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lunadelcorvo"At best, a throwback to primitivism -- at worst, unconstitutional political posturing and manipulation..."
An Atheist public policy group denounced Sunday's "Day of Prayer" by Southern governors as a political stunt which is exploiting an environmental tragedy in order to win votes and promote religion and as, incidentally, a clear violation of Christian biblical principles.
"At best, this is a bronze age response to disaster," declared Dr. Ed Buckner, President of American Atheists. "This is just another example of how some political leaders use religion to win votes, garner public sympathy, and lead people to believe that superstition trumps the need for good planning and responsible public policy. These governors are plainly hypocrites as defined, allegedly in words from Jesus, in Matthew 6:5-6."
The Governors of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, along with the lieutenant Governor of Florida, all issued proclamations declaring Sunday, June 27, 2010, a Day of Prayer and urged citizens to engage in religious ritual in hopes of finding a solution to the growing oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
"This is about as deep as you can get when it comes to promoting irrationality and faith-based superstition," added Dr. Buckner. "We have another example of public officials telling citizens when and how to pray, whether to pray, and what to pray for."
Dave Silverman, Vice President and Communications Director for American Atheists, said that prayer is never a suitable substitute for sound public policy, environmental safeguards, and sensible planning for catastrophic emergencies.
"I doubt that Jesus or some angel is suddenly going to descend from the sky with millions of feet of boom, or more barges to suck up the leaking oil," said Mr. Silverman. "If prayer really worked, why is it that so far, anyway, God seems to be ignoring the suffering all along the gulf?"
Dr. Buckner added, "Perhaps the politicians need to get up off their knees and spend more time mobilizing the resources to deal with this catastrophe. That should not include offering false hope or ridiculous suggestions for the people being affected by this event.”
Personally, while I certainly am in complete agreement with this denunciation of a backward and utterly unconstitutional thing, I am even more concerned and disgusted that it's even necessary. Honestly, these days, I find myself wondering with increasing trepidation, how the extremism building in the US can possibly be reconciled without massive violence, or at the very least, massive upheaval. It's not a pretty thought, but with the right/religious right so far over the sanity line, and the very real threats to our environment, our food supply, our health, our society- I just can't see it ending well.
AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a nationwide movement that defends civil rights for Atheists, Freethinkers and other nonbelievers; works for the total separation of church and state; and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.
AMERICAN ATHEISTS, INC.
http://www.atheists.org
http://www.americanatheist.org
American Atheists, Inc. PO BOX 158, Cranford, NJ 07016
Tel.: (908) 276-7300 Fax: (908) 276-7402
For more information, please contact:
Ed Buckner, President 908-499-9200 (cell) or 770-803-5353 (office/fax)
Dave Silverman, Communications Director 732-648-9333
An Atheist public policy group denounced Sunday's "Day of Prayer" by Southern governors as a political stunt which is exploiting an environmental tragedy in order to win votes and promote religion and as, incidentally, a clear violation of Christian biblical principles.
"At best, this is a bronze age response to disaster," declared Dr. Ed Buckner, President of American Atheists. "This is just another example of how some political leaders use religion to win votes, garner public sympathy, and lead people to believe that superstition trumps the need for good planning and responsible public policy. These governors are plainly hypocrites as defined, allegedly in words from Jesus, in Matthew 6:5-6."
The Governors of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, along with the lieutenant Governor of Florida, all issued proclamations declaring Sunday, June 27, 2010, a Day of Prayer and urged citizens to engage in religious ritual in hopes of finding a solution to the growing oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
"This is about as deep as you can get when it comes to promoting irrationality and faith-based superstition," added Dr. Buckner. "We have another example of public officials telling citizens when and how to pray, whether to pray, and what to pray for."
Dave Silverman, Vice President and Communications Director for American Atheists, said that prayer is never a suitable substitute for sound public policy, environmental safeguards, and sensible planning for catastrophic emergencies.
"I doubt that Jesus or some angel is suddenly going to descend from the sky with millions of feet of boom, or more barges to suck up the leaking oil," said Mr. Silverman. "If prayer really worked, why is it that so far, anyway, God seems to be ignoring the suffering all along the gulf?"
Dr. Buckner added, "Perhaps the politicians need to get up off their knees and spend more time mobilizing the resources to deal with this catastrophe. That should not include offering false hope or ridiculous suggestions for the people being affected by this event.”
