An atheist state lawmaker tasked with delivering the opening prayer for this afternoon's session of the House of Representatives asked that people not bow their heads.
Democratic Representative Juan Mendez, of Tempe, instead spoke about his "secular humanist tradition" and even quoted author Carl Sagan.
"Most prayers in this room begin with a request to bow your heads," Mendez said. "I would like to ask that you not bow your heads. I would like to ask that you take a moment to look around the room at all of the men and women here, in this moment, sharing together this extraordinary experience of being alive and of dedicating ourselves to working toward improving the lives of the people in our state."
As you can imagine -- especially now, with Arizona's legislature being controlled by religion-heavy Republicans -- this is probably the first time that an invocation at the legislature took that direction.
"This is a room in which there are many challenging debates, many moments of tension, of ideological division, of frustration," Mendez said. "But this is also a room where, as my secular humanist tradition stresses, by the very fact of being human, we have much more in common than we have differences. We share the same spectrum of potential for care, for compassion, for fear, for joy, for love. Mendez continued, "Carl Sagan once wrote, 'For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.'"
You know ANYONE who quotes Carl Sagan in lieu of a prayer is my kind of guy.
We started the day with that courageous young lady schooling Wolf Blitzer about assuming a person's religious faith, and now we have this guy! I have to say I have rarely been more proud to be an Atheist.
Clearly we are becoming far more comfortable with ourselves in this country, and with more and more young people eschewing the trappings of religion, I think our time is finally here.
Hell you know you have arrived when even the Pope is willing to accept that you are good people.
Personally I see a day when we follow the lead of the gay community and start openly identifying ourselves as nonreligious and demonstrating to the close minded that we are just as ethical, and moral as anybody who identities themselves as religious. In fact, to be honest, we are even more so since we are not bullied into morality through threats of eternal damnation but rather choose our morality through careful examination of the world around us and decide to be good people with our eyes and our minds wide open.
"I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue. The scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined on what we thought but what we did." --- Benjamin Franklin, letter to his father, 1738
ReplyDeletehttp://touch.wonkette.com/wonkette/#!/entry/sarah-palin-lives-in-fear-of-irs-we-wonder-why,519d051187443d6c8e5392ba
ReplyDeletenice. even better, did you read the comments? highly amusing and recommended read. some funny people out there. one of the best descriptions ever of palin:
Delete"MeSoHornish: Palin has become that guy who hangs around the high school, showing off his car, five years after graduation."
That was excellent. We need more people like that in public life. I have never understood the hatred so many people have toward atheists. It actually seems more like extreme fear to me, of what, I have no idea. I am not an atheist but I completely understand it and I am violently anti-organized religion. Maybe someday I will be evolved enough to let go of the deism.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people fear and attack that which they can't control. A lot of people fear and attack that which their priests and ministers TELL them to hate and fear. A lot of people hate those who have the BALLZ to tell the biggest controller in the world to kiss off!
DeleteIf I may make a suggestion? It might go a long way toward your evolution away from deism if you can learn to rid yourself of ANY "violent" anti-anything.
Trust me, I know how hard that step actually is!
Secretary of State John Kerry: Freedom to "not believe" [in a religion] is a "birthright of every human being"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/05/20/secretary-of-state-john-kerry-freedom-to-not-believe-is-a-birthright-of-every-human-being/
I've always proclaimed to be atheist when asked my religion, It never occurred to me that I should hide it, or feel inferior.
ReplyDeleteBut I guess that would explain some of the odd reactions I get! HA!
We don't practice religion in my family and my father always told us when asked to say the we are "none of the above".
DeleteI love that last sentence! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteState Representative Steve Smith Says Extra Prayer to Offset Atheist Colleague's Non-Prayer
ReplyDeleteThe actions of Republican State Representative Steve Smith have provided us with the reason why Democratic Representative Juan Mendez's God-free invocation at the House Representatives yesterday was such an unlikely event.
Today, Smith led the House in a second prayer, apparently his way of saying sorry to the man upstairs about what happened the day before.
According to a pair of capitol reporters -- one from the Associated Press, the other from the Arizona Republic -- Smith asked that everyone pray for the second time of the day's session in "repentance."
