Thanks to Hilzoy, I’ve learned that our dearly beloved president has enunciated an important principle.
Bush said that despite declarations of piety from Muslim radicals now fighting the United States, he doubted that they believed in God.
“‘Terrorists’ can’t be God-believing people,'” Richard Joel, president of Yeshiva University, quoted Bush as saying.
Before you run off and dismiss this as the ravings of an incompetent, deluded boob, think it through. It means that if someone does something wicked, we get to declare that they must not really believe in God — true faith only belongs to saints. All those angry people in the Middle East? Atheists. People who push buttons to launch cruise missiles? Atheists. People who order people to launch cruise missiles? Atheists. People who set policies that drag us into wars that require people to order other people to kill people? Atheists. Personally, I think people who extort the elderly into mailing them substantial portions of their social security checks are also atheists. People who are wicked enough to try and teach creationism must also be atheists. Only an atheist can do bad things.
Since saints are a negligible minority, it’s now safe to say that America is an atheist country.
Now comes the hard part, though. We have to get all those atheists in America to stop lying and calling themselves Christian, and we have to get all those atheists in the Middle East to stop lying and calling themselves Moslems. I’m not sure how we’re going to get them to confess.
Torture, maybe?
Before you run off and dismiss this as the ravings of an incompetent, deluded boob, think it through.
Upon further review, the play on the field stands, these are the ravings of an incompetent, deluded boob.
Still 4th down and 99. Please set the clock back to 11th century.
Specifically, post-humous torture. We explain to them that by lying, they are ruining their chances of getting into the Paradise in which they do not believe. If they were all as dumb as Bush this might be a viable plan.
I don’t buy any of it.
Parsimony forces me to accept this as the raving of an incompetetent, deluded boob.
We have to get all those atheists in America to stop lying and calling themselves Christian, and we have to get all those atheists in the Middle East to stop lying and calling themselves Moslems.
Let religion keep them. We don’t want them to tarnish our good name.
Oh no, this means that Bush is an atheist, along with Falwell, Robertson, Rove, and basically the entire political body and conservative movement in the US!
Drat. I wanna switch sides now.
Before you run off and dismiss this as the ravings of an incompetent, deluded boob, think it through.
“Think it through?” I don’t do that; I’m an atheist. ;-)
Apparently this comment was made during White House Hannukah meeting, which was supposed to focus on Jewish higher ed, but turned into a platform for Bush to expound on his administration’s policy towards Iran.
Hm. Send a message to Iran during a ceremony for a Jewish holiday. I also cast my vote for incompetent, deluded boob.
“‘Terrorists’ can’t be God-believing people,'” Richard Joel, president of Yeshiva University, quoted Bush as saying.
So he says terrorists aren’t really God-believing. PZ says that this means that atheists are a “majority.” So I guess this also means that PZ believes the majority of people who profess Islam are therefore terrorists then.
Brilliant! That is so much more well-thought-out than anything Bush stated.
Wait.
Extortion of the elderly is wrong?
Damn. There goes my retirement plan. Thanks, PZ.
“Torture, maybe?”
Thanks, PZ. I was drinking milk when I read that and now I need a new keyboard.
Of course, if we’re willing to torture people, we must be wicked, too. And thus, regardless of what we say publicly, (ahem) atheists as well.
Beneath this extended rant is the bleak world of the fundamentalist, who only acts ethically when prompted by hellfire. Truly, the gospel of fear….SH
s thy sy, t tks n ncmptnt, dldd bb t knw n. rg, ths pst f PZ’s mst b th rvng f n ncmptnt, dldd bb.
I know! Biggles fetch the comfy chair! Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
What’s with all the false dichotomies, what about us agnostics? Just because you don’t believe doesn’t mean you have to disbelieve.
ah hoody. that must go as much for you as well. and by extension anyone who recognizes the validity of such a statement.
takes one to know one.
i know you are but what am i.
why don’t you marry it.
good bye Pee Wee Herman.
Torture?
Nah, too much work. Must mean I’m agnostic [or apatheist]
capi:
I’m afraid this is NOT a false dichotomy. One either believes a specific thing or not. Maybe you are thinking of Strong Atheism instead, which is a positive statement about reality, and not simply atheism, which is a lack of belief.
BTW, this is why the claim is false: anyone sincerely believing that some kind of Sky Daddy exists is, by definition, a theist, regardless of their actions.
Tsk, tsk. Read my paragraph right after the quote. We clearly get to imply atheism from general acts we do not like, not simply an absence of doctrinal purity.
Just more anti-atheist propaganda; do we expect anything else? First terrorists were just terrorists, now they’re atheists too?! Just a little re-framing here, nothing to see, move along, move along.
Parsimony leads me to a different conclusion: This is nothing more than another example of the Right’s ceaseless campaign to cast ALL of their opponents – even the religious fanatics – as Godless.
