Bryan Fischer and Mike Huckabee both agree: if only the children had been allowed to pray and talk about God, these things would never happen:
HuffPo — Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R) weighed in on the massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. on Friday, saying the crime was no surprise because we have “systematically removed God” from public schools.”We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools,” Huckabee said on Fox News. “Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?”
Wow, that’s a new low even a pandering liar like Huckabee. But as odious as it is, Bryan Fischer handily tops it:
Bryan Fischer spent the first hour of his radio program today discussing this morning’s truly horrific shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut, which he, of course, blamed on the fact that prayer, the Bible, and the Ten Commandments are not taught in public schools.Fischer said that God could have protected the victims of this massacre, but didn’t because “God is not going to go where he is not wanted” and so if school administrators really want to protect students, they will start every school day with prayer.
Well, they’re quite right that god isn’t wanted in public schools. Thankfully.
Apparently they don’t really believe that their god is omnipotent and omnipresent. After all, an omnipresent god doesn’t need to be invited in. Also, do they really believe that nobody in that school was praying today? Or are they just afraid to admit that prayer had the effect it always has?
If god is so pissed, why doesn’t he take out us godless types instead of children? Way to keep it classy, god! Asshole….
So let me get this straight. God would have protected all those kids from the gunman if only they prayed to him every day? But since they didn’t he let a crazed gunman blow their brains out. Is it just me or does their God come across as a heartless egotistical prick?
Menawhile, of course, if an evull librull mentioned, say, the idea that controlling guns with a few basic laws might be good in light of this tragic event they’d be wrong to speak so soon afterwards and *they’d* exploiting these deaths for their own ideological ends. But Fischer and Huckabee’s comments here are nothing of the sort and just fine.+ / sarcasm.
+ No they’re not. Not at all.
@3.octoberfurst
Hard to believe but its even worse than that. Even if the kids prayed every day, went to church all the time they weren’t at school or asleep gawd would still let them die because the *school* itself didn’t have morning prayers and also didn’t teach creationism,
IOW, there’s nothing the kids who were killed could’ve done and the “blame” for their deaths is placed on the nasty atheists for insisting the school actually obeys the US Constitution. Which gawd would natch & “rightly” find totes unacceptable as a reasonable “gentleman” and thus gawd would refuse to intervene and stop children from being murdered. Wonder if Fischer and Huckabee realise just how petty, cruel and downright evil their words make their god look?
PS. Is it just me or is the font size really tinier here than elsewhere on FTB?
Someone should put these losers on the spot. Point out how they are just blathering without any knowledge of the situation. When Huckabee says that it happened because God is taken out of the schools, someone should ask him “What religion did the shooter practice? What church did he go to?” Huckabee doesn’t know. Someone should ask Fischer “What school did the shooter go to? In which years did he attend which schools?” Again, he doesn’t know.
“…systematically removed God” from public schools…
He’s lying, since “under God” is still included in the Pledge of Allegiance recited by public schoolchildren every morning.
But of course we don’t want God in public schools. He’s a proven mass murderer of children.
I’m waiting for some Right Wingnut pundit to say that the tragedy would never have happened if only the students and teachers were heavily armed. That would also permanently settle any playground disputes.
By the time the Supreme Court ruled on mandatory prayer and bible readings, there were othe states that had either dropped bible reading and prayer in schools and some that never had prayer and bible readings in their schools. Wingnuts blame everything “bad” on the Supreme Court decisions. Someone should do a study proving that the states that eliminated prayer and bible reading prior tho 1960 went to hell in a handbasket the year the stopped the practices. And they also should prove that the states that never had those practices were rotten from the get-go.
I doubt I’m the first to say this, but as a twelve-year survivor of Catholic school, I can assure everyone that the daily, sanctimonious verbal and physical ritualization of christianity (albeit, in Fischer’s eyes, the WRONG version) is not a heavenly ward against all things horrible– and bear in mind this included forced, collective morning and meal-time prayers, school Masses at least once a month, and an actual religion class (just like algebra, chemistry, etc) for every single grade, every single year.
And reality was still a bitch, and life was an oppressive, eye-gouging nightmare, just like everywhere else. The central difference was starchy uniforms, severely limited freedom of thought and speech, and the fact that by sophomore year, my classmates and I were thoroughly desensitized, devirginized, and, well, pretty much de-you-name-it. It wouldn’t have surprised anyone had a gunman appeared on campus.
Cut this “If only God were allowed in schools…” crap. I assure you, it changes nothing.
What in the hell drives these extremists to reason that forced christianity is a panacea against all of the ills of reality? I mean, really? They’re basically accusing their God of slaughtering children to get back at “secularists.”
I’m curious as to how they know that none of these kids prayed every day. Does it not count unless it is school sanctioned?
It’s pathetic to see self righteous ideologues using a tragedy like this to whip their favorite hobby horse and unfortunately it’s not just religious fundamentalists doing it.
Yesterday, a few “social justice warriors” crawled out from under their rocks on Pharyngula to blame the shootings on “entitlement, masculinity, privilege, and misogyny”.
Shameful behavior regardless of who does it.
Hmm… I can’t figure out how learning that you should keep the festival of unleavened bread or that you shouldn’t boil a baby goat in its mother’s milk would stop any of these tragedies from occurring.
So the shootings are the result of removing god and school prayer from public schools? I guess then that it’s the price we have to pay for Constitutionally-protected Separation of Church and State.
What? That argument only works for the SECOND Amendment?
not that any particular student can’t of course express their personal religion (so long as it doesn’t impede on classtime), but you know who else public schools tend to prohibit from campus?
rampaging gunmen.
@Ichthyic, #16:
But if we outlaw gunmen rampaging in public schools, only outlaw gunmen will rampage in public schools!
Aren’t most of these kids going to heaven? That would mean that the gunman was doing them a favor by helping them on their way. As for a prayer – the last I heard “under God” is still in the pledge which is said at the beginning of the day in most US schools.
One would actually think that there would be more of these events if it were Dog’s way of sending a message. In a country of over 300 million, these events are still quite uncommon. The media would have us believe that there is an epidemic but that is not the case. If this like the bible is a way of getting a message across, Dog is not being helpful. One can not blame it – not existing tends to be a handicap.
Dan Fincke knocked it out of the park on this one: