American Atheists rolled out the new signage over the weekend ahead of their 50th anniversary celebration, set to take place at the end of the month.
One of the billboards featured Palin, alongside the quotation, "We should create law based on the God of the Bible.”
The quote is a reference to a May 2010 appearance by Palin on Fox News, in which she denounced the backlash against the National Day of Prayer. At the time she suggested that critics were ignoring the Founding Fathers in their opposition to the large-scale expression of faith.
"I think we should kind of keep this clean, keep it simple, go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant," she advised. "They're quite clear that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the Ten Commandments."
CNN reports that American Atheists public relations director Dave Muscato has admitted that the word "should" should not appear in quotes and has announced plans to make the correction.
But Muscato and American Atheists President David Silverman told CNN that the “intent and context” of the billboard remains accurate.
“Ms. Palin would stand by what we have quoted her as saying," Silverman claimed in a statement to CNN.
Palin isn't the only Republican politician being used to promote the group's event. Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and former presidential candidate Newt Gingrich are both featured in other billboards, alongside accurate quotations.
Considering some of the ridiculous, and outlandish, things that fall out of Palin's maw I can't imagine anybody should be too concerned with the replacing of "would" with "should" while quoting her.
But hey at least atheists are willing to make changes to their way of thinking when presented with evidence which contradicts it, that is certainly more than can be said for most in the religious community.
Gee I wonder how Palin will feel about her copyrighted image being used to promote atheism?
Her copyrighted image promotes atheism way more than it does Christianity! Just sayin.'
ReplyDeleteAnd some of her copyrighted images promote indigestion. Just sayin'.
DeleteSorry, that does not compute!
DeleteThe majority of Atheists are considerably more advanced in their interactions with other people that the Xtians every dreamed about. Also, most atheists totally refute the Old Testament, which almost ALL christians are nearly required to accept.
Would you care to reword your statement?
Sorry, 5:44, but ALL her images do that to me.
DeleteIn essence, Sarah's image reflects a clusterfuck--- an ever-recurring, slow-motion train wreck that happens with such regularity that we've rightfully come to expect it. She can blame the media and Obama or her handlers in the 2008 campaign, but at some point, Sarah and her followers must place the responsibility directly where it belongs: Sarah Heath Palin.
DeleteWe've all seen the list of Sarah's enemies with whom she has feuded with in the past, and there is one common denominator among all of them, and that is Sarah. No one I've ever known or even heard about has had ongoing feuds with every person with which they've EVER had a disagreement, and continues to hold a grudge for life against that person and all of their business or professional associates, friends, family or supporters with such spiteful words and inappropriate comments at every opportunity. She never forgives. She never forgets. She never apologizes. She never accepts responsibility. She never admits even obvious mistakes.
I could go on and on, but it will never have the impact for positive change at the source---Sarah, herself, because Sarah, for fear or pride or whatnot, she refuses to change. As a result, an overwhelming majority of the persons passing by will just look at the boards with her image and laugh, shakIng their heads, at the most.
However, with Palin's encouragement. If not her direct instigation, a very tiny percentage of people will likely conduct a PR campaign of smearing the advertiser, forwarding a deluge of hate and threatening emails and calls to the advertiser and the advertising sign company; and if that fails, I won't be surprised if some within their group try to climb the ladder in order to remove, damage, or deface the boards. Because that's the Palin Way, as the WGE video showed a couple of years ago. When all of those efforts fail, look for Sarah's minions to build a shrine below the boards with signage "refudiating the facts", plus having a volunteer to make and distribute propaganda flyers to hand to passers-by which "tells the truth about Their Sarah", counter to reality, facts and the truth as witnessed by the 99% non-Palin-panty-sniffers (i.e., Game a change premiere with pamphlets distributed, conference calls with "usual supporters" lined up as if at a parole hearing, "supportive editorials" planted in the usual RW blogs, personal attacks the producers, director, actors, distributors, cable channel, film industry, industry critics, etc.) Again, this is the Palin Way: Attack Everyone who doesn't toe the line with Sarah's absurd narrative, and pay consultants to shape or even create her words to create an illusion of who she wants to be portrayed as, which is so far from reality that no one really believes it. But it is in the interest (bc of $ and sf-preservation/fear of Sarah's wrath) of a few associates and enablers to lie, make noise and distract, conduct a scorched-earth attack PR campaign, all in support of a charlatan, played by a clown who is pouting in the dressing room because she didn't get top billing at the circus. It's sad that none of her handlers has the courage to tell her that she isn't what she pretends to be. To do that, they become a former handler or enabler, as well as an enemy for life. Roger Ailes managed to cut her loose, but he would be the first to say that he paid a "stupid tax" by employing her and damaging his brand as she destroyed her own.