As we wrote about yesterday, Mendez essentially came out as an atheist when he delivered the opening prayer for the afternoon's session of the House of Representatives by asking that people not bow their heads, and instead spoke about the values of his "secular humanist tradition."
"I hope today marks the beginning of a new era in which Arizona's non believers can feel as welcome and valued here as believers," Mendez later said.
Obviously that whole acceptance thing isn't something Smith's about to get behind.
Really, Smith ought to repent for the awful legislation he supports, like wanting taxpayers to reimburse ousted Senate President Russell Pearce for recall-campaign expenses, wanting to make it mandatory for high school students to pledge their allegiance to the flag every day, and trying to prevent high school students from graduating unless they take a loyalty oath to the Constitution.
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2013/05/state_representative_steve_smi.php
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2013/05/state_representative_steve_smi.php
Oh, for fuck's sake!
DeleteGotta give him credit, two prayers are needed because either God is hard of hearing or the extra prayer will "cancel out" Juan's "non prayer". Fuzzy Math
Delete
ReplyDeleteWelcome to phoenixnewtimes.com
News
Flip-Flopping John McCain Is No Political Profile in Courage
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2013-05-16/news/john-mccain-no-profile-in-courage/?ref=trending
Cracks me up that you capitalize "Atheist." When did this become a proper noun, or are you now worshipping the god Athea?
ReplyDeleteFolks that believe in Allah/God capitalize Muslim and Christian so why shouldn't those that proclaim no belief in Allah/God or any other Deity not Capitalize their non belief? Why would you have a problem with that?
DeleteA-Theism. A, meaning "non", Theism, meaning "god", Atheism is belief in no god.
There is within the English Language a recognized courtesy of capitalizing the first letter of any belief structure; Christian, Muslim, Hindi, Buddhist, Sikh, Humanist, Deist, etc. I feel that those that hold no belief should be afforded the same courtesy, hence Atheist.
It's all made up anyway, so what does it really matter?
@anon 8:33 Apparently atheist is also a synonym for people with no sense of humor.
DeleteThank yoooou 8:33.
Delete6:15, when you ask an apparently straight question, you will get an apparently straight answer! 8:33 is perfectly correct and like him, I took your question at face value also. (As, apparently, did 3:30!)
DeleteI would like to suggest that in the future, if you wish to make a funny about something like this, you at least add a "SNARK" or other notification for those of us with "no sense of humor".
What you wrote seemed like a serious question - to which you got a serious answer!
Yay! Now if only we're included in all events that call on people of all faiths to pray. I watched a documentary commemorating the holocaust. It was inter-faith but excluded atheists/secular humanists/agnostics.
ReplyDeleteLike the prayer vigil for the victims of Sandy Hook.
I like the "prayer" this guy used, basically it includes ALL humans and our shared humanity and excludes no one.
Check #4 and #5
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/05/22/1211073/-Forbes-100-Most-Powerful-Women-Just-For-Fun
The World's Most Powerful Women 2013
ReplyDeletehttp://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2013/05/22/the-worlds-most-powerful-women-2013/
Obama to begin process of closing Guantanamo Bay: report
ReplyDeletePresident Barack Obama plans to resume transfers of inmates from Guantanamo Bay to other countries in a fresh bid to close the controversial US prison, The Wall Street Journal reported.
In the coming weeks, Obama will try to accelerate efforts to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo partly by lifting a long-running ban on sending Yemeni inmates to their home country, the newspaper said, citing unnamed US officials.
The White House, the Pentagon and officers at the US-run prison in Guantanamo Bay all declined to comment on the report.
Obama will argue in a speech Thursday that closing the detention center is vital to Washington’s efforts to counter terror threats, but will not lay out details of the transfer plans, the officials told the Journal.
The United States holds 166 detainees at Guantanamo, with 86 cleared for transfer, including 56 from Yemen, according to Pentagon officials.
The transfers to Yemen will likely be carried out at a slow pace, starting with two or three detainees at a time, to ensure Yemen can keep track of the terror suspects and prevent them from joining extremist groups, a US official told the paper.
As a result, transfers to Yemen could still be months away.
The detention center was set up after the attacks of September 11, 2001 for militants captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere, as part of ex-president George W. Bush’s “war on terror.”
Rights groups and foreign governments have labeled Guantanamo a legal “blackhole,” as most detainees there have been held behind bars for years without charge or trial.
Obama had vowed to shutter the prison when he took office in 2009 but ran into strong opposition from Republicans in Congress, who introduced strict requirements governing any transfers or releases of inmates from Guantanamo.
The attempt to try again to close Guantanamo comes amid a growing hunger strike among the detainees, which has put the prison back in the spotlight.
Nearly two thirds of the remaining detainees have joined a hunger strike that began February 6.
Thirty-two of them are being fed through tubes, according to prison authorities.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/22/obama-to-begin-process-of-closing-guantanamo-bay-report/
Pope Francis calls on Christians to accept the good works atheists perform
ReplyDeleteCiting biblical scripture from the Gospel of Mark, Pope Francis on Wednesday condemned those who sought to drive a wedge between atheists and believers.
“The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can. He must. Not can: must! Because he has this commandment within him. Instead, this ‘closing off’ that imagines that those outside, everyone, cannot do good is a wall that leads to war and also to what some people throughout history have conceived of: killing in the name of God,” he said according to Vatican Radio. “That we can kill in the name of God. And that, simply, is blasphemy. To say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy.”
In the homily of his morning Mass, the Pope also added that nonbelievers could be redeemed through good works despite their lack of faith.
“The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!” he said.
“If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”
It is not the first time Pope Francis has voiced solidarity with atheists. In March, he said atheists and nonbelievers could be “precious allies in efforts to defend the dignity of man, in the building of a peaceful coexistence between peoples and in the careful protection of creation.”
Father James Martin, a member of the Jesuit order, told the Huffington Post that such teachings had long been a part of the church.
“But rarely do you hear it said by Catholics so forcefully, and with such evident joy,” he added. “And in this era of religious controversies, it’s a timely reminder that God cannot be confined to our narrow categories.”
Watch video,
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/22/pope-francis-calls-on-christians-to-accept-the-good-works-atheists-perform/
Pope Francis Loves Himself Some Atheists – Or Does He?
DeleteProgressive news sites were all abuzz yesterday because of an apparent outreach effort by Pope Francis toward nones and even atheists.
How times change. It wasn’t long ago that Pope Benedict XVI, who styled himself after a Crusading pope of the good ole Middle Ages, was saying that the “attempt to eliminate God and the divine from the horizon of humanity” leads to catastrophe. The new pope doesn’t feel this way. Or does he? It is difficult to know with any certainty.
At his very first homily on March 14, Pope Francis told cardinals (quoting French writer Léon Bloy) that “he who doesn’t pray to the Lord prays to the devil,” and “When one does not profess Jesus Christ, one professes the worldliness of the devil.”
Did you see that neat trick he performed there? He just delegitimized your answer that you don’t believe in the devil. Even if you don’t believe in him, you serve him. Your seeming act of omission (declining to believe) has become an act of commission (you had the chance, after all, to pray to the One True God in opposition to Satan).
As a Heathen, I have had this point driven home by Evangelicals, and I find it a very disturbing claim: by making individual own belief (or lack thereof) irrelevant, it opens the door to the logic behind the Inquisition and witch-burnings, anti-Jewish pogroms, and so many other evils perpetrated by the Church over the past sixteen centuries.
http://www.politicususa.com/pope-francis-loves-atheists-he.html
I'm impressed they've let one live! And elected him to public office! I grew up a few miles from his district and I can tell you that whole state is chock full of unthinking right wing zealots and religious nut jobs.
ReplyDeleteBut just knowing there are a few reasonable people in my home state makes me slightly less embarrassed to say I'm from there.
Thank you Juan Mendez!!!
I agree totally, its time people stopped their judging with their religious beliefs and start thinking logically. The worst things that I see on every news channels are religious people killing others. Every church has one thing in mind...that is to CONTROL THE MASSES. I wish all this religion crap would just stop, maybe then we could have a better society.
ReplyDelete