(video below the fold, so as not to screw up RSS readers…)
“These were hard-core activists; when they withdraw money from the ATM, they said they take the bill and they take a pen and they cross out ‘In God We Trust’…”
Damn, that’s hard-core. Right up there with suicide bombers and Westboro Baptist Church.
It’s actually a fun piece. But listen, after their video–they laugh through a list of the things we are up against (e.g., the poll showing few would vote for an atheist candidate for president), and I have to remind myself, these are the same people whose forehead veins nearly pop at the sound of “happy holidays!”
Watch and enjoy, after the jump!
I think we have been ridiculed, but not very eptly. Overall I think I am gruntled.
Plussed, perhaps?
wow that was funny! I loved the part where they totally missed the flying spaghetti monster joke!!!! Oh faux news… what would we do without you?
It really is as if they are on some different planet… or perhaps we are.
Did anyone actually mark out “in god we trust” at the ATM or is that just Bull O’Liely making shit up again?
“They were heckling me”
Really? He went to their rally, and challenged their views, yet he felt heckled?
Wow, those two dickheads have no idea that the joke is on them. They went to make fun of it and found hyper intelligent, sharp witted, good humored folks with a highly motivated base of support. Thanks to Bill OReilley the Reason Rally will be even bigger next year. Could Bill be a closet atheist?
If it wasn’t for the little interview at the end with Bill, I would have thought that this was a Fox New parody new report.
The jerk was actually hinting at the potential for violence against him on our part. Here is a conversation I had with some policemen standing near the Xtian group.
Me: Any problems today gentlemen?
Cop 1: No. And we don’t expect any.
Me: Why not?
Cop 2: Because this is the nicest group we’ve ever had here.
Cop 3: That’s because it’s the smartest group we’ve ever had.
So glad I stopped to talk to them.
Hitchens had it right, burning us at the stake was their best argument.
quote: “Cop 3: That’s because it’s the smartest group we’ve ever had.”
And that was the smartest cop you’d ever met.
Beautiful trolling at the Reason Rally. I’ve never been prouder to be an Atheist.
Poe’s law has never been so true. If I didn’t know the difference I would have thought this was a pro-atheist video. It highlights all the atheist talking points and makes Watters and O’Reilly look like morons.
I had to wonder when the guy said that the atheists weren’t very nice to him. Everyone in the video seemed nice–you’d think they would have included the meanies (unless he’s one.of those hypersensitive religious types who takes any contrary idea as an attack, but I repeat myself).
@Alverant–I occasionally cross out the erstwhile motto from bills, especially when spending them at concession stands when my daughter’s team plays Christian schools.
I don’t know why, but that embedded video wouldn’t work for me. I had to view it from their website at this link.
Their little chat at the end is right at the level of intelligence and smugness one would expect from Bill “Never a miscommunication” O’Reilly.
@Alverant I’ve never done it, but it’s not a bad idea. I think I’ll just cross out God and write “Science” or “Reason”
I agree, Storms, I actually cross out “god” and write “good,” because it sends a double message.
I don’t understand what the hell that was.
It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t insulting, it wasn’t substantial.
I’m so confused.
I cross out “God” when I remember to, which usually means a batch of bills every couple of weeks. I am notoriously stingy, so bills often stick around at least that long.
Of course, coins stay in circulation many more years than bills do; I actually have an engraver, which I use on quarters (frankly, the only coins most of us pay any attention to, so long as parking meters and laundromats exist).
That was far more entertaining than I was expecting it to be.
And I am one of those people who crosses out “In God We Trust” on my paper money. I don’t always carry cash, but when I do I always have a Sharpie at the ready.
I used to cross out “GOD” and change the “IN” to “INC.”, then add ® or © or ™ to the end. Now I’m just crossing out “GOD” and writing “GOOD,” cause that seems like a clearer message.
Digital Cuttlefish, the engraver, is that a joke? Sounds so involved… yet, the effect would be damn awesome. I’ve never seen an engraved quarter, now I want to!
Is it just me, or did Mr. O’Reilly hire a Toby Maguire look alike for an assistant?
Cody, it’s no joke. Sadly, though, it’s not anywhere near “awesome”. All I do is basically scribble out the “God”–it’s far too sloppy a process for me to try to replace it with something else. Ends up looking like just some random damage, until you look more closely and see it is limited to that one word.
Hyper-intelligent people my ass.
IN GOO WE THRUST
I’m getting tired of this “believe in nothing” nonsense. It is the christians who believe in an imaginary deity. In other words, they believe in “Nothing”.
Plussed, perhaps?
I was definiately whelmed.
I would not expect better of Fox News coverage for the Reason Rally, so they met my highest expectations.
I cross out “In go d wet rust” once in a while, when I think about it. It’s what Mycroft called a “funny-always,” knowing that the only people offended by it badly need offense.
I thought the edited segment was actually pretty well done and less mean spirited than I expected. That humorless snark at the end though was just pathetic.
I got a few chuckles out of it, but if anyone asks whether you believe in nothing, as that one woman was challenged, just reply, “Yes, I do believe in nothing — without evidence.”
The entire discussion was ludicrous. Especially some of that kid’s answers. “Matter collected on itself.” It sure did. That’s how Earth, in all its beautiful nature, was formed. Logic at its finest. And then he tries to link the Catholic Church to Nazism. “Hitler was a Catholic,” proclaims the ignorant out-of-camera female.
Hitler was an Atheist. He hated religion. Nazism was a cult of death and mysticism. Hitler was raised Catholic but was not religious. His closet friends even commented on his hatred of Christianity. And once the Church found out about Hitler’s true intentions, it opposed him. The Pope passed out anti-Nazi pamplets all accross Germany.
You ignorant fuckwad. Yeah, you’re a fuckwad. Hitler’s birthday was celebrated every year in Catholic churches across Germany. The only Nazi to ever be thrown out wasn’t because he was a genocidal maniac, but because he dared to marry a divorced woman. This is what good ol’ Uncle Adolf had to say about atheism: “We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.”
This is what Uncle Adolf said about the God you say he didn’t believe in: “I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.”
In short: FUCK OFF.
miles, I don’t know which history books you have been reading but they must have been written by the Ministry of Truth.
http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/pub/soc.religion.christian/faq/hitler
Hitler’s power-base was thoroughly Christian(which meant anti-semitic, especially in the rural areas) like Hitler) and they were his willing executioners – they considered killing Jews as Lord’s work. No anti-semitic Christian power-base meant there would have been no Hitler
1930’s Germany had atheists – called communists – he included them in the Holocaust as well
HARARAARRARARA
Miles, have you perhaps leafed through Mein Kampf? And seen the dozens of references to our lord, our god, our saviour, our creator, etc? Seriously, if you think Hitler was an atheist, you do so by ignoring all evidence (and there’s a lot) to the contrary.
Yeah, that was Hitler. See you later.
Wow Miles,
Stones and glass houses much?
Hitler repeatedly and enthusiastically claimed he was doing the Lord’s work in his verified public statements and writings. He considered becoming a monk. He was Catholic but expressed great admiration for Martin Luther (author of “On the Jews and Their Lies”). There are generally unclear and possibly forged documents (the “Table Talk” documents) that some have used to argue that his published statement do not reflect his true beliefs, but these are week and uncertain, especially compared to his public ones.
Hitler persecuted atheists, he did not support them. I also do not think that most historians would agree with you on the relationship of the catholic church to Nazism. Certainly there are lots of images of priests giving the Nazi salute.
I guess it is possible that he said one thing and believed another — we cannot know the mind of another person. But I don’t think there is any more evidence for this for Hitler than for any other person who claims to be doing the work of the Lord. For all I know the Pope and all TV preachers are all atheists too. To automatically conclude that Hitler must have been an atheist after the fact is to commit the “no true Scotsman” fallacy.
None of the links are working for me. Damn christian plot.
Aside of Orielly’s dickishness that was a pretty good promo for Atheism.
Miles,
the anti-christian comments in Table Talk’ have been shown pretty conclusively, by Dr. Richard Carrier, to be interpolations by the first translator and do not appear in the original german.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1432747?uid=3739832&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=55975101923
They also contradict all other known speeches and writings.
