Jews: No Jesus, No Reason, Just Whining; They’re Motivated by Anger and Boohoo Victimhood May 17, 2009

Jews: No Jesus, No Reason, Just Whining; They’re Motivated by Anger and Boohoo Victimhood

By Guest Contributor
May 17, 2009

Here’s why I can’t stand Jews.

  • They’re boring.
  • They keep complaining about being oppressed.
  • They keep talking about the same damn things all the time — Holocaust this and Israel that.
  • They always claim they’re victims.
  • They only constitute a small percentage of Americans — probably because they can’t win over any converts.
  • They still complain about how state Constitutions bar them from holding office — really, only six of them do — even though the Supreme Court has said those provisions are unenforceable.
  • They want affirmative action for their kind — one representative from the “pity-poor-me” school of Jews even said they need “safe spaces” at colleges!
  • They assume everyone who doesn’t agree with them is “beyond stupid.”
  • They never want to take on the serious arguments that theologians have made in favor of the Christian god.
  • Some Jews think Jesus never even existed. So what do they know?
  • They’re not rational. They’re just angry. Angry because they think the world is unfair to them. Angry that someone forced them to go to church as a child. Some Jews are so angry, they sued the government to prevent a Christian prayer from being spoken at President Obama’s inauguration. The gall!

Now… if I actually believed that, I’d be called every name in the book. And rightfully so. Those are ignorant, bigoted, hateful remarks. They’re also wildly stereotypical and extremely inaccurate.

When Charlotte Allen says the exact same things about atheists, however, she gets published in the Los Angeles Times.

I’ve been staring at this article for a while… partly wondering what was going through Allen’s head, and partly wondering why the LA Times would publish such garbage.

There’s one up side to the piece, though: If Allen can get crap like this published, it gives every other aspiring author hope.

Sam Harris often posts articles that mention his name on his website without comment. When he posted this one, he felt a need to add one statement:

[Harris’ Note: This is, without a doubt, one of the most embarrassingly stupid attacks on the “new atheists” to be published in a major newspaper.]

I await Allen’s response about how Harris is just letting out his atheist anger…

If you’d like to respond to this piece, letters-to-the-editor can be sent to letters@latimes.com.

Jim Newton is the editor of the editorial pages and oversees the Op-Ed page in which this piece was published. You can find his contact information here.

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  • Rational Thinker

    Here’s a real reason to be upset with Jews: Genital Mutilation.

  • muffinman

    damn those atheists, so angry that they keep on writing 3 page screeds about how a religious viewpoint they disagree with is petty and overly sensitive. oh wait…

    also, since when was “why don’t I have 1 head for sleeping and 1 for work” a major atheist complaint?

  • J Myers

    That is some epic stupid, there. Any sensible professional writer would take pains to avoid association with an article that moronic, but Charlotte Allen deliberately had that confession of idiocy published in a major newspaper? It is too transparently stupid to merit any sort of response.

  • Morgan55

    2 thoughts:

    1) As major newspapers drop like flies, have they become so desperate to generate ANY interest as to abandon all sense of propriety and publish crap like this? Obviously yes.

    2) The optimist in me thinks that if interest can be generated by atheist bashing, then apparently we’ve been identified as a fairly important group, whether you’re pro or con.

  • Umm… just wow. That’s the level of writing I expect from the Worldnetdaily not a newspaper of the LA Times reputation.

    I wonder if it occurred to her that being able to publish an op-ed in a major newspaper saying she HATES a group of people for their beliefs proves her point about persecution wrong? I think you nailed it right, if it was any other minority religious group that she was writing about it would be soundly condemned.

  • Luther

    Charlotte Allen is the author of “The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus” and a contributing editor to the Minding the Campus website of the Manhattan Institute.

    I believe the Manhattan Institute is where that well-known intellectual Ann Coulter works. This article reflects a similar style, quality of reasoning, and integrity.

  • Damn. And no comments allowed.

  • Zoo

    Mhmm, our whole lives revolve around atheist blogs and those on only one topic of conversation at that. None of us have interesting jobs or hobbies (nor do we frequent websites and blogs about those). None of us do volunteer work or otherwise help out a variety of causes. None of us have families or pets. None of us read any other kinds of books or have particular areas we like to research. None of us has gotten a degree in. . . anything. None of us travel. None of us play video games, watch TV, go out with our friends or have parties. Apparently atheists are not only boring, we’re completely miserable too.