Personally, while I certainly am in complete agreement with this denunciation of a backward and utterly unconstitutional thing, I am even more concerned and disgusted that it's even necessary. Honestly, these days, I find myself wondering with increasing trepidation, how the extremism building in the US can possibly be reconciled without massive violence, or at the very least, massive upheaval. It's not a pretty thought, but with the right/religious right so far over the sanity line, and the very real threats to our environment, our food supply, our health, our society- I just can't see it ending well.
AMERICAN ATHEISTS is a nationwide movement that defends civil rights for Atheists, Freethinkers and other nonbelievers; works for the total separation of church and state; and addresses issues of First Amendment public policy.
AMERICAN ATHEISTS, INC.
http://www.atheists.org
http://www.americanatheist.org
American Atheists, Inc. PO BOX 158, Cranford, NJ 07016
Tel.: (908) 276-7300 Fax: (908) 276-7402
For more information, please contact:
Ed Buckner, President 908-499-9200 (cell) or 770-803-5353 (office/fax)
Dave Silverman, Communications Director 732-648-9333
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no subject
Date: July 1st, 2010 02:01 am (UTC)Explain it to me?
♥
no subject
Date: July 1st, 2010 03:08 am (UTC)In this case, there are several problems. One, this whole "government mandated/sponsored/etc." day of prayer thing has already been declared unconstitutional, because it is a state endorsement of religion. That's what the whole kerflufle over the National Day of Prayer was about, too. Like there, just because no specific religion is named, doesn't exempt it from that distinction. Government has no business telling anyone to pray, period, much less when and what for.
Secondly, there is a pure resource/benefit issue. As the article stated, we don't (or we shouldnt!) pay our leaders to pray our problems away, we pay them to solve them. Money, time, media, etc. spent on this *should* be going directly to clean-up and protection efforts. I suspect that the most outspoken supporters of this will also be, largely, the ones griping loudest about how the politicians are spending their tax dollars - yet here they are, spending for something they have no business getting involved with to begin with.
Thirdly, whatever a person's faith may be, I really doubt there are more than a handful of people out there that really, truly expect... what? a giant hose to snake down from heaven and vacuum it all up? The oil to miraculously start flowing in reverse? Saying people should pray over this is the equivalent of frightened cavemen scrambling to appease the gods of the volcano - the volcano doesn't give a hoot, it's just a volcano. This is the biggest, worst, most catastrophic environmental disaster in decades, possibly ever. And it sure as hell does't give a hoot.
Fourthly, the entire thing smacks of responsibility-shirking. This disaster is upon us because of the unbridled greed and corruption of both corporate and government insiders, many of them the same ones that are pushing this prayer day. It plays out like a big "pay no attention to the robber barons behind the curtains." All these guys are doing is taking advantage of the fear and faith of their constituents to try and gloss over the fact that each and every one of them had a hand in creating this mess. I'm not even religious, and I find it insulting; you should find it doubly so.
These guys are relying on people like you thinking how nice and good and responsible and Christian it is for these men to do this, and forget all about the fact that it's their fuck-up. Not only is it their fuck up, they more than likely knew it was coming, and didn't give a damn about it, or the lives of the people that have been displaced, and they sure as hell didn't care about the environment they were trashing - not as long as the money kept changing the right hands. Now they are pandering to make themselves look better. It's the worst (and sadly most common) 'spin' in the book.
Even worse, when prayer fails (which, really, we know it will, because prayer doesn't reattach limbs, or un-crash cars, or unspill milk, and it won't undo this either), they can simply shake their heads and say that it's all God's will. Bullshit! It was their will, their greedy, rapacious, devouring, 'let it burn as long as I get my cut' will. But we prayed about it......
no subject
Date: July 1st, 2010 10:04 pm (UTC)I want YOU to write editorials for the news outlets. That was the most articulate and well-defined summation for what's really going on I've ever seen regarding this entire matter. Thank you.
Off-topic-- but wanted to say I loved your list of books on the right there. VERY nice collection of titles!
no subject
Date: July 2nd, 2010 01:42 am (UTC)RE: the books, if you click on it, it will take you to pretty much my entire library. If you haven't discovered LibraryThing, I encourage you to look it over; it's a wonderful resource!
no subject
Date: July 2nd, 2010 04:24 am (UTC)*salivates*
no subject
Date: July 1st, 2010 09:59 pm (UTC)*shaking head*
Someone said that God TRIED to put that oil way far away out of reach where it would do no harm, and where did that help?
no subject
Date: July 2nd, 2010 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: July 2nd, 2010 04:27 am (UTC)AND full of oil?
8^u
|^\
Oy.
(...and yes.)