CNN Anti-Atheist Panel Discussion - Write them to protest hate-speech
A recent CNN Paula Zahn Now panel discussion on the subject of discrimination against atheists featured NO atheists and included some incredibly hateful and ignorant statements made by the panel members.
A few quotes from panel members:
“What does an atheist believe? Nothing.”
“I think they need to shut up”
“The real discrimination is atheists against Americans who are religious”
“We have strong Christians and… atheists are not strong.”
Banner behind panel: “Why do atheists inspire such hatred?”
Transcript:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0701/31/pzn.01.html
Part 1: Segment
Part 2: Panel
Send a note expressing your displeasure to CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?11
UPDATE: Richard Dawkins will be the guest with Paula Zahn on Thursday, February 8th 2007 at 8pm EST on CNN. UPDATE #2: It looks like because certain programs deem it necessary to dedicate a full show to Anna Nicole Smith’s death, the Dawkins appearance has been postponed until Monday, February 12th. (Which happens to be Darwin Day.)
On February 17th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
(the comment I posted to CNN)
The number of factual errors and biases present in the recent discussion of atheism on this show is appalling. From the very start, when Paula Zahn says that atheists are merely people who “don’t believe in God”, my prediction (which was fulfilled) was of dissappointment on a less-conservative-than-Fox news channel to accurately present current issues. Atheists do not merely not believe in (the Christian) “God” but also do not believe in any god or supernatural prescence. The connotation of an anti-Christian mindset is innaccurate. Secondly, to say that atheists believe nothing is another falsehood. An atheist by definition does not believe in a god or gods, and by practice merely doesn’t have FAITH, that is, does not believe things that cannot be proven or have not been sufficiently proven. Atheism is not synonymous with skepticism, in fact, an atheist should be more likely to accept new ideas merely because he or she does NOT hold a stoic faith in things.
To call the story ridiculous is in itself ridiculous. In the United States, regardless of an incongruency between any group and the public at large, discrimination is discrimination. Although America at large is not atheist, it is also at large not African, or Jewish, or homosexual, or any other definable group. This is not, however, a liscence to be racist, anti-Semetic, or homophobic.
Moreover, at large the Founders of this country were NOT Christian. The authors of our government had varied beliefs and many were Deists. The god to which they refer is not the Christian one.
The comment “what more do they want?” is equally ridiculous. Removing prayer from schools isn’t even exclusively an atheist concern. It is the concern of anyone who wants to protect their children from being forced to follow the mindset of an arbitrary third party.
To say that atheists discriminate against the religious is also ridiculous. Atheists are, in my opinion, far more tolerant than most religious groups. Promoting the secularism that the country is founded on and which appears in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is not discrimination on any level. Additionally, any group can argue their case. When a probably Christian judge or jury agrees with an atheist group that publicly funded nativity scenes are not to appear in the holiday season, that’s not discrimination on the part of the atheists, it’s logic on the part of the adjudicators.
Freedom of religion should indeed mean freedom from religion. To be free but persecuted doesn’t sound much like freedom to me.
The California case mentioned but not cited about students learning from the Koran is not a valid example of atheist discrimination. Atheists do not support Islam any more or less than Christianity. Only as rhetoric would they propose that schoolchildren actually take the time to - gasp - learn about other cultures in order to better understand world affairs.
In short, it is not atheists “imposing upon [Christians'] rights” that causes a problem. The very concept of protection from a tyranny of the majority which the Constitution tries and has so far succeeded to promote is that majorities should not be given the means to impose upon others. Abscence of prayer in schools doesn’t stop religious children from praying, but it does stop atheist children from not-praying.
Atheists not being strong at current merely means they need more protection from our government, one of the things it was designed to do.
On February 18th, 2007 at 12:56 am
Wow. This is one of the worst displays of hate and bigotry I’ve seen in a long time.
I think it’s funny that the members of the panel aren’t relevant to the subject matter in anyway. The fact that the only one defending the separation of church and state (more than the other’s at least) was a freaking sports pundit. C’mon CNN!