Ah, Saturday at last. Time for another Idiot of the Week award. Let's get to it.

When I first heard that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was calling for her teabagging supporters to converge on the Capitol to intimidate anyone who might actually support affordable health care, I knew there would be some idiocy on display. Would I have to honor Bachmann yet again in this series? It certainly looked like it. But then someone else would step forward at the last minute to take the prize.

Let me set the stage a bit more. Pictured here to the left is Greenman, a Philadelphia figure made famous by the hillarious TV show, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX). If you haven't been watching it, you are missing out. I am convinced it is the best comedy on TV these days.

The thing about Greenman is that he is supposed to be funny. When someone dons a Greenman costume, they are going to get attention and laughs. Nothing wrong with that at all.

Why the hell am I bringing this up? Good question. I am doing so because I'd like to contrast the image of Greenman with another famous figure, one that is equally hillarious but also pathetic because he isn't meant to be funny. Ladies and gentlemen, I present this week's idiot - Orangeman.

That's right, this Idiot of the Week award goes to Rep. John Boehner (R-OH). What did our winner do to deserve this award? As House Minority Leader, making him a prominent Republican leader in Congress, Rep. Boehner should have known better than to participate in Rep. Bachmann's embarrassing protest. She is well known for her crazy, but Boehner is supposed to be respectable and represent the GOP establishment rather than the fringe. By speaking at her teabagger rally on the Capitol steps, he wholeheartedly embraced her particular brand of crazy and signaled that this is the modern Republican party. Let him be known not just for his bad spray tan or tendency to sob like Glenn Beck but also for willingly associating himself with birther nutjobs comparing health care to Nazi concentration camps.

And yet, this was not enough for Rep. Boehner. During his speech, he proudly displayed a copy of the U.S. Constitution and quoted from it. The problem was, it was not the Constitution he was quoting from but the Declaration of Independence. An honest mistake for you and me, but this is a powerful Congressman who is supposed to know something about our Constitution.

This is the second time Rep. Boehner has been honored here. Something tells me it won't be the last.

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Many people donated money in support of recent efforts to repeal civil rights in Maine, and they were successful in passing "Question 1." As Zack Ford points out after reviewing research by the National Institute on Money in State Politics,

Of the donations supporting the anti-gay Yes on 1 measure in Maine, 89% ($3 million) came from churches, Christian organizations, and their employees. The Catholic Church alone directly contributed $553,608.27.

Now that's some serious Christian bigotry!

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I agree completely with Americans United for Separation of Church and State that there are important lessons in the recent elections in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as the abolition of civil rights in Maine. Christian extremism is alive and well.

According to Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of AU,

I wish I could say the Religious Right is dead, but this election shows that reports of its demise are inaccurate. The pundits who announced the Religious Right's demise in 2008 were simply wrong.

He's right. While nobody is saying that the outcome of these elections was solely based on Christian extremist influence, nobody should deny that there was an influence.

...Americans need to know that this movement's leaders are still influential in American politics. They haven't given up on their crusade to impose their fundamentalist beliefs on everyone through government action.

Our work is not finished. Not by a long shot.

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Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Courtesy of Fox "News" and a plethora of right-wing talk radio personalities, the airwaves are filled with right-wing hate. The influence of these pervasive messages is undeniable. But what about left-wing hate speech? Few would deny that the left harbors it's fair share of idiocy, but I have trouble finding much that could be considered left-wing hate speech. So many voices on the right complain about it regularly, but where is it?

We should examine some recent high-profile left-wing flubs, focusing on those that seem to elicit the most outrage from the right. Take Rep. Alan Grayson's (D-FL) use of the word "holocaust" when pointing out how many Americans die simply because they do not have health insurance. You've heard the outrage from the right, and you've seen how Rep. Grayson has been accused of trivializing the Holocaust. I agree with those on the right that this was a poor choice of words, just as I agree with those on the left that Christian extremists' recurrent use of the holocaust label when discussing abortion is a poor choice of words. But while I might disagree with Rep. Grayson's word choice, I don't see this as anywhere close to hate speech.

