Wow. Better than the best of Bierce. Dismaying. For a
humorous note, you might read the commenter known as
“Subotai Bahadur” comment 121 at Fernandez’ PJM blog
The Belmont Club, on how a sergeant dealt with a captain
who was given to vigorously promoting atheism and ridiculing
those who did not agree. It’s also quite seasonal (Passover
starting tonight) The post title is “The Oracles” At one
time I would not have believed that any officer would
do as the captain did but as you have remarked, times have
changed.
I went and found the thread there:
Personally, I am not Christian of any of the multiple varieties. I have worked for a Captain [LEO variety] who was indeed an evangelical atheist. To the point where he was well and truly annoying the other Captains. The fact that he was a Leftist politically-correct weenie suck up did not help his popularity. In fact, I adopted my nom d’ blog after he called me “to the Right of Genghis Khan”. One day after he had truly hacked off another Captain who happened to be a devout Christian, I happened to think that it was in fact Passover.I greatly recommend Fernandez’ blog "Belmont Club" by the way. He generally has intelligent things to say.Now I had more than a touch of departmental seniority [twice what the weenie Captain had] and had trained more than a few Captain’s and Majors [our Department's highest uniformed rank] when they were new fish officers. Even though I was just a SGT, I got away with a lot. After the Captain left for the day, I had a talk with my LT and got out a red marker. I put a small dot above every office door, on the door frame, but the Captain’s.
The next day, he noticed the dots, but was merely puzzled. The following day, he was mickle upset [and the other Captains were greatly amused]. Someone had told him the story of Passover. While he was in mid-rant, I pointed out that he strenuously did not believe in God, and that they were just red dots; and asked him what the problem was? He did not have an answer to that and degenerated into sputter mode.
Evangelical atheism is as much a faith system as any organized or unorganized religion. And indeed as many political movements are. The level of personal investment in any faith is indicated by the level of reaction when it is challenged. I tend to look at the results of following a faith; individually and en masse and how it informs conduct before I make a judgment. I admit that any faith system that is dependent on physically suppressing and destroying any competitors and their believers tends to get on my fecal roster.