The following exchange between atheist activist Rob Sherman of Buffalo Grove and Ill. Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) took place Wednesday afternoon in the General Assembly as Sherman testified before the House State Government Administration Committee.That said, Hitchens and Dawkins aren't all that tolerant of religion...
Davis: I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings. And it’s really a tragedy -- it’s tragic -- when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school.
I don’t see you (Sherman) fighting guns in school. You know?
I’m trying to understand the philosophy that you want to spread in the state of Illinois. This is the Land of Lincoln. This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous, it’s dangerous--
Sherman: What’s dangerous, ma’am?
Davis: It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!
Sherman: Thank you for sharing your perspective with me, and I’m sure that if this matter does go to court---
Davis: You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
The Asymmetry of Religious Tolerance
While atheists tolerate religions, it doesn't seem that religions have to tolerate atheists.
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1 comment:
First,
Lincoln was never a member of a church, although he did sometimes attend with his wife. His greatest speeches are laced with religious imagery, but they were something he wrote later in life only after long periods of doubt which we have no way of knowing if he ever fully left behind him. He was likely an agnostic or atheist for a good portion of his life. His lack of religiosity was an issue used in the election against him. Citing him as a bedrock foundation for believers puts one on rocky ground indeed.
Second, it is a fat lot of nonsense that atheists are inherently more or less tolerant than their non-believing counterparts. Hitchens and Dawkins are excellent cases in point, the latter so blinded by his prejudice that he is incapable of comprehending the inclusive fitness of an emotion set that provides an inherent organizing pattern for humanity. That said, both of these men are relatively harmless, if obnoxious, cranks.
What of atheists like Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, and Pol Pot? What about the tolerant lot in China now suppressing the Tibetans and Falun Gung (sp?) in the name of Reason? How about the vandals that gutted Notre Dame and erected an altar to Reason during the French Revolution? How about their latter successors that destroyed centuries-old churches in Revolutionary Russia?
Do these people really compare favorably tolerance-wise to deep believers like Gandhi or MLK jr.?
Sorry, but my experience suggests that atheists have no special claim on broad-mindedness.
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