Thiago Oppermann wrote:
>
> I don't understand Nathan and Carrol's comments. The token of faith wasn't
> just casually placed in a corner with no purpose or intention. The judge and
> his supporters are quite explicit that the point of the monument was to
> underscore what they perceive as a fact - that US law is founded upon the
> will of God. That sure sounds like theocratic thinking.
Look, I think it would be a much better world if everyone woke up tomorrow morning an atheist. I've _never_ been anything but an atheist myself. (My atheism is by birthright more than merit.) The Ten Commandments give me a pain in the ass, as does the Judge who put them on display.
But (1) I doubt that making a big fucking fuss about an asshole judge in Alabama is going to unconvert a single fundamentalist or generate a single U.S. Out, U.N. In bumper sticker. (2) My personal experience working in the Central American Support Movement, in the '88 Jesse Jackson campaign, civil-rights struggles in Bloomington in the '60s, a struggle to keep a black student from being railroaded to prison for life, the efforts to get ERA approved in Illinois, strike-support activity, the anti-Vietnam War movement, the opposition to the First Gulf War, opposition to the attacks on Afghanistan & Iraq, & so forth -- none of these activities would have made much headway without the participation of xtians of various shades; (3) moreover, a very large proportion of the people I have met in the local depression support group are one kind or another of fundamentalist or evangelical -- and most of them have had reasonably sensible views on the world despite their religion; (4) and finally, with a few exceptions, I always got along well with the aggressive xtians in my classes, even though I was always fairly aggressive in indicating my disapprobation of xtianity.
And (5) So at least for the present, I just haven't felt that the question was of such momentous import.
It isn't even worthwhile, I think, to work a little harder on this post. There are too many things more important than this question.
Carrol