Inside - ColdType

ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT
Atheists are
also the
minority group
most Americans
are least willing
to allow their
children to
marry. The
researchers
conclude that
atheists offer
“a glaring
exception to
the rule of
increasing
social tolerance
over the last
30 years”
34 TheREADER
of Yugoslavia, for example, we were
told at the beginning that references
to Chapter VII were necessary to send
political signals, and it finally ended
up with the Nato bombardments.”[7]
It remains to be seen whether the
Russians or any other Security Council
members have taken this lesson to
heart and can stand up to the schoolyard
bully’s pressure by refusing to
give the United States another pretext
for expanding the empire’s control
over the Middle East.
You can love your mom, eat lotsa
apple pie, and wave the American
flag, but if you don’t believe in God
you are a hell bound subversive
A recent study by the University of
Minnesota department of sociology
has identified atheists as “America’s
most distrusted minority”. University
researchers found that Americans rate
atheists below Muslims, recent immigrants,
homosexuals and other minority
groups in “sharing their vision of
American society.”
Atheists are also the minority
group most Americans are least willing
to allow their children to marry.
The researchers conclude that atheists
offer “a glaring exception to the
rule of increasing social tolerance over
the last 30 years.”
Many of the study’s respondents
associated atheism with an array of
moral indiscretions ranging from
criminal behavior to rampant materialism
and cultural elitism. The study’s
lead researcher believes a fear of
moral decline and resulting social disorder
is behind the findings. “Ameri-
cans believe they share more than
rules and procedures with their fellow
citizens, they share an understanding
of right and wrong. Our findings seem
to rest on a view of atheists as selfinterested
individuals who are not
concerned with the common
good.”[8]
Hmmm. I’ve been a political activist
for more than 40 years. I’ve marched
and fought and published weekly
newspapers alongside countless atheists
and agnostics who have risked jail
and being clubbed on the head, and
who have forsaken a much higher
standard of living, for no purpose other
than the common good. Rampant
materialism? Hardly. “Secular humanism”,
many atheists call it. And we
don’t read about mobs of atheists
stoning, massacring, or otherwise
harming or humiliating human beings
who do not share their non-beliefs.
The public attitude depicted by
this survey may derive in part from
the Cold-War upbringing of so many
Americans – the idea and the image
of the “godless atheistic communist”.
But I think more than that is the
deep-seated feeling of insecurity, even
threat, that atheists can bring out in
the religioso, putting into question,
consciously or unconsciously, their
core beliefs.
You must wonder at times, as I do,
how this world became so unbearably
cruel, corrupt, unjust, and stupid. Can
it have reached this remarkable level
by chance, or was it planned? It’s
enough to make one believe in God.
Or the Devil.