An Atheistic Examination of the Culture of Death
Atheist Grinch Steals the Week After Christmas - Thu, Dec 30, 2004
Chicago, Illinois, December 30, 2004
Special to The Raving Atheist
Continuing the relentless secularist attack against Christians and Christianity, a Chicago atheist has robbed the week after Christmas of its true meaning by demanding the right to participate in a publicly-funded recycling program.
The city originally wanted to bolster its Blue Bag recycling program by offering a years worth of blue bags and some mulch to anyone who turned in a used Christmas tree.
But local atheist Rob Sherman insisted the trees-for-bags exchange unfairly benefits Christians. In response, the city is now allowing anyone to get the blue bags if they bring in a large bag of recyclable material.
"The miraculous pine tree which sprouted in the Israeli desert, fully decorated with electric lights and tinsel, is Christendom's most sacred symbol," noted Fox talk show host Bill O'Reilly. "And after Jesus opened the Wise Mens' presents, the tree and the wrapping paper ascended to Heaven in a sturdy polyurethane bag."
"But now the ACLU lawyers are going to force our children to call them "holiday bags," he said. "And the city, quite literally, will be forced to put up with all sorts of atheist and Jew garbage."
Jay Sekulow, of the American Center for Law and Justice, noted that "the real discrimination here is against people of faith."
"Christians are being singled out to have their special privileges revoked," Sekulow said. "The politically correct, multiculturalistic worldview that taxpayer-funded waste disposal services should be rationed on an indiscriminate basis is being shoved down their throats in violation of the First Amendment."
(Top) —Posted by: The Raving Atheist in Atheist News · Permalink · 9 Comments
·•◊•·
The Raving Atheist » Comments on: Atheist Grinch Steals the Week After Christmas
Recycling is Bullshit, anyways.
[Edit] December 30, 2004
From the link:
"sorry
We at Showtime Online express our apologies; however, these pages are intended for access only from within the United States."
You Americans remind me somewhat of China...
[Edit] December 30, 2004
Here is the text from the site, which features a video preview of the episode (Penn & Teller's "Bullshit", on Showtime), and a list of the experts commenting:
"It's the ultimate "feel-good" activity. But here's the truth: recycling is garbage. The recycling industry creates pollution, has to be subsidized by the government because it's cost ineffective, and is completely unnecessary. Contrary to popular belief, our landfills are not running out of space - we have enough room to last for thousands of years! So how did the bullshit of recycling get started? We've tracked down the faceless bureaucrat who's responsible!"
The experts featured are Neil Seldman, President, Institute for Local Self-Reliance; J. Winston Porter, President, The Waste Policy Center (Former EPA Employee); David Wood, Executive Director, Grassroots Recycling Network; Daniel K. Banjamin, Author/Professor, Clemson University; and Angela Logomasini, Competitive Enterprise Institute.
[Edit] December 30, 2004
Thanks ocmpoma.
But isn't it better to turn products that have already been used by consumers into new products. As well as slowing down our consumption rate, recycling is an important step toward alleviating overtaxed natural resources.
[Edit] December 30, 2004
egaMad, try using an anonymous proxy server to access the link.
I've seen the show and it deals very well with every issue I could come up with. It takes more energy to recycle than make new stuff, so it is more of a drain on the environment. I
cannot recall a lot of the show, as I watched a while ago, but an example of natural resources they discussed was trees. Trees are specifically grown for the purpose of being made into paper and lumber. It is so profitable, that entire manufactured forests have been created for this express purpose. Trees are a renewable resource; if you want more trees to be grown, use more paper.
[Edit] December 30, 2004
There's a quote from the tree-recycling article that I take exception to: "No self-respecting atheist or Jew or Hindu puts up a Christmas tree in their home unless they are Christian wannabes." That's crap! Tons of self respecting atheists and Jews (I don't know about Hindus) who realize that Christmas has become a completely secular holiday manage to celebrate it annually without any self-loathing.
Of course, since the article comes from World Net Daily, I'm skeptical of the quote and I would want to see another source before I believe the guy actually said it.
[Edit] December 30, 2004
I saw that episode of Bullshit as well, and I'm not yet fully convinced that recycling is total bunkem. Even in the episode, P & T (who I think are really, really cool by the way, and sometimes I think they're my heroes ;-) ) were forced to admit that recycling of aluminum cans is economically worth it.
There are also aesthetic reasons to do things like save trees. I think most environemntalists don't want to go around saying, "please save the trees because I happen to like them" though because they feel (probably correctly) that they won't win many converts to the cause that way.
For every complex problem there's an answer that's obvious, simple, and wrong.
[Edit] December 30, 2004
Raving, are you ready to do your guest blogger "Why Would An Aetheist Be Pro-Life?" on my site?? (hopeful look)
Cheerio,
Demi
[Edit] December 31, 2004
I'm annoyed that the article's author (whoever that may be) felt the need to randomly insert information about Sherman's campaigns against crosses on municipal seals. While I do find it interesting - and courageous - that Sherman was behind that campaign, the author could have written a separate paragraph detailing Sherman's efforts to uphold the separation of Church and State, rather than portray him as someone anti-Christian by ending the article with an awkard sentence about his campaign.
But back to main point of the article... when will those outspoken and outraged Christians realize that it's just not about them? Everytime a non-Christian adult realizes her child sings Christmas songs in the school's "holiday" play and proceeds to complain she is hailed as anti-Christian, too PC, a grinch, etc. What is so hard to understand about separation? Why do so many religious parents want their kids to continue learning about religion in class, and entrust the teachers to further these religious studies, seeing as the Church is presumably the best and most trusted setting for this learning to take place?
OK maybe that's not the main point of the article... so I will just say that the people who disagree with Sherman are really the ones who are nuts in this situation not to realize that clearly only Christians benefit from this program. If they are so hell bent on saving the earth, they shouldn't put up such a stink if non-Christians want to participate.
[Edit] December 31, 2004
Comments Closed
In order to stop the proliferation of comment spam, the comments on this post have been automatically closed because the post is older than 30 days and the discussion has been inactive for more than 21 days.
Please feel free to your comments to me.
(Top)