In the next post of Secular Left: On Thursday January 5th, the news was filled with the comments made by evangelist Pat Robertson on his TV show the 700 Club. On the program Pat says that the stroke suffered by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was “divine retribution for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.” The ironic thing is that while many would indeed say and have said Robertson is crazy, yet no one seems to question the God talk when it is done at times of trouble even though it is not rational either.
Category: Miscellaneous
In this last post of 2005, I wanted to review the struggles those of us who want to get the government out of the religion cheerleading business.
Got this alert this evening concerning Larry Darby who was founder and president of the Atheist Law Center:
Tom Brokaw interviewing Pastor Ted Haggard during NBC news special
Friday night I was surfing TV and came across the end of a special program on NBC hosted by Tom Brokaw called “In God they trust: NBC’s Tom Brokaw goes inside the world of Christian Evangelicals”.
Even though I missed most of the show they do have a transcript of the show on MSNBC.
In the discussion that followed the film and continued on our member’s e-mail list, it was suggested that Flemming and many non-believers go too far in “attacking” people with religious beliefs. It was said that we need to acknowledge that religion plays an important role in most believers lives and by “attacking” their beliefs we have crossed the line of decency.
As expected the charge was made that we non-believers who “attack” religious beliefs are hostile to religion and the religious and how this hostility undermines our credibility as a group to better the human condition. The assumption is made that we must not question people’s deeply held beliefs lest we hurt their feelings.