    And that we

    [assume] that if science can’t prove something, it doesn’t exist.

    is just plain out wrong, beginning with a misunderstanding of what science is and does.

    There’s just way too much wrong with this article.

  • Richard Wade

    I sent this to the letters link and to Jim Newton’s link:

    To the editors:
    I am saddened to see the Los Angeles Times degenerate into a hate rag. Charlotte Allen’s tirade about atheists is filled overflowing with bigoted, antagonistic, ignorant and hateful tripe. If she were to say all those same things about Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, African Americans or gays she’d be flooded with calls for her to be fired as the reprehensible bigot that she is. But for some reason, she can spout all that bile about atheists, and you can publish it and not realize how appallingly ugly it is. In between the simpleminded statements of childish loathing the few arguments she offers are fallacious and based on absurd stereotypes, and they do nothing to further good will and mutual understanding between believers and non-believers. Shame on her and shame on you.

    Note: If you want to send them a letter, include your name, city and a phone number for verification. Otherwise you’ll have to do it all over again. You’ll get a confirmation email saying that they received it.

  • Richard Wade

    I’ve been staring at this article for a while… partly wondering what was going through Allen’s head,…

    Perhaps she was thinking that God is love and wondering about what would be her next opportunity to be as open, forgiving and loving as Jesus.

  • Daniel

    Congratulations you’ve completely lost all credibility by attacking people and using emotion as a motive and weapon. You make skeptical atheists look bad. If you really want to make a difference don’t be so militant, try being peaceful and proving that you don’t need abandon religion then fight against it to be happy.
    By reaffirming your disdain for religion you only empower it. If you are really that damaged by it then remove it entirely from your life and forget about it. You’ll be much happier if you’re not angry.
    And really that’s all anyone ever wants, to be happy.

  • Larry Huffman

    OK…well atheists are all that…and christians write and think like her. Even though it is baseless, I would rather be one she is talking about than like her.

  • Tom

    My letter to the editor reads:

    I am horrified that the LA times has published “No God, no reason just whining”, a so-called opinion piece by Charlotte Allen which is a barely disguised hate piece attacking innocent atheist citizens in the United States.

    I can not for a moment believe that if you substituted jews, muslims, scientologists, or any other religious groups for atheists in the article that Ms. Allen would have been permitted to say such horrific things about them in the LA Times. I consequently can no longer trust the LA Times to provide unbiased coverage of any topic which involves religion in any way.

    Your choice to publish this unvarnished hate-mongering makes me ill.

    You are welcome to recycle my text.

  • I appreciate your parallel between Atheism and Judaism, and how in articles like this attacking Atheism is fair game and right-on, but if they’d said the same things about Jews there’d be all hell on.

    LA Times needs to take a long hard look at it’s own bigotry. It’s not funny, and it’s not clever.

  • Just sent this letter to the editor:

    Subject: bigotry in LA Times
    Hello,

    I’m very disappointed by your decision to run the bigoted hateful piece “Atheists: No God, no reason, just whining”. It’s a shame your company gives a voice to such nonsense. Shame on the author for expressing such malicious drivel, but more shame to you for giving her a platform.

    If you really can’t see the problem in the piece, just google for it; you’ll find plenty of disappointment expressed in your decision. Here is one good analysis: http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/05/17/jews-no-jesus-no-reason-just-whining-theyre-motivated-by-anger-and-boohoo-victimhood/

    Sincerely,

  • kittycat

    What I don’t understand is why she seems to think we’re all so ANGRY all of the time. Sure, I get upset sometimes, but I’m not in a permanent state of rage and neither are the other atheists I know. She, on the other hand, seems to be the one that’s full of hate. Talk about whiny.

  • Todd

    LA Times was hacked by /b/tards.

  • THINK!

    This lacks a certain panache I have come to expect from /b/, a certain je nes sais quoi. Truly, if this was the work of Anonymous, the entire page would be covered in images of male genitalia.