Unlike those issuing death threats against atheist bloggers or President Obama, Rep. Grayson was not calling for anyone to be killed. Unlike those hoping for military coups against Obama, Grayson was not calling for the Constitution to be abolished. Distasteful? Perhaps. Hate speech? Not even close.

What else? Surely the left is guilty of disparaging Republicans. Rep. Grayson did so recently on Maddow, and Olbermann makes a nightly practice of it on his show. They often sound angry, resort to name calling, and could fairly be accused of lacking in civility in the tradition of GOP hero, Rep. Joe Wilson. I get all that. But hate speech? Maybe Olbermann regularly calls for the death of those with whom he disagrees - maybe he even prays for it, but if so, why is it that I always seem to miss those episodes?

Maybe these aren't fair comparisons because the extreme right is currently out of power. Maybe I need to focus on the left-wing rage directed at Bush and Cheney. I remember hearing (and writing) all sorts of negative stuff about them. I continue to believe that the Bush regime committed war crimes and should be tried as war criminals. But this isn't hate speech anymore than Republican calls for the impeachment and criminal trial of President Clinton were hate speech.

When right-wing extremists call President Obama a fascist or a Communist, it simply indicates that they do not know what those terms mean. But when they call for his death or not-so-subtly suggest that he should be overthrown, we're witnessing something else entirely. And it is something that I don't recall seeing from the left.

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Tags: right-wing, hate, politics

You are in an intimate relationship, and you'd just as soon remain that way. The problem is, s/he is religious while you have come to doubt your faith. After some deep reflection, you have come to the conclusion that you just don't believe all this god stuff anymore. But you are worried that telling your partner about this may irreparably damage your relationship. What do you do? I can't decide what is right for you in such a case, but I will offer my thoughts on the matter for you to consider.

I'll start by saying that I think the situation I have described, difficult as it is, tends to be far easier than a similar scenario involving one's family. After all, most people will have many more intimate partners during the course of their lives than they will have families.

The central question I would want to ask myself in such a predicament is as follows:

How important is it that my partner loves me for being me rather than for being something that want me to be that I am not?

If I do not believe in gods, I would not want to pretend that I did. I would have a hard time remaining in a relationship with someone around whom I did not feel like I could be myself. I would want to give my partner an opportunity to know the real me.

It is fairly common for people in a relationship to be as attracted to the potential of someone rather than to the actual person. And yet, it has been my experience that such relationships are often doomed if they do not quickly progress beyond this point. If I am in love with what I want someone to be rather than what they really are, I'm resigning myself to being perpetually disappointed and unhappy. One could reasonably argue that this wouldn't be a relationship at all but merely a form of narcissism. It is difficult to imagine it working in the long run.

Of course, one may decide that maintaining this particular relationship is worthwhile, even if it means concealing one's true self. This wouldn't be my choice, but it is not my place to fault you if it is yours. Being an atheist can be lonely, and there is little point in denying that.

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Image via Wikipedia

I knew that this series was going to be controversial when I started it. Misconceptions about Satanism abound, even among atheists. And the suggestion that atheists might have something to learn from Satanists has already been criticized even though I have not written anything about it yet. In the first part of the series, I explained that Satanists do not in fact worship Satan but that they are atheists who adopt a strongly anti-theistic position and use Satanic imagery and symbolism to shock. In this post, I'll examine the relationships among Satanism, atheism, and anti-theism. The next post will discuss whether atheists could learn anything from Satanists.

Satanism and Atheism

Most atheists are not Satanists. In fact, most atheists scoff at the very image of a Satanist. For many, this is based on the same misconceptions about Satanists that Christians hold (e.g., that Satanists worship Satan). However, there are many perfectly valid reasons for atheists to reject Satanism.

Some atheists find nothing appealing about Satanic imagery and desire to shock. It strikes some of us a juvenile or counterproductive. For other atheists, the rejection of Satanism is based on the extremely negative connotation and lack of interest in associating oneself with it. We atheists are fully aware of how much we are despised, and we recognize that part of this is due to the fairly common practice religious people have of equating us with "devil worshipers." Many of us understandably seek to avoid anything which might lend credence to this strange association. These are perfectly valid reasons for atheists to reject Satanism, and there are others.

