Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late ! !

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees… I don’t feel threatened.. I don’t feel discriminated against.. That’s what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, ‘Merry Christmas’ to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu … If people want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her ‘How could God let something like this happen?’ (regarding Hurricane Katrina).. Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.. She said, ‘I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?’

In light of recent events… terrorists attack, school shootings, etc.. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about.. And we said okay..

Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with ‘WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.’

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it… no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

I also have a confession:

I’m an Atheist. Some members of my family are Atheists; some are Christians; other are Agnostic. Some of my friends are Atheists; some are Christians; some are Baha’i; some are Agnostic; I even have a few Buddhist and Muslim friends.

It also does not bother me in the slightest when people call those beautiful, lit up, bejeweled trees, “Christmas” trees. I also do not feel threatened (as this message implies I would), nor I do not feel discriminated against.

It doesn’t bother me when people say “Merry Christmas”, just as it does not bother me when people say “Happy Hanukkah”, “Lo, Saturnilia!”, “Happy Holidays!” or any other phrase marking the season. (Many of you have probably never heard of that third one, but I’ll get to that.)

I agree that when people say these greetings to one another, it carries with it a good intent. They do not mean me any harm when they greet me in this manner — even though I am not a Christian, I am not bothered in the slightest when someone tells me “Merry Christmas” because I know that their intentions are good.

I don’t like seeing people get pushed around because of their religion, nationality, creed, or gender. I don’t like seeing Jews, Christians, Baha’is, Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics, etc. being discriminated against because their beliefs differ. *I* don’t like being pushed around because my beliefs don’t match up with someone else’s.

I don’t see anything wrong with a manger scene (or any other religious iconography) being displayed on church or private property. In fact, I celebrate this diverse mix of cultures that we have in the United States — it’s what makes us unique. But I do see something wrong with this idea that Atheists somehow have a problem with this — we don’t. What we do have a problem with is government-endorsed religion. For example, when a courthouse or any other government organization displays religious symbols that are specific to any religion (e.g., the Ten Commandments, the Crucifix, Manger Scenes, Menorahs, etc.) I take issue with this for a few reasons: #1 It’s a direct violation of the Establishment Clause set forth in the First Amendment. #2 It has the effect of excluding anyone who does not belong to those religions on display; it’s like saying that we aren’t welcome in our own country. Just like Christians don’t want to be pushed around for their beliefs, they also shouldn’t work to push around others who don’t subscribe to their religion — even Atheists.

Nobody ever said that America was an Atheist country. Nobody. However the historic record is full of documentation of the fact that America is a Secular country. They’re not the same thing. Secular means that the government is barred from endorsing any specific religion. However lately, it’s become fashionable for many Christians to claim that America was founded on Christianity; when in fact, this is blatantly false. You don’t have to take my word for it; the Quartz Hill School of Theology has written an excellent article about this topic:

http://www.theology.edu/journal/volume2/ushistor.htm

But let me go back to my main point: Christmas. Every year around this time we start hearing so-called “conservatives” decry the “War on Christmas”. They claim that Christmas is under attack from Atheists. I find this claim especially offensive seeing as how I’m an Atheist who does in fact celebrate Christmas. (I’ll explain this later.) For the record, there is no “War on Christmas”. What these people call the “War on Christmas” is actually people — Atheists, Agnostics, and even some fairness-minded Christians — speaking up about the flagrant display of government-endorsed religion that occurs every single year around Christmas time. I can’t find anything about Christianity (or any other religion); any mention of Jesus, nor anything else regarding the legality of government-run institutions being allowed to endorse any specific religion, and I don’t like it being shoved down *my* throat.

I’ve heard many Christians claim that the world is going to hell and it’s all because the world has rejected God. They point to people like me and say “You are what’s wrong with America!” They say “You can’t be a good person if you don’t believe in God!” But they’re wrong on all three counts. You’ll always be able to find the bad things in life if you’re searching for them; just as you’ll be able to find the good things. But if you only focus on the bad, then it’s an easy conclusion to make that the world is in fact “going to hell”. Personally, I don’t think the world is going to hell. I think that as long as there are human beings, there will be a mix of good, bad, and in-between; what we choose to focus on is what will determine our outlook — how we see the world.

