Posted on 07/06/2010 8:51:40 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Washington Post: Independence Day an Atheist Holiday By Nathan Burchfiel Created 07/06/2010 - 11:06
Someone get Lee Greenwood on the phone; he's going to want to know about this.
In a front-page Style section report July 5, The Washington Post breathed a sigh of relief that Independence Day gives Americans a break from those God-heavy holidays like Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving.
"The trouble with most major holidays in the United States, if you're an atheist, is that it's difficult to ignore the ‘holy day' etymology," [1] Monica Hesse reported. "But not the Fourth of July. The Fourth is a little deity-free celebration stationed in the middle of summer for believers and non-believers alike."
Finally, a break from those religious zealots Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Thank God.
Hesse highlighted an annual gathering of atheists in Lorton, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C. With tongues presumably in cheeks, the organizers promoted the event as "Ungodly Leaders to Gather at Potomac Picnic."
She defended atheists as misunderstood. "The most common misapprehension they encounter is that they must be immoral - that, lacking the promise or threat of an afterlife, they have no incentive to be good," she said. "They atheists here find this particularly offensive, as they say they believe in kindness for the sake of kindness, making the most of the brief existence they believe humans are allowed."
Hesse illustrated the loving tolerance of atheists, and their acceptance for differing opinions and views. "'I'm opposed to the illusion that there are really many difference between atheists at all,'" attendee Don Wharton was quoted as saying. "After all," Hesse added, "they are here to celebrate the things that bind them together rather than the things that separate them."
What binds them together? Victimhood, according to Hesse.
"Most of them have been told, at one point or another, that they are going to hell," Hesse noted, "which, when you think about it, is a fairly pointless threat to an atheist, like warning someone that you're sending them to Narnia."
Narnia!!! OH NO!!!!
Huh?
Hmmm... Aethists sure would get their underpants in a knot with the Declaration of Independence, which says -
We are endowed by our CREATOR certain unalienable rights, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The WP?
Only slightly more believable than the NYT.
Which is - of course - the baseline from which all journalism should be judged.
Libs - that’s baseline.....which means ain’t nobody worse.
It’s just an opinion piece, an example of the free speech that we all cherish.
Of course, being free to speak does not, as we all know, require that the speech be either intelligent or well-informed.
This writer obviously has no knowledge of the founding document celebrated on Independence Day, the one that mentions “Nature’s God” in its first sentence and goes on to say:
“. . . that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights . . .”
So he exercises his unalienable right to be wrong.
As stated in Romans 1:
” . . . they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools. . .”
Hmm the 30 family members and friends at my house, prayed before dinner and after the Anthem ( which we all sang ), before the fire works.
How about the Arnold Post....as in Benedict ?
.
I’m only guessing now but one might suppose an Atheists Club would meet at the Lorton Virginia “landfill” and gaze into the maw of the co-generation powerplant at the site ~ maybe get a glimpse of “their god” eh!
Freakish insanity. How many people did e.g. Mao and Stalin lovingly tolerate to death?
Oh, for heaven’s sake. July 4 is not an “atheist” holiday. It is secular. I guess this so-called newspaper doesn’t know the difference.
The trouble is, if one is an athiest they have no fixed absolute to judge anything moral or immoral, good or bad, right or wrong. Without God the only basis for any value judgment is personal preference or social convenience and these vary from person to person and can change from day to day. If their only moral imperative is to "make the most of the brief existence they believe humans are allowed" then HOW you make the most of your brief is completely relative. If being like Mother Theresa "makes the most" of your existence, then fine. If being Adolph Hitler "makes the most" of another's existence, then good for him. There is no basis without God to call one good or another bad.
One problem I have with atheist’s......if they truly don’t believe that God exists, why are they so worried about Him? I think that they should rethink their position because if you believe in God and you die and God doesn’t exist, no harm, no foul. But.....if you don’t believe in God and he does exist, you are in deep doodo.
Well, gee, whatever else is there in Washington to write about these days? It’s not like Congress just passed a budget without voting on it.. oh yeah, well they did that, but I mean, the weather’s hot and it’s vacation season and apparently even atheists like Independence Day. After all, it’s not like we’re a religious nation or anything...
...the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, ...Well, maybe the athiests can go bother Arbor Day....that they are endowed by their Creator ...
...appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world ...
... with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, ...
Creator? Must've been some "fringe" creationists who wrote that.
Washington Compost lib writers don’t know a holiday from a hole in the ground.
“The Fourth is a little deity-free celebration...”
Wrong!
Abraham Lincoln,
President of the United States of America:
A Proclamation for a Day of Humiliation and Prayer.
Whereas the Senate and House of Representatives, at their last session, adopted a concurrent resolution, which was approved on the second day of July instant, and which was in the words following, namely: “That the President of the United States be requested to appoint a day for humiliation and prayer by the people of the United States; that he request his constitutional advisers at the head of the Executive Departments to unite with him as Chief Magistrate of the nation, at the city of Washington, and the members of Congress, and all magistrates, all civil, military, and naval officers, all soldiers, sailors, and marines, with all loyal and law-abiding people, to convene at their usual places of worship, or wherever they may be, to confess and to repent of their manifold sins; to implore the compassion and forgiveness of the Almighty, that, if consistent with His will, the existing rebellion may be speedily suppressed, and the supremacy of the Constitution and the laws of the United States may be established throughout all the States; to implore Him, as the Supreme Ruler of the World, not to destroy us as a people, nor suffer us to be destroyed by the hostility or connivance of other nations, or by obstinate adhesion to our own counsels, which may be in conflict with His eternal purposes, and to implore Him to enlighten the mind of the nation to know and to do His will, humbly believing that it is in accordance with His will that our place should be maintained as a united people among the family of nations; to implore Him to grant our armed defenders and the masses of the people that courage, power of resistance, and endurance necessary to secure that result; to implore Him in His infinite goodness to soften the hearts, enlighten the minds, and quicken the consciences of those in rebellion, that they may lay down their arms and speedily return to their allegiance to the United States, that they may not be utterly destroyed, that the effusion of blood may be stayed, and that unity and fraternity may be restored, and peace established throughout all our borders.”
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, cordially concurring with the Congress of the United States in the penitential and pious sentiments expressed in the aforesaid resolution, and heartily approving of the devotional design and purpose thereof, do hereby appoint the first Thursday of August next to be observed by the people of the United States as a day of national humiliation and prayer.
I do hereby further invite and request the heads of the executive departments of this Government, together with all legislators, all judges and magistrates, and all other persons exercising authority in the land, whether civil, military, or naval, and all soldiers, seamen, and marines in the national service, and all the other loyal and law-abiding people of the United States, to assemble in their preferred places of public worship on that day, and there to render to the Almighty and Merciful Ruler of the Universe such homage and such confessions, and to offer to Him such supplications, as the Congress of the United States have, in their aforesaid resolution, so solemnly, so earnestly, and so reverently recommended.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washington, this seventh day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.
Abraham Lincoln
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —
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