I'm thinking not.
Mellinger: Is there part of you that is bothered by the aggressive atheism of a (Sam) Harris, a (Christopher) Hitchens, a (Richard)] Dawkins? And what I mean is... this atheism is a little different than atheism has been in the past because it does seek to convert people.
Daniels: I'm not sure it's all that new. People who reject the idea of a God -who think that we're just accidental protoplasm- have always been with us. What bothers me is the implications -which not all such folks have thought through- because really, if we are just accidental, if this life is all there is, if there is no eternal standard of right and wrong, then all that matters is power.
And atheism leads to brutality. All the horrific crimes of the last century were committed by atheists -Stalin and Hitler and Mao and so forth- because it flows very naturally from an idea that there is no judgment and there is nothing other than the brief time we spend on this Earth.
Everyone's certainly entitled in our country to equal treatment regardless of their opinion. But yes, I think that folks who believe they've come to that opinion ought to think very carefully, first of all, about how different it is from the American tradition; how it leads to a very different set of outcomes in the real world.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/im_so_sorry_for_you_indiana.php?utm_source=sbhomepage&utm_medium=link&utm_content=channellink"We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out."
- Hitler.
"For eight months we have been waging a heroic battle against the Communist threat to our Volk, the decomposition of our culture, the subversion of our art, and the poisoning of our public morality. We have put an end to denial of God and abuse of religion. We owe Providence humble gratitude for not allowing us to lose our battle against the misery of unemployment and for the salvation of the German peasant."
- Hitler
"At that time Liberalism was opposed to the Church, while Marxism was anti-religious. But that time is past. National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary, it stands on the ground of a real Christianity. The Church's interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of to-day, in our fight against the Bolshevist culture, against an atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for the consciousness of a community in our national life, for the conquest of hatred and disunion between the classes, for the conquest of civil war and unrest, of strife and discord. These are not anti-Christian, these are Christian principles."
- Hitler
"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith."
- Hitler
Did he also forget Catholic priests helped to organize the Rwanda Genocide?
Or that Efrain Rios Montt, a dictator who waged a campaign of genocide against his country's Mayan population, was driven by Pentecostal beliefs and said that a good Christian had a machine gun in one hand and a Bible in the other?
Another item of note that you will find interesting: As director of the OMB, Mitch Daniels had said that the Iraq War would cost $200 billion... "tops".
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