Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels Bashes Atheists

[and-justice-for-all]

Our Governor is a ignorant dip shit!

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In an interview with a Fort Wayne, IN television station posted on December 24, 2009, Mitch Daniels, Governor of Indiana, stated:

Our country was founded--this is just an historic fact; some people today may resist this notion but it is absolutely true--it was founded by people of faith. It was founded on principles of faith. The whole idea of equality of men and women of the races all springs from the notion that we're all children of a just God. It is very important to at least my notion of what America's about and should be about and I hope it's reflected most of the time in the choices that we make personally.

. . . 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://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/show/indiana_governor_mitch_daniels_bashes_atheists/

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This is the email I just sent dumb fuck Daniels:

I find your comments in regards to the founding of this country and Atheism to be a clear display of just how unintelligent you are.

The obvious lack of commonsense and an understanding of fact has clearly been dodged by you. To say this country was 'founded' by people of faith, is not correct in the slightest. You obviously are awarding the first colonies to arrive from England, who were escaping from religious persecution, the foundation medal. When in fact, this country was not rightfully established until the Constitution and Bill Of Rights were written and signed.

The majority of those who wrote and signed those documents of establishment were Deist, not literal bible believers.

Continuing on with your absurd idea (an idea that has been attempted many times over, but fails) that Stalin, Hitler and Mao were Atheist and their Atheism was the result of their Atrocities. To believe this, is to misunderstand Atheism, which you demonstrate in your remarks. All three were quite superstitious and one can not be an Atheist and be superstitious.

Hitler and Stalin were both Catholic and not surprising Hitler has never been excommunicated. The three can not been deemed Atheist when all three clearly believed in god, because all three thought of them selves as god and wanted to be worshiped as such.

How quick you are to forget the atrocities of religion since its inception; The crusades, inquisitions & the dark ages. Since you are a bible fan, you should do the body count of all the people that were killed because god ordered it.

I am an Atheist and not at all ashamed nor embarrassed of that, it is grown ups with invisible friends and believe in bronze age desert dogma that should be ashamed and embarrassed.

[HopeHoops]

1. Is there no limit to dumbfuckery?

:shrug:

[salvorhardin]

6. With Mitch Daniels? No. There isn't.

This is the guy who privatized our welfare system. IBM and a subcontractor were awarded a huge contract to administer the state's welfare system. Guess what? It was a dismal failure with extraordinarily long waiting periods, horrendous errors causing people to not receive needed benefits. Finally Daniels was forced to admit that it was indeed a failure and that it needed to be changed. So does he revert it back to the system of case workers and local offices that worked all along? No. He goes with a hybrid system mostly administered by the same subcontractor that was part of the IBM deal.

[prolesunited]

22. Failure or achieving its aims

It was a dismal failure with extraordinarily long waiting periods, horrendous errors causing people to not receive needed benefits. <-- Do you really think Daniels' goal is to help people? Makes no difference that many of those suffering in this current economic crisis have paid into the system for years. They hope you give up or die before you ever see a penny.

Katrina was no accidental failure either. Interpretation just depends on your goals.

[Brickbat]

2. WHY? Why do we need a ceiling cat to make us believe it's wrong to hurt each other?

I've never understood that argument.

[jobycom]

10. Weren't you listening? You obviously haven't thought this all the way through.

See, if we were just protoplasm, then we all have to kill each other, whereas if we were created by God for a purpose, we would all be good and stuff. When was the last time you heard of a Christian starting a war? Except for the ones they've started, which don't count because... Um... Dammit I get a little confused there.

[Brickbat]

14. Exactly!

People can't possibly understand morality on their own, because the only moral compass comes from a book written by...people.

[Ignis]

30. U no can has blasphemy!

[SidDithers]

3. K&R...

Mitch Daniels is an ignorant dumbfuck.

Sid

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

4. Read the Jefferson Bible, dumbass....(nt)

[PassingFair]

5. This idiot must have skipped "The Enlightenment" in his college history classes.

What a moran!

[ellenfl]

7. huh?

"And atheism leads to brutality." no, religious extremism leads to brutality . . . and there is still no shortage of religious extremism, including christian religious extremism.

ellen fl

[KakistocracyHater]

42. +1,000,000

*

[BurtWorm]

8. He's obviously not considering the political consequences of bashing atheists.

:sarcasm:

[jobycom]

9. Where did this "Hitler was an atheist" thing start?

:shrug:

Anyway, there's Sarah Palin's running mate. Yippee.

[Captain Hilts]

11. Actually, Daniels is smart. He must want to be Prez. nt

[and-justice-for-all]

16. FAIL..nt

[Captain Hilts]

19. I've met him and worked with him. He's smart. He's a player. nt

[and-justice-for-all]

38. Smart? with this recent display of ignorant??

Daniels is a fucking moron.

