Oh how we relish the notion that a prominent figure in society comes forward and says: "I don't believe in God" or "I'm an atheist". This is why I have taken to wishing "Happy Birthdays" to atheists in my "Links Roundups". These are people that you would have otherwise not have even known about, be they prominent or (understandably) less pronounced in their personal identification as an unbeliever.
The parasitic meme? Of course I speak of religion. Religious folks do the same thing in wanting to claim that this person or the other was a Christian; etc. Claiming one as their own when it is especially disputed. However, there seems to be this pervasive, parasitic and deviant aspect to motivations surrounding what some in the religious "establishment" have done to make the criteria met.
Abraham Lincoln is a prime example. In one instance Lincoln made a speech writer remove the word "God" because it connoted in the context of the speech a personal god. Lincoln "insisted no such personality ever existed."
Lincoln probably did not write the "Mrs. Bixby" letter in which he purportedly to have said, "I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement." Of course presidents do sometimes write letters to the citizenry, but it is most likely Lincoln left this task to his secretary John Hay. After all there was one hell of a war going on; the likes of which had not been seen since the Revolution. I'm sure Lincoln was one busy individual.
Yet we have in this country since found that religion rewrites history in it's favor. Stealing away our secular, humanist, agnostic and atheist forefathers.
George Washington of course was an Episcopalian, yet he refused Communion at every turn. He left church on Communion sundays right before they started handing out the biscuits.
You don't learn these little tidbits in grade school. It's no wonder really. Somehow the ideological battle lines are drawn (in my opinion) by those of faith.
Source: Rewriting of History by Christians
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Now playing: Novembers Doom - In The Absence Of Grace
via FoxyTunes
Monday, April 28, 2008
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