Chuck Norris Takes on FFRF

You’ve hit on the touch-stone of truth there – if Norris disagrees with you, then you must be right!

Has Mr. Norris ever actually confronted an atheist face-to-face, or am I correct in assuming he is going by what his Christian friends told him?

The good thing is an atheist already defeated Chuck Norris – it was Bruce Lee!

Yup, Lee beat Norris in “Way of the Dragon,” now more widely known thanks to a TV commercial.

From Wikipedia: When asked in 1972 what his religious affiliation was, he replied “none whatsoever.” Also in 1972, when asked if he believed in God, he responded, “To be perfectly frank, I really do not.”

No one is asking the CVC to engrave a sign saying “There’s probably no god.”

Perhaps we should be honest and try for “In Goldman We Trust”. UnFORTUNATE but true.

Sadly I think the majority of people in this country are ignorant enough to buy the pile of crap pedaled by Norris and the God-Brigade.

Even though we are factually correct on every point, we are always the “bad guys”

Even X-ians that are middle of the road and not part of the X-ian Reich will buy the “I’m a fighter for the freedoms of speech and religion. They are our constitutional rights — what the First Amendment is all about.” They buy it hook, line and sinker.

Like Hemant said, so long as it’s their religion that gets shoved down everyone’s throat at tax payer expense it’s freedom of speech. If it was any other religion or belief, it would be persecution of Christians.

James:
The good thing is an atheist already defeated Chuck Norris – it was Bruce Lee!

Yup, Lee beat Norris in “Way of the Dragon,” now more widely known thanks to a TV commercial.

From Wikipedia: When asked in 1972 what his religious affiliation was, he replied “none whatsoever.” Also in 1972, when asked if he believed in God, he responded, “To be perfectly frank, I really do not.”

So I guess god wanted to beam up a reasonable person to hang out with him rather than a cook like Chuckles.

Wait, there’s something wrong with that statement… hmmm

Way to go Ron Paul. I may not always agree with your politics, but I agree with your consistency!

@Writerdd:

Can I join you for lunch sometime? Tequila sounds like a great idea where I work.

I want to know where my former (but still worthless) rep Pelosi is. I can’t find her on the list. Then again we are talking about the rep with the highest percentages of Gays and Lesbians in her district in the nation and yet she manages to be slippery on GLBT issues, so not seeing her stand up for non-believers (also a fair proportion of her district) is no surprise.

did you know that underneath his cowboy hat chuck norris doesn’t have a brain but yet another fist?

if you didn’t know that before, this article is proof….

The bill has not yet been voted on in the Senate.

I thought it had?

The Library of Congress site says:

“7/9/2009 Passed/agreed to in House: On motion to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution Agreed to by recorded vote (2/3 required): 410 – 8, 2 Present (Roll no. 515).

7/10/2009 Passed/agreed to in Senate: Received in the Senate, considered, and agreed to without amendment by Unanimous Consent.”

My first thought was that Ron Paul voted “no” just to save the $100,000.. but that is a such a small amount compared to the rest of the project. It would be interesting to know his thoughts on this.

Does the senate even need to vote on this? The House alone has purview over the maintenance of legislative buildings.

I know I’m going to catch some shit for this. But I can’t help but draw this parallel.

Consider the following statement:

I do not care that you are religious; I just don’t want to be forced to accept it, I don’t want to look at it, and I don’t have to respect it. I will not accept it, and I won’t like it, and I don’t want any part of my government supporting it, even if it does not infringe upon my right to not be religious.

Can we concur that this is how we, as atheists, pretty much feel?

Now. Replace “religious” with “gay.”

All of a sudden, it’s a bigoted, asshole statement, huh?

Putting “In God We Trust” on a building is not a step toward a theocracy any more than gay marriage is a step toward the destruction of the traditional family.

Just pointing out how we come off sometimes. It’s my personal opinion that the words “In God We Trust” are not magical, and don’t affect me one way or the other. I don’t give a shit where they are. They don’t affect me.

meh.

Everytime I hear about Chuck Norris, I think of that Conan O’Brien gag where he pulled the level to show some cheesy gag from Walker Texas Ranger.