If hearing the truth hurts somebody's feelings, they still need to hear it and make changes accordingly. To do otherwise and ignore it or double-down in an effort to refute the truth every time one is confronted with the truth is insane. Yes, insane. And to encourage others to do your dirty work on your behalf is sinister, cruel, and again, insane.
Wow, just wow. Thanks for the nostalgic look at Sarah Palin's stupidity, which only makes me more resolved to reject the pressure to create the theocracy she thinks we're supposed to live in.
ReplyDeleteWhere to begin? Sarah, at least read a Wikipedia entry on the writing of the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, even if you don't have time to pick up a good reference book about our "founders." You talk about them as though they were our joint grandfathers, instead of a mixture of men with a variety of beliefs, and lived at a time in history when they knew several truths which, over time, most of which have proven to be essential. (Let's forget how women were disenfranchised until 93 years ago, or that slaves were acknowledged as being 3/5ths of a human being.)
One of the truths they felt most strongly about was that, because they were so diverse themselves, they decreed that no religion or creed should be given more government support than another. They specifically gave every citizen the freedom to believe what he or she wished to believe, without state interference. That is still true.
Some of those founders were Christian, but some of these Christians were Puritans, some were Anglicans, some were Roman Catholic. There were Jews in many colonies. Jefferson was a Deist. Several of these great founder guys believed in no religion at all.
This is so fundamental to our basic rights that to allege differently shows either profound ignorance or the most cynical twisting of reality to further one's own power structure.
I've heard many varieties of religious folks insist that without their particular sect, religion, or faith, there is no "moral compass".
DeletePalin's belief system is hard coded, so to speak, and outside her sect, church or group, they think no one can be truly moral.
Her prayer warriors share her belief that she's a current day Esther, destined to rule the USA
Dominionists., like Palin, Santorum and other Christian supremacists insist that only the bible should form the basis for laws, in direct contradiction to the US consitution, which never once mentions God, Jesus, or the bible.
There is no mention of creator, providence, God, Jesus, or author of all things in the Constitution because it's meant for a secular Republic, not a Christian Theocracy.
The Constitution is final AUTHORITY by which everything is judged in the USA>
Not the bible, not the Declaration of Independence.
The 1st amendment makes it crystal clear that Congress shall *not* establish any religion, and in Article 6 paragraph 3 mandates that even an agnostic or athiest is legally allowed to be President or serve in state or federal office.
Being a conservative, I go only by the Constitution, and nothing else.
I cannot tell you how ignorant Palin and the field of potential candidates appear, for paleo-con conservatives like myself.
They conflate religion and politics into a hateful, and UN-constitutional doctrine.
Or a deliberate attempt to subvert the First Amendment to THEIR beliefs knowing that the majority of the population is unaware of what you just wrote.
DeleteLeland 6:06
DeleteI presumed most people know what was written above. Due to your point I grasp why the ignorant would take the bait deceived by the likes of Palin and annoint her their savoir of the fiction she spins.
We have to remember — evangelicals do not believe they are without sin. They absolutely revel in it and expect they will be forgiven for all their lies. Note Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Baker still show up on TV. These people really never die. Go figure. There is a cavernous lack of character in their souls.
DeleteSo, based on the Ten Commandments:
ReplyDeleteYou break the law if you:
Talk back to your parents.
Say G*d d*mn.
Work, or have anybody work for you on Sunday.
Want what your neighbors have.
Good luck with that!
Any honest anthropologist (and that's one of those words the Xtians can't even pronounce, let alone understand!) can tell you that the great majority of the ten commandments are basic rules of a successful society. You didn't covet your neighbor's wife because neighbor would bash you with club! You didn't steal because it was probably from your own group and that weakened the survival chances of the group. You didn't murder because that cut down on the ability of the group to gather food and protect itself from other groups. And so on and so on and....
DeleteI wouldn't trust organized Atheist anymore than I trust organized religious groups.
ReplyDelete6:47, I completely agree you, with except for one thing. Most of the atheist organizations I know of are there to get approval for the CIVIL RIGHTS of atheists.
