NDR Media Coverage

A Day to Celebrate Reason

by Bruce Wilkey

Well it's here again. Thursday is the National Day of Reason. A day proclaimed by a consortium of leaders of America's community of reason as a counterpoint to the unconstitutional federally recognized National Day of Prayer wherein government facilities from Washington on down will be invaded for a show of force by Christian extremists who care nothing for the rights of 30 million of their fellow citizens who profess no religion. You probably won't hear much about the National Day of Reason. America's non-religious citizens aren't much for showing off.

Should a national brotherhood of clowns decide to take over council rooms and courthouses across America to spread mirth and cheer by invading those spaces in all their face-painted, red-wigged regalia for an hour of comic relief, they would be thrown in the slammer for obstructing vital civic discourse. But let a stern preacher and a gaggle of hypocrites want to go in to converse with the spirit world and the red carpets roll out.

Politicians are always ready to abrogate their oaths for a socially acceptable photo-op.

In his proclamation on the subject, Bush once again invokes the memory of the 9/11 attacks to justify this trampling of the rights of a significant portion of the citizenry. Is no-one EVER going to tell the cowboy who would be king that the ineptitude that led to that sad day, $3.00-a-gallon gas, record corporate profits, 30,000 dead and maimed Americans and two trillion wasted dollars are all dots which we have now connected. If there is any justice anywhere in the world, his future will be determined by an international criminal court, not the dead-end prayers of his evangelical "base." You likely know some of them - they're the 33% who are still willing to say they support this lout who have their brains hard-wired to that Republican junkie Limbaugh and the Faux News Channel.

Why this year there's even a National Day of Prayer car entered in a NASCAR race. Praise god and pass the fuel can. Whoopee, religion at 200 mph. Pardon me - I need to dry my tears of laughter.

Students will be once again coerced to participate in "meet me at the pole" gatherings - wouldn't want to be shunned by the Christian clique. Just what is a student who has examined and, in an expression of intellectual honesty, rejected faith's the empty bag to do? Columbine happened precisely as a result of such social stigmatism and angst.

I think there's a better way, an elegant and simple solution. I think if they want to pray they should exercise their guaranteed freedom to go to one of the two thousand churches around here built for this purpose and refer to Matthew 6:5-6 for necessary instructions. But I doubt if that'll ever happen. These Christians aren't much for respecting the rights of others. They think their little black book of virtue trumps the Constitution, Bill of Rights and every other product of enlightened human thought held close to the heart of the American experiment.

Author and atheist Sam Harris has thrown down a mighty gauntlet for the faithful. I can only hope some of them will put aside their babbles long enough to take a long look at the pitiful mess it makes of their minds. In his book "The End Of Faith" Harris lays out the absurdity and danger posed by organized religion and skewers the "moderates" among the religious community for acting as enablers for the extremists among us. If the state of Georgia had been interested in real education on the "historic value" of the babble, they would have mandated that Harris' book be read as a part of the course. We have left behind many of the horribly repugnant and inhumane trappings of old testament buggery, but it will be a harder struggle to purge the seemingly innocuous new testament version. It is far more insidious and killing it will require more that a redefinition of morality - it will require a redefinition of just what it means to be human.

Harris is quite correct in stating: "Our past is not sacred for being past, and there is much that is behind us that we are struggling to keep behind us and to which, it is to be hoped, we would never return with a clear conscience: the divine right of kings, feudalism, the caste system, slavery, political executions, forced castration, vivisection, bearbaiting, honorable duels, chastity belts, trial by ordeal, child labor, human and animal sacrifice, the stoning of heretics, cannibalism, sodomy laws, taboos against contraception, human radiation experiments - the list is almost endless, and if it were extended indefinitely, the proportion of abuses for which religion could be found directly responsible is likely to remain undiminished."

The road to peace stretches before us - it is a long and winding road.

Copyright 2006 The Chattanoogan

Read the original story on the The Chattanoogan Web Site.

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