Now would be a good time to pull that lever for a real life Chuck Norris gag reel on his mindless rant with FFRF.

Putting “In God We Trust” on a building is not a step toward a theocracy any more than gay marriage is a step toward the destruction of the traditional family.

There is a difference. A better parallel would be a town City Hall placing a plaque next to the door where marriage licenses are given saying “The traditional marriage between a man and a woman is the bedrock of any society”.

Now, anyone reading that plaque would know that this city hall implicitly excludes as a part of the “bedrock of society” any gay couple that walks through those doors, even assuming their marriage could be legally done there.

Of course things are not neatly reversible. Someone with a sign in their yard expressing support for gay marriage is not assumed to oppose straight marriage wheras someone with a sign supporting “Marriage between a man and a woman” is assumed to oppose equal rights for gays. A double standard? Maybe, but it better reflects reality than if you pretend that both statements are the same.

The sign “In God We Trust” is an implicit statement that the government of the United States considers religion to be essential to citizenship (and lets face it, when they say God they mean the Christian God) and many non-religious people who walk in those doors will notice and know that in yet another symbolic way, they are considered lesser forms of citizens.

I do get where you’re coming from and I think there’s an argument to be made that our efforts and limited person-power should be concentrated elsewhere, but I respectfully disagree with your comparison.

Oh, that’s right. I forgot for a moment that I’m debating reasonable people and not those blinded by passion for sky daddy. I usually have to be prepared for the firestorm. 🙂

I can see your point, Claudia. Semantics can be some tricky stuff.

I guess in my mind, when I hear “in god we trust,” I don’t think of “we” as meaning everybody; I think of it as the group of people who would say that, and I just think, “Okay. Y’all trust him. Let me know how that works out for you.”

It would be a small victory for us, and small victories do add up. I’m not opposed to those who want to rally against it; but as Claudia said, our efforts might be better used elsewhere. Like keeping the teaching of creationism out of schools (still a big problem here in the South).

I’m baffled that a Texan wouldn’t sell out to the religious wrong. Ron Paul gets this one right but is wrong about evolution so I never get the way this guy thinks.

My first thought was that Ron Paul voted “no” just to save the $100,000.. but that is a such a small amount compared to the rest of the project. It would be interesting to know his thoughts on this.

I’m not a Paul supporter, but I do know his politics. Basically, he’s a very strict Constitutionalist. That’s why he would vote against this even though it’s not his personal belief – it’s a step towards violating the establishment clause.

He believes in keeping his personal life separate from his political one and, while I generally disagree with him on a lot of issues, I really respect that about him. He governs like a conservative should if you go purely by the definition of the word – don’t do anything outside of the Constitution on the national level. Let the States do that if they want.

Consider the following statement:

I do not care that you are religious; I just don’t want to be forced to accept it, I don’t want to look at it, and I don’t have to respect it. I will not accept it, and I won’t like it, and I don’t want any part of my government supporting it, even if it does not infringe upon my right to not be religious.

Can we concur that this is how we, as atheists, pretty much feel?

Now. Replace “religious” with “gay.”

All of a sudden, it’s a bigoted, asshole statement, huh?

It’s a nice trick, but the application is completely different.

In fighting things like this, atheists are fighting to preserve the mindset of the Constitution – the belief that church and state should be separate and that the government should not endorse any religion.

In fighting for gay marriage, gays are ALSO fighting to preserve the mindset of the Constitution – that we are all equal in the eyes of the law and deserve to be treated as such.

Equality does not mean “separate but equal” and it does not mean “we won’t promote any religion, except Christianity.”

Nena – bah, didn’t refresh before I posted, and there you go being reasonable on me 🙂

Sorry if that was a bit harsh.

Now. Replace “religious” with “gay.”

All of a sudden, it’s a bigoted, asshole statement, huh?

Nena, I’m not against “in God we trust” because it’s bigoted or assholish or exclusionary.

I’m against it because we’ve (supposedly) got a separation of church and state in this country.

We don’t a separation of gay and state, or a separation of marriage rights and state, or any such thing.