Dave Barry’s conclusion to “How to Win and Argument”
“Compare your opponent to Adolf Hitler.
This is your heavy artillery, for when your opponent is obviously right and you are spectacularly wrong. Bring Hitler up subtly. Say: “That sounds suspiciously like something Adolf Hitler might say” or “You certainly do remind me of Adolf Hitler.”
So that’s it: you now know how to out-argue anybody. Do not try to pull any of this on people who generally carry weapons.”
Yes, atheists are just like Hitler in every way. I, like every atheist I have ever met, have a very difficult time coming up with any discernible differences between myself and Adolph Hitler. I am so grateful to those fundigelicals for pointing that out to me — otherwise I would go through life being totally unaware of the fact that I am identical to Adolph Hitler in every way.
Just watch Miles here. The obvious sarcasm in my previous post will fly right over his stupid little head and he will jump up and down shrieking “EEEP! EEEP! EEEP! — He admits it!! — EEEP! EEEP! EEEP!”
Get a load of the smugness of Watters as he asks:
“So how was the universe created?”
Obviously, he’s had “God did it” on a hair trigger to whatever
reply you muster.
Are all secularists/atheists supposed to be experts in cosmology,
astronomy, planetary physics, chemistry, geology, etc.?
Or, can we just smugly respond, “Naturally.”
Ah, got in late to the Hitler thread.
My contribution:
If Hitler hated god so much, why did he have GOD IS WITH US
printed on all his soldiers belt buckles?
“You know Bill, though those high minded and radical Atheists with all their spooky science and logic and “evidence” may want equal treatment under law, but the joke is on them. The polls show good ol’ god fearin’ Christian folk would even prefer a black or a jew over an atheist. So they’ve got a long way to go because we all know we’ll only vote for a white, preferably male, christian. Ecspecially with the mistake we made allowing that black muslim obama into office!”
I have a better haircut.
Seems our troll Miles is taking his time. Just in case he comes back any time soon:
My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice…. And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people…. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited.
-Adolf Hitler, in his speech in Munich on 12 April 1922
I can only suppose that in the Fox News video editing suite there is a closeted atheist, that video was hilarious and I didn’t feel at all persecuted. I didn’t listen to Bill at the end, it’s against my policy to do watch more of him than absolutely necessary.
Summary: I’m totally not insinuating that atheism leads people to drug use and prostitution. Here are two people who will parrot my opinion and pretend it’s their own. Now here’s footage of a giant group of atheists behaving as if they held themselves to a higher moral standard than fundies like me do! You can’t explain that!
It’s as though he’s given up even trying to pretend the show’s not just one big ego-wank. He’s even started talking over guests who do agree with his lunacy completely. I’m half expecting him to bring a mirror onto the set one of these days to argue with… I wonder if he’d let himself get a word in edgewise?
Ooooh I have to stop. Poor ‘ol Bill-O. It’s just too easy to rip on somebody when he provides all the punchlines for you.
Daniel, I nearly cost myself a keyboard at “You can’t explain that!”
Kudos, sir!
That was just plain cute.
I could not open the link either…however I have read through the comments & am amused! I’m typing this while watching my kids in the bath & they keep looking at me like I’m mental because I keep laughing out loud at Miles…looks like God troll was unsuccessful! Nice work guys. Respond to trolls with intelligent, calm answers (for the most part) & let them get their jollies elsewhere!
Cuttlefish you know that is illegal and you could be prosecuted for defacing US Currency? I know I am pulling at straws but just in case you end up in court you can say the Great Dano told you so. I enjoyed the video & hope all had a great time. I know I was brought to laughter from the answers. Cheers!
Actually, Dan-o, it’s illegal if the defacing is intended to (and sufficient to) make the currency unfit for use; I absolutely want it used, and it fits great in a parking meter, so it’s fine. Besides, they’ll have to wade through all the commemorative coins decorated in enamel, or highlighted with Twin Towers recovered silver or gold, before they get to a cephalopod with an engraver.