Dear Sir,
While I did indeed vote for you, mostly because the anti-science cranks you were running against were far more objectionable than you, you should be aware not only that you are reviled by those that supported the last inhabitant of that house of yours, but are swiftly losing the support of many of those that might have otherwise supported you. Personally, while I am not offended that you had Rick Warren speak at your inauguration (this is a nation of Christians, although not politically a 'Christian Nation'), I was not a fan of the mixing of politics and religion on that day either. You made scant reference to the nonbelievers amongst the American public, which might have won you some accolades from us if it weren't for your recent conduct.
Firstly, while the burning of books of any form is a detestable form of protest, it is within the rights of those who wish to protest to do so. The real issue here is that those who plan to do the burning would give birth to live kittens by the dozen if someone were to do it to their book of myths and magical thinking. More so, there is a problem when we find it necessary to protest the construction of a building near the site of a national catastrophe because it happens to be of the wrong religious persuasion. Don't get me wrong, I don't support the building of any more monuments to peoples' imaginary friends than already exist, but it matters little whose imaginary friend it happens to be.
Slightly more recently, you made the unfortunate comment that we are indeed "One nation under god." Unfortunate, because many hoped you might help us as a nation rise above sectarian nonsense; unfortunate because sectarian nonsense involves comments that deliberately leave out the 15% of your subject population that has transcended the fairy tales of our past and no longer accepts that statement as true. Pandering though it may be, there are better ways of stating your approval for the 'tolerance' (read: lack of hypocrisy) eventually shown by the conservative Xian douchenozzles that wanted to burn someone else's book of lies. That, and the scare tactics used to prevent that were equally detestable; those who are enemies of this nation because we are anathema to their particular brand of sky-fairy aren't going to hate us more for the burning of a few books when their hate is already beyond imagining.
Signed,
An Atheist who is not so much perpetually angry as disgusted with, well, society in general
About Me
- InfuriatedSciTeacher
- I am a former middle and high school science teacher pursuing a doctorate in Science Ed. at George Mason University, with a concentration in cognitive science and the evolution of cognition and learning. Postings on this blog represent my own views, not those of my employer or school. All writing displayed on this page is original work unless otherwise noted, and thus copyrighted.
I had one idiot friend who went so far as to "blame" fundie douche for a couple of yahoo mooselimbs killing some people in Afghanistan over the whole to-do. The fact that I know people who think this poorly is disappointing, but, one more time: if I want to drink a cup of tea, and that makes you want to kill someone, there can be very little doubt that the problem is that you are a delusion sociopath and not that I like tea. Like tea, books do not have rights or feelings, and so if my wishing to destroy one makes you angry--repeat previous scenario. I do not share in the blame, because if I did, then I would share in the blame for everything that could ever be done that irritated a deranged person, which is probably nearly everything. This is why, as a general rule, we incarcerate violent deranged people, unless the derangement is so popular that we have to call it religion, and accept our shortage of building materials for the requisite institutions.
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