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How about this happy lot? You know, all things considered, I believe I'll take dictated political correctness over being shot for a filthy atheist.
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Please do, I'd like to compare. However, I wasn't asserting that these are the only choices, I was criticising OSC for cherry-picking the wackos he chooses to be afraid of.
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Why on earth does any of this relate to OSC's personal political views?
"Look! Look at all the crazy people! Denounce them or you're a hypocrite! You agree with them, don't you?"
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It's still a rather childish response. "Look - he does it too!"
If you disagree with the way someone simplifies a debate, it's usually more effective not to resort to those same tactics.
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Actually, I'm not going to bother, because besides the unconfirmed Bush Sr. quote, there's also a flat out LIE about James Watts ("We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand."):
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What scares me is that a great number of those crazy people happen to be in power at the moment.
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Even if he didn't say the quotation in question, though as far as I know there's never been a denial and the source has at least a modicum of reputability, his stance is pretty clear.
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The confirmed statement is very different than the unsubstantiated statement. Why didn't KoM's linked site quote that? Because it doesn't have nearly the polemic weight of the one that was quoted.
I am mildly surprised that they didn't make "American Atheists" lower case and put the EM quote in there. It seems to be just that site's style.
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Um, I seem to be missing something here. The sire fugu linked also reports GB as saying "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." Were you referring to some other confirmed statement, Dag?
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No, no, he's referring to the difference between that, impossible to completely substantiate without confirmation from Bush which will never come quotation and the later one on the page.
The not citizens quote was only witnessed by the reporter and Bush. Of course, Bush has never asked the paper publish a retraction and never denied the remark.
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Fugu got it, but just to be sure everyone's on the same page, the unconfirmed quote is
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."
and the confirmed quote is
"As you are aware, the President is a religious man who neither supports atheism nor believes that atheism should be unnecessarily encouraged or supported by the government."
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I think the point Dag is making is that both the Bush Quote and the Murnane quote can only be traced to Rob Sherman, who is an outspoken atheist. They have not been independently verified, except that the White House responded to requests for a retraction, without denying the orinal statement.
I wrote to the Bush library for verification and received this reply:
quote: Thank you for the request for information about a statement supposedly made by Vice President Bush concerning atheists. He supposedly made comments questioning the patriotism and citizenship of atheists during a campaign visit to Chicago, Illinois on August 27, 1987 during the 1988 presidential campaign. These supposed comments were distributed in the newsletters of various atheist organizations, which caused some people to write the White House expressing their concern. Vice President Bush did visit Chicago on August 27 for one day, flying in and out of O'Hare Airport in between meetings with several Republican groups. One of the atheist newsletters claimed that Bush made the comments in response to a question from a reporter at the airport. The exact comments made by the Vice President can not be confirmed because there is neither a video or audio tape of this visit in the collection of the Bush Library and these were supposedly off-the-cuff comments not part of a speech or formal press conference.
There are presidential records concerning this issue at the Bush Library buth they are not available for research at this time.
Sincerely, Debbie Carter Archivist George Bush Presidential Library National Archives and Records Administration
quote:After Bush's election, American Atheists wrote to Bush asking him to retract his statement. On February 21st 1989, C. Boyden Gray, Counsel to the President, replied on White House stationery that Bush substantively stood by his original statement, and wrote:
quote: "As you are aware, the President is a religious man who neither supports atheism nor believes that atheism should be unnecessarily encouraged or supported by the government."
I would be interested in knowing what constitutes "substantively stood by".
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Oh, cool, GA. I was wondering if you had heard back from them.
I wonder why those records aren't available. I thought everything in the Presidential Libraries had to be made public?
That makes me more tend to believe the substance, if not the wording, of the quotation a little more.
Frankly, though, why ask the President a question without a tape recorder? It's not good sense, for just this reason.
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quote:I would be interested in knowing what constitutes "substantively stood by".
Me, too. I would assume that one would choose the best quote available, or even better post a scanned copy, if one wanted to make an issue of this quote. It's the main reason I'm suspicious of it.
quote:Bush quote aside, the other quotes are scary enough.
Syn, there's one absolute lie on the site (the Watts quote), so it makes me doubt much of it. I know some are true, but all the very worst ones I haven't seen confirmed (although I haven't looked).