I am not asking religious people not to be religious. I’m asking them not to carve their religious doctrines on public property with public funds in conflict with the Constitution.

If the government wanted to put up an inscription that said “okay to be gay” or “gay? No WAY!”, I might still think it’s uncalled for. But it wouldn’t violate the establishment clause of the first amendment.

Nena: The difference is, with the atheist argument, “I don’t want any part of my government supporting it” means “the government should treat religious and non the same”; with the gay argument, it means “the government should strictly favor straights over gays”

That is an excellent point, Freak.

You know, I really didn’t think of it that way; but this would be an act of Congress.

huh.

We can’t just let this be. It can seem like only a small battle, but it really makes a difference in how people perceive the founding of our nation when we plaster IGWT everywhere. While IGWT has only been around for about 55 years, an extremely large number of Americans think it has been our motto since the countries founding; many think our nation was founded a Christian one, even though it was (and remains) explicitly non-religious. Once we start conceding points such as these (especially ones going against our constitional freedom), more and more build up and create greater injustice and discrimination. We HAVE to reverse the trend of labeling everything from license plates to money to monuments with IGWT not only as a matter of prinicple but also as securing our freedom from religion.

Nate, thanks for the insight on Ron Paul. I really don’t get him but any insight is appreciated.

A motto (from the Italian for pledge, sentence; plural mottos or mottoes) is a phrase meant to formally describe the general motivation or intention of a social group or organization.

How does a law making “In God We Trust” the National Motto not count as a law respecting an establishment of religion? It’s saying that the we of the organization trusts in God. There’s nothing else for that 1956 law to be respecting EXCEPT religion.

My beef is much more with the original law making it the National Motto.

http://www.ingodwetrust.org/ – yeah, that’s all about patriotism. Nothing about religion there.

http://www.afa.net/igwt/ – check out the poster from the American Family Association.

Oddly enough, considering my position on the issue, I’m going to have to defend Nena on this a little bit.

Let’s leave aside for now the Constitutionality of the thing. It’s obviously unconstitutional, as it is on our money. Let’s also leave aside how annoying it is. For most of us I’d wager that it’s mildly annoying most of the time and extremely irritating when a point is made about it, like in this case with Congress or those really annoying people who insist on SHOUTING UNDER GOD!! in that portion of the pledge.
However I think there is a valid case to be made on a purely pragmatic level. Our community does not have unlimited resources and hence it is perfectly valid to argue that a given cause costs us too much money, time and public good will for the corresponding benefit. It is not a crime to care about public relations you know. I’m well aware of the “screw’em” mentality that overtakes so many of us on almost any given issue, since we know that whenever we ask for anything, no matter how innocuous, we are certain to cause comical amounts of outrage, so why bother being careful? I think that we should, to a certain extent, fight that mentality.
This isn’t just about the law or our rights, or it doesn’t have to be. It’s also about increasing our visibility and our acceptability, to send a message to those in the closet that they can come out, that it’s safe out in the sun. So we have to make choices about where we put our efforts. These symbolic things tend to be the most controversial and while I don’t pretend to know the answer, I think that an admission that pragmatism, as well as principle, should be taken into account is in order.

Siamang, I think you’re right.

Nena, I do think it’s useful to consider how this looks from different perspectives, try to detect hypocrisy, etc. I’m not terribly good at that myself, so I appreciate others who help out.

However, in this case, I think you’re wrong. Some of the reasons have been set out above. But for a closer analogy, the gay/straight marriage issue would, if transformed into religion, become an issue over whether or not the State allowed religious and secular weddings, or only secular (or only religious) weddings. I think we here would all agree that the latter case is not acceptable.

I agree the motto thing doesn’t have nearly the impact of wedding laws, but ignoring this is a mistake. Atheists are regularly trampled and vilified, and we should stand up. In cases like this, where we’ve got the Bill of Rights on our side, it should be a no-brainer! Letting people ignore the Constitution when they happen to agree with the exception (as many Christian legislators do, I suppose) is not a good precedent to set.

Kevin,

Yes, the use of pronouns can be quite mischievous when they are not clearly defined.

Well said.