  • Richard Wade

    Hi Daniel, you suggested,

    If you really want to make a difference don’t be so militant, try being peaceful and proving that you don’t need abandon religion then fight against it to be happy.

    Actually, most of the time I am peaceful. I only get militant when a person or group continually and without provocation attacks me or my friends personally, simply because we are not like them. Also, I never abandoned religion. I never had it, and I’m quite happy most of the time.

    Then you said,

    By reaffirming your disdain for religion you only empower it. If you are really that damaged by it then remove it entirely from your life and forget about it. You’ll be much happier if you’re not angry.

    Daniel, please be careful with your use of the word “you.” Your use of it here seems to mean a blanket inclusion of all atheists. Talk instead to individual people. I do not fit your description, and neither do many other atheists. My letter to the Times expresses only my disdain for Allen’s vicious bigotry and for the editor’s decision to publish it. Her religion is not a target of my letter.

    As for forgetting about religion, I’d love to, but other people keep bringing theirs to my doorstep, to my daughter’s school, to my doctor’s office, to my gay neighbor’s bedroom, to the research lab down the street, and to the halls of legislation. I just can’t seem to get far enough away, and I don’t want to be banished from my own society. I only get angry about it for brief periods when the hounding just gets to be too much.

    And really that’s all anyone ever wants, to be happy.

    That is very true, and without irony I sincerely hope that you are able to be happy, as I hope for all people, religious or not.

  • I do believe that’s hate speech Govn’r. Wow that Allen is a crazy bitch.

    And who’s this Daniel dude? Seems to be a bit off his rocker if you ask me…

  • Richard Wade

    (sigh, hand to forehead) Wouldn’t you know it, someone immediately ruins what I was hoping to do. Modern Girl, Daniel does not seem “off his rocker” to me, and actually nobody did ask you.

  • THINK!

    I suspect that Daniel didn’t read the entirety of Mr. Mehta’s fine article. An individual with strong personal beliefs might just get to the first part and find themselves too disgusted to continue, so convincing is the satire. Truly, if all that I had read was the initial list of anti-semitic complaints, I would be just as livid as Daniel, atheist or not. Regardless, it is our obligation to respond to his allegations in a mature and enlightened manner- insults merely drive a wedge.

  • Rest

    Wow. Is she ever angry. I can only assume that an atheist hurt her feelings when she was younger and now she hates us all. 😉

  • I smote her sore on my blog, to be Biblical about it, but just in general, her main editorial problem is saying that atheists are boring when we are interesting enough for her to get to writing about. Also, I appreciate how she accuses atheists of being overly critical, when she seems keen to put a pin in us. A very trying author/subject relationship, to be sure.

  • Tim Stroud

    YES! Push those buttons Charlotte, try to stir the pot! LOL! Things are pretty boring these days anyway. No big social or political issues for you to tackle.

    No substance, just rant and rage.

    Atheists, let’s rise above trash like this. Let’s learn from her and move on.

    Obvious troll is obvious.

  • When I signed up for the atheist’s secret agenda I didn’t get my extra head. Can someone please rectify this grievous oversight.

    That aside it’s fairly obvious that Ms. Allen has either not read Dawkins, Hitchens, etc or has completely misinterpreted what they say. It seems as if she has only looked over sound bites of the fun parts without absorbing the actual content. She’s missed out.

    Hemant, can I suggest that you send her a copy of your own book. I realise that it is “crashingly boring”, filled with incomprehensible science and rage against the evil god monster who lives in the sky but she might appreciate the gesture. She might even mention you in her next hate field rant.

    On the positive side I haven’t been to A is for Atheist for some time. Thanks Ms. Allen.

  • I find these kinds of remarks and comments that Allen has made are a last ditch whinge to prove the fact they have no real argument left are are getting tired of having their asses handed them on the debate front. When you can’t win the debate, in frustration, you attack the opponent. She’s handed Atheists the win.

  • The winds of human history are now at our backs. They are in in her face. She is just reacting to that fact in the only way she knows how.