DeleteEven the group shown above lists the civil rights of the atheist and the total separation of Church and State as their raison d'etre.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-dunn/the-cremation-of-sarah-pa_b_2815901.html
ReplyDeleteThe outrage over "would" and "should" is as silly as the redneck being outraged because somebody spread the rumor that he said he "will fuck the sheep" when what he actually said was he "DID fuck the sheep."
ReplyDeleteIn the words of James Madison, father of the Constitution, when devising the Virginia Plan, which was a template for the U.S. Constitution:
ReplyDelete"That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time;"
Early in his Virginia career, Madison was concerned that Baptists were being made to pay to support for the Church of England (Anglican, then Episcopalian). Madison's wife Dolley had been born a Quaker, but was expelled from the Society of Friends when she married Madison, who wasn't a Quaker. He had a firm and unbending belief, from experience as well as from intellectual conviction, that the wide variety of religious expressions should be excluded from any state coercion - either support or condemnation. He, himself, was brought up in the Church of England, the dominant church for plantation-owning Virginians, but, most probably became a Deist later in his life.
Sarah, dear, please understand that our beloved and "sainted" Founding Fathers were of a variety of beliefs, and, therefore, came to the conviction that no belief should be sanctioned by the government. In Massachusetts, until the 1840s, Calvinist churches were supported by general taxation of all citizens. The Church of England, which was what our Pilgrim fathers fled to the New World to escape, was-- and still is -- the established church of England. Of course, the example of a state-sanctioned church such as the Anglicans/English, was just another spur to prohibit any establishment of religion by our wonderful Founders.
Thanks to James Madison, Sarah, you're free to believe whatever bizarre religious thoughts might be embedded in your head, and you're allowed to be "blessed" by Father Mugthee (sp?). In a world where the state imposed religious beliefs, you'd probably be burned as a witch.
Not to diminish any witches out there.
Evelyn, you are absolutely correct. I have only one thing to throw against it from THEIR perspective.
DeleteIt is stated as clearly as can be written, in plain English, in the Treaty of Tripoli, which was unanimously passed in the Senate in 1797, in article 11, that "the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the christian religion...."
These idiots, and I list Scarah among them naturally, still refuse to accept that as fact.
You are wasting your time unfortunately, with idiots like that bitch and the rest of the Xtians trying to create a Christian state. They flat refuse to accept it. Our only hope is that these pieces of sh*t will be stopped in a court of law such as the SCOTUS who will have to rub their faces in it.
Of course, that won't stop these idiots from trying to rewrite things in Congress, but....
Another James Madison gem:
ReplyDeleteThat our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry,
The advert for the conference should add the following at the bottom of their ad for the conference:
ReplyDeletePray For Good Weather!
OT kind of, but have you seen this about Mother Teresa?
ReplyDeletehttp://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/a-new-expose-on-mother-teresa-shows-that-she-and-the-vatican-were-even-worse-than-we-thought/
Thank you for posting this link. I had always wondered over the years why, even though the rest of the world seemed to embrace her, I could never warm up to her.
DeleteLooks like they're not going to use the Palin billboard at all, replacing it with their first choices of Rick Perry and George Bush.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/03/04/american-atheists-sarah-palin-billboard-may-be-replaced-by-ones-featuring-rick-perry-and-george-w-bush/
Hey, Gryph - The photograph is a copyrighted image of either the photographer who took the picture or the person the photographer is taking the picture for. It is not SP's.
ReplyDeleteRick Santorum Thanks American Atheists For Billboard Highlighting Comments About 'God's Law'
ReplyDeleteIn an email to supporters on Tuesday, Santorum embraced his part in the atheist campaign.
“I know, it is shocking,” Santorum wrote, according to Raw Story. “And you know what I said back to the American Atheists who purchased that billboard? Thank you. Thank you for helping me publicly express my strong belief that we need to continue to be one nation under God. And I think you would agree with that statement.”
He went on to claim that the American Atheists' campaign was proof the nation's religious traditions were under attack.
“This is also a reminder that there are strong forces against the fundamental beliefs that you and I hold so dear,” Santorum added. “They are organizing with determination to transform the very fabric of our country. The stakes are simply too high for us to sit back and ignore the progress they are making.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/06/rick-santorum-american-atheists_n_2818599.html?utm_hp_ref=politics