W has decided Reagan's Presidential documents, including those of his father, are not to be released, despite both an act of Congress and Reagan's written wishes.
I would guess the relevant information in the records is at least a copy of the Counsel letter, and possibly some correspondence in which he mentions the exchange.
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The Ann Coulter one is true. Also, that Paul Cameron fellow uses faulty science to push his incorrect ideas about homosexuality which hurts a lot of people... Where do they GET these notions from? Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote: I would be interested in knowing what constitutes "substantively stood by".
The fact that the White House made no attempt to deny the statement, and followed up with a statement that seems to support the intent of the quote.
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quote:The fact that the White House made no attempt to deny the statement, and followed up with a statement that seems to support the intent of the quote.
The quoted statement from the letter is VERY different from the unsubstantiated one. Substitute "Christian" for "atheist" and "Christianity" for "atheism" in each quote to see why:
"I don't know that Christians should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots."
"As you are aware, the President is a secular man who neither supports Christianity nor believes that Christianity should be unnecessarily encouraged or supported by the government."
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It's still a disturbing statement. What's it to the government if a person decides to be an atheist?
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Syn, I've heard a LOT of people on this board who don't think government should encourage Christianity. Why, then, should a presidential candidate be condemned for saying the government should not encourage atheism?
Why is that disturbing? Hell, it's the essence of the establishment clause, isn't it? That government shouldn't encourage a religious belief? And despite the "atheism isn't a religion" discussions we have, the belief that there is no God is certainly a religious belief, even if atheism doesn't rise to the level of a religion.
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Because of the establishment clause, the government can't promote any particular religion. At the same time, the government can't ignore religion or try to do away with it.
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I would prefer the formulation "atheism doesn't sink to the level of a religion." However, I think there are good secular reasons to encourage atheism.
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No, but it permits things that have a secular purpose even if they coincide with what some religion teaches, right?
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Of course. As long as it doesn't endorse one religious belief over others. There's zero doubt that SCOTUS would find unanimously that a government program with the express purpose to get people to stop believing in God would be endorsing a religious belief.
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I would hope so, as nearly everything under the face of the sun is taught by some religion somewhere.
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Suppose the government program was to give everybody a free college education? Like it or not, atheists are strongly over-represented in highly-educated people, and a lot of people deconvert in college. But you could hardly argue that free education for everybody is encouraging a religion, even if it does have the nice side effect of encouraging atheism.
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Where is the evidence that college education increases atheism, rather than religiosity decreasing desire to go to college?
That being said, that's exactly the right kind of analysis. If it caused more people to be Christian, it would still be OK.
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On a related note, it would be perfectly valid for individual atheists to support the plan for that reason and that reason alone.
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Hmm. That's an interesting question, and my evidence is mainly anecdotal, plus the obvious point that a college education ought to teach you to doubt everything. (And before we get into it, yes, I know you rarely learn to doubt the professor's words, but then, the professor will rarely espouse any particular religion either.)
However, as a matter of interest, let's turn things about. Suppose you are right, and religious people are less likely to go to college. In that case, isn't it a state interest to encourage atheism, in that a modern nation needs all the college graduates it can get? Would this be allowable?
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No, that would not be allowable, any more than it would be allowable to advocate Catholicism to increase birth rate if it were needed, or religion in general if that actually reduced STD transmission.
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"Where is the evidence that college education increases atheism, rather than religiosity decreasing desire to go to college?"
Or people who are already atheists having a greater desire to go to college.
Actually, I remember that a study of religious belief among scientists found that biologists (in particular) wouldn't have become biologists if they had believed in God. That's probably a really bad paraphrase, and I can't say how they justified that conclusion.
I guess you could say that creationist theists wouldn't be likely to become biologists. That ought to make sense at least. (Wish I had the article)
In all, (from memory) the study said that among elite scientists, atheism was very common, and biologists were the least likely to believe in God, Astronomers were the most likely to really want to know if there is a God, and mathematicians were the most likely to believe in God (but still much less likely than the average person to believe). Yes, I thought it was strange that they classified mathematicians as scientists.
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Cool. If you ever come across a link to that study, I'd love to see it. Sounds very interesting.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote:But you could hardly argue that free education for everybody is encouraging a religion, even if it does have the nice side effect of encouraging atheism.
The intolerantly religious are almost endlessly amusing Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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