What should be remembered, however, is that while not all atheists are Satanists, all Satanists are atheists. Huh? Here is how the Church of Satan describes themselves:

We were established in 1966 c.e. by Anton Szandor LaVey, who declared it the Year One, Anno Satanas, thus opening the floodgates to a revolution designed to smash the hypocrisy and unreason of organized religions and mystical philosophies. We stand as a formidable threat to those who would halt progress in the name of spirituality. We are explorers on the untrodden paths of science, human motivation and mystery—all that is most truly occult. Our primary goal is to clearly disseminate the philosophy created by Anton Szandor LaVey to those who have an interest in understanding the truth regarding our beliefs and practices, and to encourage individuals who embrace Satanism to utilize this tool as a means for enhancing their lives and for leaving a legacy of creativity that demonstrates to human society the potency of our diabolical perspective.

Except for the part about disseminating LaVey's philosophy, this sounds a great deal like something with which many atheists can relate, anti-theism.

Satanism and Anti-Theism

Not all atheists are anti-theists, but all Satanists certainly are both atheists and anti-theists. If you read the above quote again, omitting mention of LaVey if you like, you will recognize anti-theism. Magistra Blanche Barton wrote:

We are sickened by the complacency, hypocrisy, prejudice, and self-righteousness that most conventional religions (including “Wicca” and “paganism” as they are currently defined) encourage in people. When my back is up against the wall, I’m not strengthened by Jesus’ supposed martyrdom, or by the idea of praying and being saved, or of mooning over some glorious afterlife (so I don’t have to take responsibility for this one). Satanists’ scorn for such drivel is in our hard-wiring, and we could no more “give our lives over to Christ” than we could cut off one of our own limbs.

I suspect many of us feel the same way. I know I do. She also wrote about how humans create and define their gods. Again, Satanists are atheists and anti-theists.

But I Thought Satanism Was a Religion

You are correct. While atheism is clearly not a religion, LaVey intended Satanism to serve as a religion. In essence, he suggests that the long survival of conventional religions suggests that humans have a need for both dogma and ritual. In Satanism, he seeks to provide both. Admittedly, his dogma reads far more like a philosophy than a religion, but the injection of ceremony and ritual does make it appear more religious. According to LaVey himself, Satanism can be distinguished from atheism in that these added components help to make it an actual religion.

Nobody is claiming that atheism and Satanism is synonymous (except many Christians). LaVey would certainly disagree with this, as would I. Satanism aspires to be a religion and deliberately incorporates ritual for this purpose; atheism does not. Satanism attempts to provide a coherent philosophy; atheism does not (although many atheists adopt some form of humanism or naturalism).

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Tags: Satanism, atheism, anti-theism, LaVey, atheists, Satan, Satanists, Satanic, Church of Satan, religion

Image via Wikipedia

A number of Australian atheist websites, including the Atheist Foundation of Australia, were recently hit with distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Now it seems that several atheists have had their Twitter accounts hacked. Are these events related? Probably not. I seriously doubt that there is some sort of new cyberwar being organized against atheists. And yet, I think it might be a mistake to conclude that we'll never see such an effort.

If atheism seems to be growing (and it does), it is largely because of the Internet. In only the last few years, we have witnessed explosive growth in atheist blogs, forums, websites, and the like. You may not know many atheists "in real life," but you can easily find us online.

This suggests that cyberattacks will likely continue, even escalate, if the growth trend persists. I suspect we will also see more websites and blogs springing up to attack atheism. The more we are perceived as a threat, the more likely it is that there will be efforts to counter our simple message that no gods are necessary.

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I didn't even realize that there was a Carnival of the Godless scheduled for this week. I went to Blog Carnival on Thursday planning to submit something, but none was listed for today. Must have been a glitch. In any case the 129th Carnival of the Godless is up at Nonreligious Nerd. Since this is by far the smallest CoG I've seen, I'm guessing the glitch was not just on my end. Regardless, check out the godless fun.

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