So Michael Newdow is suing to prevent Obama from using the words "so help me God" when he takes the oath of office according to this article.
Newdow is also the guy who sued to have "under God" taken out of the pledge of allegiance. I share the same faith as him, but I would like to publicly state that not all atheists are this fragile. I feel about as threatened by a "so help me God" in an oath of office as I do by someone saying "Bless you" when I sneeze.
It's a free country. If Newdow wants to throw away his money on pointless lawsuits, I suppose he has that right. But I don't think lawsuits are the way to win over hearts and minds to his point of view. In fact, I suspect they have the opposite effect; they make the Christian majority feel as if they are under seige, causing them to go into fits of outrage on talk radio and fox news.
Who knows? Perhaps that's what Newdow wants. For the most part, you can be an atheist in America from cradle to grave without anyone hassling you about it, and some people have the mindset that they need to be hassled in order to feel as if their life is some great struggle.
Perhaps next he'll seek to legally change his name from Michael due to its obvious Biblical origins. Just saying his name in public is almost like praying.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
2 comments:
I don't think he's fragile, but he pretends to be. He seems to find any mention of God in an official context psychologically damaging. Plus, going after "under God" in the pledge of allegiance or "so help me god" in an oath is attacking religion at its most toothless and least harmful point. If we want to keep religion out of government, we need to focus our attention on actual abuses, such as teaching creationism. Going after this trivia just makes the atheist cause seem trivial.
Great point about his name, James! I wonder that he hasn't changed it.
Post a Comment