This is what bugs me about atheists. They whine about any mention of God in a secular setting even if they dont believe God exists. Notice how a speaker could say "May the force be with you" or "may the universe favor you" or any number of other things without provoking a reaction...so why the big deal about God?
The incident I refer to is this one: [YULLE, Fla. school incident]
It has already been pointed out that that student was serving as an agent of the government acting in his official capacity, which made his religious remarks a government action, which is a violation of the First Amendment. And it has already been pointed out that the Christians complaining about the decision to stop that government agent from mentioning God while acting in his official capacity (reading the morning announcements) were doing so under a false sense of Christian Privilege in which they believe that they have to right to use any and all public venues,
including government agencies, to promote and impose their own religion on everybody else. And you have recognized those points and appear to agree with them, or at least to be taking them under consideration.
But what troubles me is that you automatically denounced the two students who complained as being "atheist activists". Just because they lodged legitimate complaints? Or just because they're atheists? In your favorite anti-atheist propaganda film, "God is NOT Dead", if any Christian student in that sham philosophy class had complained about Sorbo's unwarranted attacks against their religion, would you call them "Christian activists"? I doubt that very much.
Within the past few years or more in the Capistrano School District there was a case in which a high school teacher would routinely challenge the students' assumptions in an effort to get them to think. One comment in particular that he would make referred to how fundamentalists would view the world through their "Jesus glasses", meaning that they would filter everything through their belief system. That and his confrontational approach led some of his Christian students filing complaints against him, which I seem to recall led to a lawsuit which the students won. Google'ing on
Jesus glasses should lead you to pages about it; I'm sure that you've never heard about it from your Christian propaganda mills since they couldn't use it to promote their lies about "Christian persecution" since the decision was in the Christians' favor. So, would you consider those students to have been activists as well? They certainly went further than those two atheist students in Florida did. So why do you call the atheists "activists" and not the Christians?
And what about that atheist US Air Force Tech Sergeant who was suddenly faced with a new religious test being imposed for reenlistment and being denied reenlistment solely because of that religious test (see my
Message 610)? He was being actively discriminated against and could find no redress through his chain of command until the American Humanist Association threatened the USAF with a lawsuit, which finally got the top brass to review the situation and immediately realize how damned illegal their actions and ordered his reenlistment paperwork to be processed. So you would call him an "atheist activist" too?
Well, when the USAF story was posted on Facebook, many of the hundreds of comments did accuse him of being an atheist activist, of trying to cause trouble, of just wanting attention, and many more outrageous things. It was a false sense of Christian Privilege Gone Wild. Many proclaimed that believing in God is a requirement for serving in the military (absolutely false!), that when you enlist you lose all your rights (most absolutely false!), that we have always been "one nation under God" (also false; that religious wording splitting apart "one nation indivisible" was only introduced in 1954), etc. The comments in support of the TSgt tried to point out that his rights were being violated, that the Air Force was in direct violation of the law and of the US Constitution, and to correct the opponents many wrong ideas about the Pledge (changed in 1954), the Motto (changed in 1956), the Constitution, and military service. The comments against the TSgt were irrational, based on utter falsehoods, and without any merit, yet they were the prevailing opinion. As W.C. Fields said, "There comes a time in the affairs of men that you have to grab the bull by the tail and face the situation."
I have some questions about those two atheist students that I don't see addressed. They complained to the American Humanist Association (AHA), but did they first try to complain to the school? Proper procedure is to follow the chain of command to get problems resolved at the lowest level possible and only go over someone's head when you cannot get the problem resolved at that level. But these were kids who hadn't yet been trained in proper procedure, so they likely didn't try to resolve the problem at the school level. Or worse, they had tried and were met by the same false sense of Christian Privilege that you yourself assumed. Or the school staff had already created a hostile environment which discouraged the students from even thinking of trying, so that they knew immediately that they had to go outside the system to get the problem resolved. Even though the kids, being kids, probably wouldn't have followed proper procedure in any case, I also strongly suspect that the school officials were themselves caught up in that false sense of Christian Privilege and so I don't feel very confident that they would have done the right thing on their own without outside pressure from the AHA.
...so why the big deal about God?
On the face of it, it shouldn't be a big deal. Just like finding out that somebody is not a Christian or even is an atheist (even though that's the same thing to many Christians) shouldn't be a big deal. Just like a politician's personal religious affiliations should not be a big deal. Nor would it have been a big deal if it were just an isolated incident.
But it was not just an isolated incident, but rather yet another offense that must be taken in context. The context is that Christian activists (yes! It is the Christians who are the activists!) who have declared culture war on the rest of society and who make it their business to push on all the fronts that they can to further their agenda. Part of those efforts involves grass-roots organizing of local zealots. One example is the "Question Evolution" program in which students are given lists of "impossible questions" to raise in science class in order to challenge what's being taught and to disrupt the class (I've seen the list and even had it tried on me; one such "impossible question" is "Where did all the compounds come from?" to which the answer is "That is basic chemistry. Take the class and try to learn something."). I haven't encountered any, but I'm sure that there are also programs recruiting students to push for organized prayer in school, such as in class or at school events, though they seem to end up with prayer circles before class (student-organized and student-led religious activities are fine so long as it's not on school time and not part of a school event and it's not disruptive, but a student-led prayer as part of a school event would not be). And interjecting religious statements as part of the morning announcements would be another tactic that these activists would push. It is important that none of those efforts be allowed to go unchallenged.
True, some of those incidents might not be part of the culture war, but rather might just be an individual acting entirely on his own because of a false sense of Christian Privilege, but, because of the environment created by the Christian activists fighting the culture war that they have declared on society, every innocent violation of church-state separation and just plain good manners must be challenged as well. If it weren't for the Christian declaration and prosecution of culture war, we could be more forgiving. But because of the clear and present danger that they present, we cannot be afforded that luxury.
So what harm was done to those two atheist students? I can only speak for myself when I was in that same situation about half a century ago. I was raised on the standard stories about the founding of our nation which especial emphasis being placed on religious freedom and religious liberty, which included how that freedom is protected by church-state separation. But then I observed how school officials would routinely inject religion into school events, especially in our assemblies. The hypocrisy was not lost on me, nor on other students. That engendered a growing cynicism towards and distrust of authority figures and a generally negative attitude, which is not a healthy attitude for a society to instill in its youth. So how did that make me any different from the other teenagers? In my case, I could trace my attitude to specific causes.
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