.

‘‘Given that most of the underlying issues are political, this kind of public discussion runs the risk of undermining essential aspects of democracy. Each side seems to say the other is not welcome in this society.’’ Membership in organizations geared toward non-believers is rising, and books touting the non-existence of God, such as ‘‘The God Delusion,’’ are hitting best-seller lists across the country. ‘

‘The fact that many educated persons of a certain class simply regard theism as unbelievable is not new,’’ Rhodes said. ‘‘What is new is the fact that many of them have felt compelled to denounce aggressively and in public the beliefs of their fellow theistic citizens.’’ Kirkwood for Reason, a student group for atheists, agnostics and secularists at Kirkwood Community College, is in its first year with 14 active members. Chairman Mike Ireland, 26, has started a Secular Student Alliance chapter on campus, as well. ‘‘A certain amount of the momentum can be attributed to a response to the increased pressure fundamentalist Christians are putting on government,’’ Ireland said.

Lydia Hartunian, faculty adviser for Kirkwood for Reason, has just started a nonprofit group, Iowa Atheist Alliance.

‘‘When President Bush got re-elected, the country seemed to be more divided. Now it is kind of a war between whether we want to be a theocracy or whether we want to be a secularized nation as the founders intended,’’ said Hartunian, who teaches humanities and philosophy at the Cedar Rapids community college.

• Contact the writer: (319) 398-8288 or molly.rossiter@gazettecommunications.com.

COMMENTARY

This blog supports the religions (or lack thereof) of ALL people, including atheists. The only thing we oppose in that regard is when thoughtless and hateful people use it as an excuse to attempt to discriminate against any people or groups, or deny or erode civil/human rights and personal liberties.

So this is a microcosm of a very interesting new development. Atheists, who have mostly been without much in the way of organizations, are now beginning to come together all over America in a dramatic fashion to oppose bigotry. It's not just happening in Iowa!

Fascinatingly, most atheists, just like an incredibly large number of normal (actual) Christians, are amazingly unaware of the huge dichotomy that exists between two groups of professing Christians. MOST of society has no idea that in the USA, professing Christians exist as (1) actual Christians who are mostly everyone's quiet, sensible, unobtrusive, tolerant, relatively-intelligent, work-a-day and egalitarian next-door neighbors. Fully 94% of the USA's professing Christians, and the group to which I belong... and (2) the pseudo-Christians and low-IQ propaganda-brainwashed actual Christians, and their cunning and deceitful leaders, who together comprise the RRR Cult... the "Religious" Radical Right. Only a mere 6% of Americans who profess Christianity. But they comprise one very obnoxious, control-freakish, busybodyish, rights-disrespecting and -hating, high-profile, strident, and noisome faction. America hasn't been infested with a more dangerous crowd of bigoted losers since the agendas of the segregationists swirled down the Drain of Extinction over 40 years ago. And they are so much like the segregationists, in terms of their level of abject ignorance, hatefulness, and warped mindset against legitimate liberties as to be downright scary.

I mean -- didn't America outgrow such abject stupidity when the segregationists either grew up or crawled into closets, to defend themselves against public scorn? Tragically, I don't think we did. Sadly, I'm afraid that when Jerry Falwell started the so-called "Moral Majority" (to his everlasting disgrace!), a million or more former segregationists, still as ignorant and hateful as ever, scurried over there and found a new home! NOW they could have a NEW and more "respectable" ste of targets for their vitriolic hate: women and gays. The RRR Cult is a repressive crowd of losers in many ways, but their primary goals are to destroy forever the right of girls and women to have safe and legal access to the hugely-beneficial remedy for the unwanted medical condition of ill-timed pregnancy -- the reversal of that condition. Abortion. Despite the fact that:

Reproductive-Process Entities (RPEs) : People :: Acorns : Oak Trees

And to deprive homosexuals of the SAME rights that heterosexuals have with respect to housing, the workplace, military service, and to marry their partner of choice. (Nothing in the Constitution governs the gender composition of married couples.) The RRR Cult lyingly calls all of those equal rights "special" rights, when it's homosexuals who are seek them. How ludicrous and stupid! And the RRR Cult leaders' lemmings swallow all of that mindless and hateful tripe, hook, line, and sinker!

Homosexuality is merely a variation of NORMALCY. Just like handedness, race, and eye color. It takes a very ignorant person to seek to discriminate against anyone on the basis of any such variations.

Fortunately for America, society is awakening to their idiotic bigotries, and is starting to fight back, as we saw in the story above. And it's a good thing, too! UNchallenged, the RRR Cult -- the USA's very own home-grown version of the TALIBAN -- could be gravely dangerous to America and it's future. They would absolutely love to turn this nation into a tyrannical theocracy, no matter how much they may pretend to be patriotic.

Consider this. 83% of Americans profess Christianity. 6% of them (the RRR) works out to be just 5% of the nation's population as a whole. And as long as that cult survives to infest society, we must keep THIS analogy in mind:

RRR Cult : Society :: 5% Arsenic solution : Glass of drinking water

So BRAVO to the atheists, who recognize this awful threat, and are organizing to oppose it! May they become very effective in achiving this goal. But while they are doing it, they need to remember that they are not fighting "Christians." The 94% of us that are their good and fair-minded neighbors. They are fighting a small percentage of pseudo-Christian bigots who lyingly claim to be Christian, but couldn't be more UN-Christian in the way they behave.

MEANWHILE, it's time for the actual Christians to awaken to the threat, and JOIN the atheists against this common enemy. There are 250,000,000 of us in America. And there are 20 million atheists and agnostics. For a total of 270 million. And those of other faiths can join us. 15 million more. For a total of 285 million, opposing the RRR Cult's mere 15 million. Together, we can easily relegate the RRR's loathsome agendas to the dustbin of history, to moulder with those of the segregationists, overnight! The time for apathy is over. It's time to spread the word, and educate society (which mostly is comprised of actual Christians who don't know these facts yet) about this. It's time for a call to arms against America's liberty-hating internal Taliban.