I’d say the bit with the planes and the buildings was a fairly convincing demonstration of a belief in an afterlife, when coupled with their frequent statements in support of martyrdom at places of worship prior to the act.
I guess we don’t need to worry about tightening immigration laws to keep Muslims out of Congress anymore, either. Since it doesn’t really matter. My question is this – now that atheists are in the majority can one of us who was atheist prior to this announcement get elected to public office in North Carolina?
Why do scientists keep providing the military industrial complex with every piece of death dealing machinery they ask for?
It can’t be for religious reasons, since most scientists are atheists according to Dawkins.
From one blasphemous, torturing, terroristic atheist to another:
Man that was Wicked cool!
“Torture, maybe?” – had me falling out of my chair!
Mike:
I’d estimate those chances at about the same level as those of one of the original twelve apostles to lead the church after Constantine’s takeover.
Why do scientists keep providing the military industrial complex with every piece of death dealing machinery they ask for?
*plays the blame game*
It’s not the scientists, it’s the engineers who… no, no who am I kidding, it’s those weapons manufacturers! They have no scruples are are only out to maximize profits for the benefit of the only group to whom they are genuinely beholden: their stockholders. Didn’t you know that the road to Utopia is paved with the gold bricks of free-market capitalism?
Of course, the politicians who start the wars and the citizens who enthusiastically support those wars are blameless. Especially the politicians who claim to be on a mission from God, who use lies and fabrications to sell the war to those who gladly accept the lies and fabricatios as justification for perpetrating misdirected bloody vengence – they’re especially blameless.
Not really. There have been Marxist suicide bombers after all, who presumably believed that even their purity of belief in dialectical materialism wasn’t going to buy them a ticket into an afterlife, which was after all just the opiate of the masses.
The problem with the world isn’t religion, or politics — it’s True Believers — which can be theist or atheist, leftist or rightist, statist or anarchist. It’s the sort of humorless dweebs who buy into a set of assertions without any sense of irony.
nice essay:
“I’m beyond atheism…”
http://thisibelieve.org/dsp_ShowEssay.php?topessays=25&&uid=34&start=
Oh, Badgy. He huffs and he Hufflepuffs, but still just reminds me of a screaming toddler in a mud puddle.
Go pout and tout somewhere else.
Are you guys gonna let that jerk Parsimony keep you down your whole lives?
“It’s the sort of humorless dweebs who buy into a set of assertions without any sense of irony.”
A sense of irony is the only thing that separates us from the savages.
“Drat. I wanna switch sides now.”
It’s not about sides. It’s about letting one’s actions determine rightness (or righteousness) instead of one’s affiliation with a labeled philosophy.
I think PZ’s post is amusing in the way a pun is amusing, but I don’t find it valuable beyond amusement.
Shoot, I used to have a lot of pride in my atheism. Ah well, as they say, There goes the neighborhood…
mikey
A sarcastic admission that atheists have always been in the minority.
Mikey –
it’s more like Spaceballs….
“oh shit, there goes the planet!”
BTW, I say we go ahead and name this historical epoch were are in. — 5th Crusade, maybe?
Well, certainly terrorists can’t be true God-believing people. Or perhaps no true terrorist believes in God ;)
Wait… maybe we are reading this the wrong way.
No real God-believing person can be a terrorist…
therefore, the God-believing attackers of 9/11 weren’t real terrorists after all!
The Right-wing pundits will be extremely unhappy to hear Bush’s statement. Afterall, they’ve been demonizing Islam by pointing to the terrorists and saying Islam is a religion of hate. Now that Bush has said that the terrorists aren’t actually Muslims, they’ve lost a one more method to demonize Islam (and hold up Christianity as superior); now they might very well have to say that Islam is a religion of peace, or be forced to contradict the words of our great leader – I mean president.
I see that PZ uses the term Moslem whereas the more common useage now seems to be Muslim. Does anyone know why the shift occurred? In my youth Moslem was universally employed, but now its Muslim. Is there some underlying rational for this? Moslems always seemed to be exotic, romantisized sheiks, but Muslims are terrorists. Maybe Muslims are atheists but Moslems are believers?
Perhaps for the same reason they used to be called Mussulmen or Mohametans… times change?
(see article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli)
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html
That they can’t be God-believing doesn’t mean that they can’t be god-believing. A lot of people seem to be thinking that God is the only option out there when god-shopping, and that if you don’t like him, you have to be an atheist; but clearly, a billion Hindus would care to disagree. I think this confusion might have something to do with his name being confused with his species/class/occupation/status/whatever it is.
“I see that PZ uses the term Moslem whereas the more common useage now seems to be Muslim. Does anyone know why the shift occurred?” – dae
Wkikpedia to the rescue!
awesome.