Antitheists Offend Theists; I Say Good!

I’m hearing a lot from atheist friends who don’t want to be offensive. They are upset by the tactics being used by some atheist organizations today. I have an alternate take on things.

Background:

Here are a couple of ads that show the kinds of things to which many on both sides of the fence seem to object.

This billboard in Pennsylvania is apparently very offensive to believers. It was put up by American Atheists and Pennsylvania Nonbelievers.

Misanthropia: Scott’s Suggestions for a Better America

I’ve titled this post Misanthropia because I believe that I have every bit as much chance of making these improvements as I do of creating a true Utopia, i.e. none.

Still, I’m going to label each suggestion either plausible or implausible. The plausible changes will be the ones I expect never to have implemented because the Koch brothers and other multi-gazillionaires own all of our politicians and control the whole system by which they are put in place. However, I expect that I would be able to convince most of the so-called 99% that these changes would be good. The implausible are the ones I feel strongly enough about to post despite the extreme likelihood that they are so radical that I couldn’t even convince a significant percentage of the so-called 99%.

Each of the following suggestions or cluster of suggestions are meant to be taken individually. I believe each on its own could help make the U.S. a better country. That said, even were all of these suggestions implemented tomorrow, I do not expect that it would fix all of our problems. I’m not that smart.

Your Preacher is Lying to You About the Wall of Separation

You’ve probably heard of Jefferson’s letter where he speaks of a wall of separation between church and state. You probably know that these words are not in the constitution of the United States or its amendments or in any other official document. That is true. You may not even concern yourselves over much with the fact that these words from the author of the first amendment were used by the supreme court until the McCarthyism of the 1950s as evidence of the intent of the first amendment and thus as an aid in interpreting it. However, here is the great lie, a huge and deliberate sin of omission of which you may be unaware.