A god-loving type resorts to sending bullying hate-mail to an elected official to demonstrate the glory of god. Or something.
All they wanted was a mash note to god inside a government building, and here’s this elected official whining about the separation of church and state. Get out the epithets!!
An Oregon city councilwoman who voiced her opposition to displaying “In God We Trust” inside a government building received a death threat from an individual calling himself an “American Citizen for saving Americans for America.”
Cool title. It sounds like irony, but given the nature of the message, I don’t suppose it actually is irony.
Klamath County Commissioner Tom Mallams mentioned displaying the motto in the county’s public hearing room last December, and David and Carol Warren ran with the idea. “We believe God wants us to do this,” Carol toldThe Oregonian.
Commissioner Mallams said he did not anticipate posting the motto to be a problem, since “it doesn’t say ‘the God of the Bible.’ It’s not ‘Allah.’ It’s not ‘the God of the Jews.’ It’s just acknowledging that there is a higher power out there that sets boundaries for what’s right and wrong.”
Oh “just” that, is it. “Just” “acknowledging” something that there’s no reason to think is true. There’s a hell of a lot more reason to think there isn’t any higher power out there that sets boundaries for what’s right and wrong than there is to think there is one. If there is such a higher power it’s doing a damn bad job of setting those boundaries.
As for atheists, Mallams and Warren said, “they don’t have to look at it.”
Well now that’s just an outright lie. Look again at what the plan is – Klamath County Commissioner Tom Mallams mentioned displaying the motto in the county’s public hearing room. Displaying. What does that mean? It means you do have to look at it. It means it’s forced on your attention. You can try to ignore it once you’ve seen it, but it’s flat-out not the case that you don’t have to look at it. The plan is to stick it in that hearing room so that everyone who enters it does have to look at it.
Seiler responded that it’s disingenuous to talk of a generic god when it obviously isn’t generic at all, and she mentioned the separation of church and state. Treason!
But according to the author of a letter Seiler received after penning the editorial, the United States was founded on “Christian morality.” The author then wrote, “Maybe we could have the privilege of seeing your wonderful Muslims behead your [expletive] ugly [expletive]!!!”
The author confuses atheists with Muslims. Nope. Atheists aren’t Muslims, and Muslims aren’t atheists. That’s just silly.
Anyway – god is love; that’s the important thing.
iknklast says
Atheists aren’t Muslims? But…but…Obama is an atheist Muslim…or is he not?
In a sense, they have a point, since all religions look upon the believers in other religions as atheists. But I suspect what the writer is implying is that atheists spend all their ire against Christians, while ignoring the creeping of Islam into our law. (Because it’s not, that’s why we ignore that. The US is in more danger from Christian theocracy than Islamic theocracy).
Marcus Ranum says
It’s just acknowledging that there is a higher power out there that sets boundaries for what’s right and wrong.”
Presumably then he wouldn’t mind a satanist invocation, “Ave Satanas” or something like that.
Marcus Ranum says
(Addendum: Christians wrapping their privilege up in the flag. That’s such a novel idea!!!)
tecolata says
A higher power that sets the boundaries for what’s right and wrong?
Sounds like my cat. And she’s easier to figure out than holy books.