[Captain Hilts]

44. Look at the primary voters he's trying to appeal to. Trying to appeal to ignorant folks. nt

[Marr]

12. Even if you accept the spurious claim that the nation was "founded by people of faith"...

...that in itself wouldn't mean anything at all. It was also founded by slaveholders, but slavery has been abolished. The founders of the country were lots of things that we aren't today.

[Taitertots]

13. Stalin is to modern atheism

as Zoroastrians are to modern theists

Atheists are not one group any more than theists are one group. His argument is akin to bashing christians for radical islam.

[Starry Messenger]

15. "all that matters is power"

Sheesh, talk about projection. So if there turned up evidence that there was indeed no god these guys would go mad with unrestrained power? Oh, wait...

[surrealAmerican]

43. Indeed. This says so much more about him than it does about "atheists".

Apparently, the only thing keeping him from killing us all is a promise that if he's a "good" person, he'll be rewarded for all eternity.

[Brickbat]

17. Regarding your letter:

Stalin attended a Georgian Orthodox school. That doesn't mean he was baptized or believed in it, though.

[cark]

18. Majority were NOT diest

"The majority of those who wrote and signed those documents of establishment were Deist, not literal bible believers."

Even if this were a true statement, which it isn't, that still doesn't change the FACT that this country was founded by people of faith (Christians). 90%+ of the people that wrote and signed our founding documents were on record belonging to Christian demonated church. This isn't to say we have a theocracy, but to deny religion was not a part of our countries heritage is untrue.

[eridani]

20. Google is your friend

Try it on "Jefferson Bible".

[ChickMagic]

23. Treaty of Tripoli explains it

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli

[RaleighNCDUer]

24. There is a HUGE difference between it being part of the country's heritage

and being the driving force behind its founding.

Even then, before archeology had debunked the 'historical' bible, few people were biblical literalists - they accepted it as a compilation of writings that combined history with myth with philosophy, and believers thought it to be divinely inspired, not dictated.

Most those 'people of faith' of that time could not be elected to office today because of their questionable religious beliefs - they'd be as common in Washington now as are atheists and buddhists. Many of them did not believe the divinity of Jesus, did not believe that god interfered with the working of the world, and damn few were even churchgoers. They read the bible because that was what well educated people of the time did - and they certainly did not read it exclusively. Being of a christian denomination often meant no more than that was where you got married, and that was who buried you.

This is not, and never has been, a christian nation. It is a nation which has a whole lot of very different christians in it. There is a difference.

[immoderate]

27. Of the first five presidents, none were Christian.

While the founders were in a Christian culture, they were not believers. Most of the colonists at the time of the Revolution were not religious. The most religious opposed the revolution because of divine rights of kings.

--imm

[Soylent Brice]

28. you're funny.

:popcorn:

please don't ever leave us.

[jobycom]

32. They were a mix of Christians, Unitarians, and Deists, but they were all trying to avoid religious

control, and the mixing of religion and government. That's the only unifying belief they had. Some, like Hamilton, may have been atheist, and Jefferson was very close to atheist. Their language, like most politicians, is hard to read--they at times ridicule religion, and at others praise it, and overall it's hard to tell whether they are speaking their minds or saying what they think will get them votes.

But to claim 90% were Christians is false. 90% may have belonged to a church, but that was because they were required to, and that's what they were trying to stop. Jefferson belonged to a Christian church and was a deacon, yet ridiculed Christianity frequently, denied the Divinity of Christ, and openly claimed he was a Unitarian. Washington belonged to a church, but his own minister, whom he was friends with, claimed Washington was a Deist. Washington himself very pointedly in all of his writings public and private refused to say he was a Christian, even when asked directly, and never mentions Jesus, the Trinity, or any other Christian phrase. The church in that era was a form of community activism, even for people who did not believe in Christianity.

I don't see why the religion of the Founders gets Christians so worked up. I know my own beliefs, and they don't depend on those of someone who lived 200 years ago, but I hear Christians all the time whose faith is so weak they have to make up (or believe) lies about long dead people. If your faith is so weak you need to believe lies about 90% of our Founders, maybe you should be more honest about what you really believe about yourself.

[Starry Messenger]

34. What's "demonated"?

Sounds kinda fun. :evilgrin:

[krabigirl]

36. Um, try reading history. They WERE deists, mainly, and unitarians.

[fascisthunter]

37. the Majority was concerned about mixing Church with State!!!

you wanna know why? Because they saw what happens up close in Europe when the two do mix, taking everyone's freedom of religion away from them. That's the end result of mixing Church and State, and it's why you are repeating a meme used by the ultra religious nuttery in this country.