  • Here is what I find interesting: I find that the Christians whine a lot more than the atheists! I am often accused of hurting their feelings and not the other way around! 🙂

  • Aj

    My comment hasn’t shown so I’ll repost without links. I don’t care that Charlotte Allen hates, hate is fine. I don’t mind that Charlotte Allen has an opinion that’s different. Sure, she’s clearly ignorant and bigoted, and has many misconceptions that I can’t really understand how she can have. However, I really don’t like the way these people make up things about the people they criticize, and tell untruths that could easily be avoided if they took a little time in actually reading from who they criticize. I think the best response against untruths and bad arguments are truths and good counter arguments.

    Correcting untruths:

    #1 Dawkins doesn’t claim that if there is no evidence for something it doesn’t exist, that’s ridculous. Completely misses the point of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Russell’s Teapot etc…

    #2 Sam Harris was clearly referring to the Gallup poll that showed atheists to be the least trusted minority in the US well behind Mormons, Muslims, and homosexuals. He doesn’t mention state constitutions as evidence in the referenced article.

    #3 The question and answer where Dawkins talks about uneducated, stupid, inferior, and paranoid people is quite clearly refering to creationists, but Charlotte Allen states its about people who believe in God in general.

    #4 Daniel Dennett and The Brights go out of their way to make people understand that they’re not calling anyone “dim”.

    #5 Dawkins doesn’t try to “prove that God not only doesn’t exist” in The God Delusion, he clearly states he’s technically an agnostic in the book.

    #6 (extra) Dawkins does not say raising children in one’s religion is child abuse. He clearly states labelling children, and telling them their friends are going to suffer eternal torment are forms of child abuse.

    Counter arguments:

    #1 While evolution doesn’t disprove gods, it clearly a) contradicts a great many theologies, and b) isn’t accepted by majorities in many countries outside of Europe, who favour religious stories instead.

    #2 Most atheists, especially the ones mentioned, aren’t interested in making metaphysical arguments because it’s a massive waste of time, metaphysics is meaningless wankery.

    #3 There are few atheists making epistemological arguments against the existance of God because there are few atheists that positively belief in the non-existance of God. It’s as if Charlotte Allen hasn’t read any oposing views whatsoever.

    #4 Why would atheists take on theologians attempt to reconcile their beliefs when there are plenty of good arguments for not holding the beliefs in the first place? Someone who refers to and quotes the atheists she does should know by now that the basis of atheists lack of belief is not the argument from evil.

    #5 Seriously, Charlotte Allen is going to just throw out Sam Harris wants to kill people “on the basis of their beliefs”? It might have been fair to mention that he was writing about murderous beliefs held by people who cannot be captured or persuaded.

  • ATL-Apostate

    LA Times was hacked by /b/tards.

    Cool. Did anyone capture a screenshot of it?

  • well, to be fair – as far as I know atheism isn’t a ethnic label. I think there’s a difference between racism and criticizing someone’s core beliefs. I appreciate AJ’s efforts to talk about the given arguments than…. whining.

  • Alycia

    “Dennett wrote these thoughts about his religious friends who told him they were praying for his recovery: ‘Thanks, I appreciate it, but did you also sacrifice a goat?'”

    Ha. I’ll have to remember that one…

  • Siamang

    Tom wrote:

    My letter to the editor reads:

    …
    You are welcome to recycle my text.

    Actually, please DON’T recycle the text. The Times submission guidelines clearly state that they won’t publish anything cut and pasted.

    To copy anything of Tom’s letter would ensure that neither yours nor Tom’s will be published.

  • Old Beezle

    I am warmed by the glow of her Xian love. I can just see my Sky Daddy saying to me, “Walk it off, son. Quit being such a baby!” That’s MY idea of a perfect GODfather.

    Oh, and, yes, I would like two heads so that I can shout with both of them, “There is no GOD!”

  • Siamang

    My letter to the editor:

    As a Times subscriber and atheist it was with dismay that I read the first sentence of Charlotte Allen’s opinion column entitled “Atheists: No God, no reason, just whining” May 17: “I can’t stand atheists.” It went downhill from there. I wondered if an article which began “I can’t stand Jews” (or Muslims, or Buddhists) would ever pass editorial muster.

    Allen mischaracterizes and quotes without relevant context the writings of a handful of famous atheists. For example, Allen falsely claims that Christopher Hitchens “assumes that if science can’t prove something, it doesn’t exist.” That’s an absolutist claim that Hitchens refutes clearly in his book “God is Not Great”:
    “Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason.”