We can look at school shootings, terrorists attacks, natural disasters and take the easy route of explanation by saying that it’s all some sort of divine retribution because we’ve rejected God. Or, we can actually investigate each instance and find the real reasons they happened. I’m not going to enumerate those reasons here, but the truth is rarely as simple as you want it to be.

With regard to religious instruction in public schools, I never understood why so many Christians are so adamant about pushing the Bible and prayer down everyone else’s throats while claiming that Atheists are pushing their agenda down the throats of Christians. I never understood how someone can read the Constitution; specifically, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and conclude that it does not explicitly ban public schools from endorsing religion. Again, public schools are government run institutions — I have no problem with private schools basing their curriculum on a religious premise. But requiring public schools to teach a specific religion simply is to discriminate against people who might not belong to that religion. Many Christians do not care about this — they’re ok with discriminating against people of other religions; however what happens if in the future, Christians are no longer the majority religion in the United States? What happens when, say, Muslims want to teach Islam in public schools? It’s easy to see that religion should stay in the churches, temples, mosques, etc. and out of public schools, lest we create a huge mess for ourselves.

Many of today’s Christians complain about being discriminated against, but every time I hear this, it always boils down to them just being upset because someone else doesn’t want them forcing their beliefs where they’re not welcome. You don’t see Atheists going door to door on the weekends urging people *not* to go to church; if you did, I promise you there’d be a riot. But somehow it’s ok for Christians to go door to door in an effort to push their beliefs. It doesn’t bother me at all when they come though; I just kindly thank them and decline their offer. I’m not rude nor offensive, even though I believe their assumption that they’re doing something good is a bit misplaced. But hey, that’s the price of living in a country where ALL people have the right to believe (or not believe) whatever they want. It’s a small price to pay in my opinion.

But back to Christmas. Why do I celebrate it? I think it’s mainly out of tradition, but I have thought long and hard about what Christmas means to me. In so doing, I’ve had to consider the origin of Christmas, it’s history, and past customs. What I’ve found is that Christmas has gone by many names; it’s older than Christianity (i.e., it’s been around for thousands of years) — in fact, Christians did not “invent” Christmas, and many of the customs we now associate with Christmas, actually come from many different religions that pre-dated Christianity. Even the word “Christmas” is fairly new, the Romans called it “Saturnilia”; Scandinavian and Germanic peoples called it “Yule”; and the Celts and Druids called it “Alban Arthuan”. The most prominent symbol of Christmas — the Christmas Tree, was borrowed from early pagans. My goal isn’t to “deconstruct” Christmas, however I would certainly recommend reading the following articles concerning Christmas, it’s origins and customs. I think you’ll be surprised:

http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/Christmas_TheRealStory.htm

http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org/tracts/tract3.html

http://www.hope-of-israel.org/cmas1.htm

But back to the question at hand: “Why do I, an Atheist, celebrate Christmas?” Because regardless of what Christmas was called in the past; regardless of how people celebrated it, and what it meant to them, I think that we all can agree that the modern day Christmas that we all celebrate is intended to remind us that we need to be better people; that we need to treat each other kindly, and celebrate that kindness by giving and sharing with others. It’s a time that we should all take a moment to think about a world where we all get along peacefully regardless of differing beliefs or politics — we have all year to disagree and argue with each other; this should be the one time during that year where we can take a break from all that and just enjoy each other’s company.

Thank you for reading this, and Merry Christmas!

-c

Indeed, this is a disgrace. But I think that this point needs clarification. The disgrace isn’t with the Muslim Americans who wish to exercise their right to religious freedom by building a mosque or community center on privately owned property; the disgrace is that some Americans are trying to deny other Americans from exercising that right.

This e-mail claims that the group who wants to build the mosque is an extremist group. However, by any realistic measure, this couldn’t be further from the truth. The proponents of this claim say that the leader of the group has ties to a man who supports extremism and funds madrasas(sp?), but notice how they never actually name this person.

Alwaleed bin Talal. This is the man they’re talking about. Who is he? For starters, he’s a Saudi prince, but that’s not as interesting as this next fact:

He is also the part owner (2nd largest shareholder) of News Corp, which is the parent company of Fox News — the main media outlet that has been relentlessly stirring the pot on the issue of the “terror mosque”.