Sorry ultra right wing, but the Founding Father's actions were not as you claim... if you can't be honest about this issue, the debate is over!

[RainDog]

40. religion is a part of every nation's past. so what?

the truth of the matter is that those who try to claim that only Christians are ethical beings are outside of the law written by the founders.

the founders lived in a time when understandings of the world were vastly changing. they were learned men who had lived in other nations, who did scientific work with others in other nations as notions of the make up of the world overturned - this was in the age of Darwin's grandfather, who, at that time, already understood, along with his compatriots like Franklin, the truth of a notion of evolution.

Congregationalists and Unitarians have little in common with fundamentalists in the U.S. at this time who try to use religion as a political wedge. The WHOLE POINT of the constitution is the idea that humans, rather than any superstitious belief in the mythical powers of kings or bloodlines or origin, could form working govts by limiting the amount of power one group could exercise over another.

that's really what the constitution comes down to - a document that supports the belief in enlightened humanism as the basis for government.

[chemenger]

21. In my best (SNL's) Church Lady impression ... "How Conveeeenient"

"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."

He forgets that (to paraphrase) all the horrific crimes of the prior 19 centuries were committed by Xtians mainly against Muslims (although campaigns were also waged against pagan Slavs, Jews, Russian and Greek Orthodox Christians, Mongols, Cathars, Hussites, Waldensians, Old Prussians, political enemies of the popes, indigenous peoples, etc.) because it flows very naturally from an idea that there is no God except the Xtian God.

[Voltaire]

25. Lord Shorty Strikes Again

Unfortunately, he is my governor...no no...he is the governor of the state of Indiana. I have no governor. He claims to not be running for president and I believe him. But let us not sleep on this spectacularly pernicious man. By hook and by crook, and I MEAN crook, he has kept this state solvent (largely on the backs of state employees, of which I am one), and I believe for no other reason than to keep that as a badge of honor should his party of evildoers deign to consider him for the nomination. He has already ruined government at the federal and state level, no need to send him back to Washington for any reason, unless there is a shortage of street sweepers.

[sui generis]

26. Nothing sells like controversy

He's talking to his base, not you and me.

This country WAS founded by a bunch of batshit loonie religious blowhards who essentially got their conservative asses kicked out of England for being way too over the top and fundamentalist.

So What.

Since those people landed on plymouth rock a bunch more history happened, not the least of which is that the "founding fathers" are not to be confused with the pilgrims.

Finally, and foremost, FUCK TRADITION. If it's a tradition it got started somewhere by someone, and that means traditions are started every day by everyone.

Atrocities? There are no atrocities even remotely like those caused in the name of faith. Personally that stone age desert caveman and his dogma should go find another country to live in where they'll be happier. Afghanistan - any third world backwater full of fundamentalist hard cases who cane their wives and lynch their gays will do, just get the fuck out of here.

[Soylent Brice]

29. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels is an Asshat Pandering to Fundie Nutties.

K&R

[chat_noir]

31. "I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens..."

"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." - George H. W. Bush, as Republican presidential nominee August 27, 1987

[RainDog]

33. playing to the yahoos like a truly cynical fuck. I'm sure Eli Lilly Co. is full of atheists

since most people with advanced degrees tend to not be knee-jerk assholes about religion. They certainly cannot do any of their work without an acknowledgment of the truth of evolution... chemistry makes no sense without it.

maybe he's not counting on their votes.

he's certainly not counting on votes from various academics Indiana University, considered a public Ivy-League school, or Purdue, educational home to various astronauts and other engineers, or Notre Dame, an area of the state that went for Obama (as well as Bloomington, the location of the IU flagship school.)

What a cynical fuck to play to the ignorance of the base that makes up the Republican party in Indiana. What a betrayal of everything the Republican Party used to stand for before their failed economic policies required them to pander to the toothless militia of ignorance.

I hope this quote gets played far and wide. I'd love to hear a quote from IU President McRobbie about the governor of the state's attempt to persecute or marginalize Americans based upon their religious views. I'm sure Franklin and Jefferson would love to hear an explanation for this stupidity too.

Although Barnum and Bailey already stated the truth of Daniels: There's a sucker born every minute and the Republicans play to the sucker seats.

[krabigirl]

35. What an ignorant idiot. I guess burning "witches" at the stake wasn't an atrocity ro

or the crusades. Of course not!


This guy is an ignorant fool. I'd laugh in his pitiful, moronic face if I could. Stupid people shouldn't be allowed to hold office.

[Odin2005]

39. This guy is an idiot AND a bigot.

Typical 'Atheism = Nihilism" BS.

[proteus_lives]

41. I interviewed this asshole once.

He's tiny like a keebler elf.