Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Fragile atheists lose case against state homeland security law that mentions God

Last we heard from them, a group of atheists was huddled together shivering in fear that a state law that gives credit to God for homeland security might be retained on the books. But last week, the Kentucky Supreme Court turned down a request to hear a case challenging the law, thereby letting it stand.

And the atheist group? Well, someone ought to keep an eye on them to make sure they don't do anything drastic as a result of what must surely be a bad case of despondency.

We go to Peter Smith at the Louisville Courier-Journal:
At issue were two related laws passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.  
The first was a 2002 “legislative finding” saying the “safety and security of the commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.”  
The second was a 2006 act creating the state’s Office of Homeland Security and requiring its executive director to publicize “dependence on Almighty God” in agency training and educational materials and through a plaque at the entrance to its emergency operations center.
The group challenging the law, American Atheists, claimed the law was causing them to suffer sleep disorders and "mental pain and anguish." Many of us didn't know until the onset of this case just how mentally fragile atheists really were that the mere mention of religion reduced them to a quivering puddle of emotions.

We just took them at their word that they were hardy, courageous individuals who didn't need the "crutch" of religion to get through life. Now we come to find out they are just effete busybodies who talk a good game, but emotionally wilt in the face of any acknowledgement of God.

Atheists didn't used to be this frail. It's a darn shame.

2 comments:

ZPenn said...

I'm not that frail. I don't lose sleep over something as inconsequential as the superfluous words tacked into a law which don't actually affect anything. It's like "in God we trust". It's meaningless, and it doesn't bother me. I don't like it, but I could honestly care less. I think it's stupid, and needs to be removed, but I'm aware that atheists are currently a minority, and to expect these kind of things to be instantaneously removed from our legal system is a waste of time. I am fairly confident that within a few generations, religion will lose its hold on society anyway. Our ability to educate and learn has vastly increased in the past few decades. Things like the internet are slowly but surely killing reliance on religion by bringing more information to more people than ever before. Access to information and evidence (or lack of evidence) is what will remove religion from our legal system. Not some whiny atheist group who want to claim emotional distress.

apudewa said...

Oh Martin, I love you.
AP