So, either Fox News is funding terrorism via Alwaleed bin Talal, which means that Fox News is funding the construction of this “terror mosque” while simultaneously opposing it; or Fox News isn’t funding terrorism *and* the members of the group building the mosque are actually peaceful American Muslims just trying to exercise their right to practice their religion — a right guaranteed by the Constitution — in the face of immense xenophobia and ignorance on behalf of everyone opposed to the building of the mosque.

But “what about this radical Imam?” you might be asking. Oh you mean Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf; the same guy who has been working with the U.S. State Department (since the Bush administration) to promote religious tolerance in the Arab world.

Read that again.

The Imam — the leader of the group building the “terror mosque”, worked with the U.S. State Department on at least two separate occasions in 2007 and is currently working with the State Department to promote religious tolerance amongst Muslims.

…Some “radical” he surely is.

By now a few things should be painfully obvious:

(1) The Muslim group building the mosque is not a collection of terrorists, extremists, America-haters, etc.

(2) Fox News is keeping this non-issue going because it’s good for ratings.

(3) Opponents of the mosque actually have no valid reason to oppose it, all of the “reasons” they have can be attributed to not knowing the details of the situation (mentioned previously), xenophobia (i.e., fear of people of other races/nationalities/religions), racism, politically or religiously-motivated hatred of Muslims, or just plain stupidity.

Again, I find it absolutely disgusting that any American would work to restrict the rights of another American, while claiming this to be his or her “patriotic duty”. There is no greater enemy to the United States than this fever of ultra-nationalism that gripped our nation around the throat… we truly are on the road to fascism. Let me put it this way: There is nothing “patriotic” or “American” about ignorantly laboring to limit the Constitutionally protected rights of fellow Americans just because their religion or even their politics disagree with yours.

I also think it’s worth repeating that on 9/11, it wasn’t just Christians who died when the twin towers fell. Within the walls of the WTC buildings, many people of different races, nationalities, and religions carried out their daily routines — Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Baha’is, etc., all died in the attack.

…and one more thing

The despicable acts committed at Abu Garib were atrocities, and Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks so attempting to justify them by invoking 9/11 is either disingenuous or ignorant… or both. Also, two wrongs don’t make a right.

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But maybe General Patton would have something to say about the current state of our nation…

I wonder if he would question the wisdom of fighting a virtually un-winnable war on two fronts — one of those war fronts being a product of deception, corruption, and outright lies on behalf of the Bush administration… I wonder if he’d question the integrity of the leaders who started war in Iraq and then let their corporate pals practically rape the treasury department in the form of charging the government and the taxpayers exorbitant bills for sub-par or completely nonexistent services…

I wonder if he would be proud that half a century after WWII, the citizens of his homeland have forgotten the lessons of the Weimar Republic and the Nazis, and instead are happily marching down the road to fascism themselves…

I wonder if he would be proud that our politicians have embraced fearmongering as a means of controlling the populace…

Somehow, I doubt it.

But in the end it doesn’t really matter because he’s not around to comment on current events, so any speculation about what he may or may not have said is completely pointless. Whomever wrote this e-mail, claiming to know what Patton would have said, has no way of knowing if he or she were right, so it might just be a good idea to ignore useless drivel like this rather than forward it on to others.

In closing, I’d like to issue a challenge:

If you claim to be a patriot, educate yourself about what the Constitution and other founding documents *really* say. Don’t just continue believing in a rosy interpretation of what you imagine them to mean just because it fits your biases, politics, prejudices, etc. Recognize that ALL citizens of this great nation deserve the same rights as guaranteed by the Constitution. There are no “privileged” classes based on race, gender, religion, political beliefs, or sexual orientation — under the laws of our secular government, we are all equals. And if you really, really think that you’re a patriot, read the following excerpt from William N. Grigg, and then take a hard look around you. Take a hard look at what this nation has become. Take a hard look at what YOU have become… and then do something about it.

Quote:

While the terms patriotism and nationalism can refer to the same thing — the love of one’s native country — in practice they have acquired very different meanings. Nationalism, in practice, describes not to the love of a country but rather the veneration of its central government.