    Allen excoriates atheists for mounting “a philosophically primitive” argument, and failing to engage the “serious arguments that theologians have made”. But she commits the same failing. She does not engage the arguments made by professor of philosophy at Tufts University Daniel Dennett in his several books, preferring to quote out of context one line about sacrificing a goat from a beautiful, moving and extremely generous article Dennett wrote after a close brush with mortality. One must be extremely careful with the things one writes if each sentence must stand alone without context in a Times opinion column!

    Instead of engaging the serious arguments, as Allen claims atheists should, she instead plumbs the depths of insult, insinuation and name-calling. Atheists are “crushing bores”, we’re “tiresome,” “excruciating snoozes” and we suffer from “boohoo victimhood”. She speculates on our psychology to guess why this is so: we’re angry that the “world isn’t perfect”, we were forced to attend church as children. “(D)id their Sunday school teachers flog their behinds with a Bible when they were kids?”

    If Allen is concerned with the tone of the religion-atheism debate, why does she not make a better example of herself?

  • Siamang

    I just got this auto-reply from the times:

    We also do not accept letters that appear to have been sent to more than one publication (including websites, web message boards and e-mail distribution lists).

    In case anyone had to remind me why I hate newspapers.

  • Max

    Aj you should really send these to the Times.

    Correcting untruths:

    #1 Dawkins doesn’t claim that if there is no evidence for something it doesn’t exist, that’s ridculous. Completely misses the point of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Russell’s Teapot etc…

    they will learn a great deal from it.

  • I always find it hard to see how any one person with any form of education or knowledge of the world could present such an argument as she does, given that there are entire nations inhabited, and upheld, by these so called “angry atheist”.

    Sweden, for example, the nation I live in, where there are about the same percentage of non-believers of the total populus as there are of believers in the US.

    Is our entire nation angry because we were spanked with Bibles as kids or had them shoved down our throats in Bible class? Then she has more knowledge than I about that matter.

    My view is that when a society is healthy, with equal rights, stable economy and government, feels safe and sprouts a highly educated citizenry, then religion simply fades away…

  • We also do not accept letters that appear to have been sent to more than one publication (including websites, web message boards and e-mail distribution lists).

    How convenient.

  • reader

    Quote: “#2 Most atheists, especially the ones mentioned, aren’t interested in making metaphysical arguments because it’s a massive waste of time, metaphysics is meaningless wankery.”

    Someone needs to tell this to Richard Carrier and his friends at the Secular Web. The entire Secular Web is devoted to the promotion of metaphysical naturalism.

  • I ? my anger issues.

  • John B

    I am currently in a lengthy bitter debate on a UK newspaper website with regards President Obama and the possibility of being firmer with The State of Israel, something I have long called for, with regards the finding of the Israeli war machine.

    I commented on the thread that greed is a problem with regards Israel, well the way I have been viciously attacked, no debate, that I am a racist, that I was attacking unborn Jewish babies etc and that no way could I be a Christian.

    Yes the right way would be not to respond any more to this over zealous Jewish poster, but I always feel that allows such people to think they have won. IF there is ever to be Peace in the Middle East, there has got to be compromise, there has to be acceptance about land agreements. I take no sides Hamas are as much to blame as the State of Israel, but I do feel for the numbers of innocent Palestinian people and children who have suffered and still do, the one claim regards their past that The States of Israel will never let go. even though I agree we should never forget.

  • piddlesquash

    Wow. The intro to this had me fuming in my chair. When I finally got to the point of the article, I was very relieved that the initial intro was only meant to prove a point. And it did. Very well, indeed. If I were an atheist I would be enraged at what was said by Allen. In fact, even though I’m not an atheist, I still think her comments were out of line, unreasonable and an attack on the character of atheists as a whole instead of being a well thought out explanation on why she doesn’t agree with atheism. Very sad.

  • Exodeath

    Jews are the worst because they really got this monotheism thing going. Jewish religions, including christainity and islam, are spiritually sterile!
    One God! How narcisstic!
    It’s like choosing masturbation over sex!