As historian John J. Dwyer notes, nationalism is a degenerate impostor of patriotism. “The patriot says, `I love my country,’ works for its good, and defends it if necessary — against enemies within and without,” writes Dwyer. “He strives and prays not primarily that God will bless his country, but that his country will bless God. The nationalist, meanwhile, says, `My country is better than yours.’ `My country is the greatest there has ever been.’ `The greatest nation on God’s green earth.’ `They hate my country because it is so good.’”

Nationalism focuses on the State, rather than the community. It is unambiguously based on zero-sum assumptions about power, and nationalists define victory in terms of imposing their will on others.

Source:

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2007/03/patriotism-vs-nationalism.html

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Sincerely,

Charles Hamilton
U.S. Army Iraq War Veteran (2003)

Rep. Van Hollen,

I’m writing to you because I’d like to know your stance on H.CON.RES.274; a house resolution titled:

‘Reaffirming “In God We Trust” as the official motto of the United States and supporting and encouraging the public display of the national motto in all public buildings, public schools, and other government institutions.’

But before we get to that, I’d like to point out that (as you are probably well aware) this resolution is highly unconstitutional. “In God We Trust” and “One Nation Under God” are remnants of McCarthyism — a dark period in our nation’s history where the lives of many innocent people were needlessly destroyed in a storm of nationalist fervor. Proponents of this resolution will argue that since these mottoes make no reference to any specific religion, they don’t exclude anyone. But this is poor logic at best. In order to believe that, you’d have to believe that everyone in the U.S. believes in a god of some sort, which is definitely not the case.

This resolution also has the effect of reaffirming the myth that the U.S. was founded upon “Christian” values/ideals and was intended by the founding fathers to be a “Christian” nation. History is full of evidence to the contrary — the “Treaty of Tripoli” for example, explicitly states that the U.S. is not ‘in any sense’ founded upon the Christian religion. However modern day revisionists are doing their best to push this myth down the collective throat of the public.

I’m sure that you’re aware of what is going on in Texas currently; Religious zealots have taken over the school board and are pushing for a curriculum that marginalizes the civil rights movement, evolution, Thomas Jefferson; attempts to whitewash the less-savory parts of American history (e.g., the near-extinction of native Americans, slavery, McCarthyism, etc.) And — this is the worst part — furthers the misguided idea known as “American Exceptionalism”. This is the idea that the U.S. is somehow special; that we are immune to the ills that plague other nations because we have been chosen by God to be an example for other nations to emulate. This idea is extremely self-serving and jingoistic. It breeds arrogance and an attitude that the U.S. is the only relevant nation in the world — we can do whatever we want, invade anyone we want, we are accountable to nobody. In effect, this idea has turned us into the world’s bully.

You don’t have to look too far to see that we’re on a dangerous path towards fascism. Today, a large portion of Americans have forgotten the difference between patriotism (e.g., dissent, honesty, civil discourse) and nationalism (e.g., blind adherence to an idealized version of our nation, demonization of unpopular speech and the people doing the speaking). These same Americans wear their ignorance as a badge of honor — they harbor contempt for people who disagree in the slightest sense, and they’re willing to do violence to further their “cause”. They have absolutely no regard for the rights of those whose beliefs conflict with their own; indeed, the spread of eliminationist rhetoric by conservative media outlets has had the effect of dehumanizing anyone who doesn’t see things their way. When politicians speak of “True Americans(tm)” as if some of us are lesser citizens, we should all be worried because we’ve heard this sort of rhetoric in the past and we know exactly what it leads to… in case this isn’t clear enough, I’m talking about Germany in the 1930′s.

I’m pleading with you as a concerned citizen and a veteran of the U.S. Army who served his country in Iraq — a veteran who knows all too well what the current climate of ignorance, fearmongering, lies, religious zealotry, and propaganda has done to his country… please, do not support this resolution, or even better, do everything within your power to kill it outright. We need not reaffirm this myth! Doing so is only adding more fuel to the fire. Those who worship at the altar of nationalistic religious fascism will only use it as a weapon against their fellow citizens.

Thank you.

Charles E. Hamilton III