Atheist iconoclasts against Mother Teresa stamp
Monday, February 1, 2010 at 9:22PM By coincidence my latest piece on atheism [see here also see my older piece on iconoclasm here] was picked up by lazyfeed.com and out of curiosity I visited the feed and found this gem on Fox News.
An atheist organization is blasting the U.S. Postal Service for its plan to honor Mother Teresa with a commemorative stamp, saying it violates postal regulations against honoring 'individuals whose principal achievements are associated with religious undertakings.'
The Freedom from Religion Foundation is urging its supporters to boycott the stamp — and also to engage in a letter-writing campaign to spread the word about what it calls the 'darker side' of Mother Teresa.
Whether the principal achievements of Mother Teresa are of religious nature is debatable. Character assassination is such a wonderful tactic isn't is? The only problem Freedom from Religion Foundation has with Mother Teresa is that she was a nun, if she was entirely secular they would keep quiet...
...Freedom from Religion Foundation spokeswoman Annie Laurie Gaylor says issuing the stamp runs against Postal Service regulations.
'Mother Teresa is principally known as a religious figure who ran a religious institution. You can't really separate her being a nun and being a Roman Catholic from everything she did,' Gaylor told FoxNews.com.
Postal Service spokesman Roy Betts expressed surprise at the protest, given the long list of previous honorees with strong religious backgrounds, including Malcolm X, the former chief spokesman for the Nation of Islam, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
'In fact we honored Father Flanagan in 1986 for his humanitarian work. This has nothing to do with religion or faith,'
It could help Mother Teresa, if she was not an Albanian Catholic working in far away India but a civil rights campaigner in the US...
Gaylor said the atheist group opposed Father Flanagan's stamp but not those for King and Malcolm X, because she said they were known for their civil rights activities, not for their religion.
Martin Luther King 'just happened to be a minister,' and "Malcolm X was not principally known for being a religious figure," she said.
'And he's not called Father Malcolm X like Mother Teresa. I mean, even her name is a Roman Catholic honorific.'
Gaylor said Mother Teresa infused Catholicism into her secular honors — including an 'anti-abortion rant' during her Nobel Prize acceptance speech — and that even her humanitarian work was controversial.
You see these cowards would not dare to raise their voices against civil rights leaders. Besides Malcolm X was principally known as a religious leader and as Brother Malcolm. And of course don't you dare touch the topic of abortion that's sacred. Or should I say untouchable since we are speaking about atheists?
Note how the organisation is not called 'Freedom of Religion', 'Freedom of Religion' is enshrined in the US constitution and therefore is none-issue. What people like these are concerned with is the very presence of things religious in their midst.
The Foundation is encouraging its supporters to purchase the new stamp honoring the late actress Katharine Hepburn, who was an atheist, instead — or any of the other 2010 stamps, which include cartoonist Bill Mauldin, singer Kate Smith, filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, painter Winslow Homer and poet Julia de Burgos.
The best choice organised atheist have is to shut up. Atheists often time reiterate that atheism means disbelief in God. As this case shows, only decent sceptics adhere to this. The front line of Atheism is an iconoclastic movement attacking everything associated with religion.
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'The Foundation is encouraging its supporters to purchase the new stamp honoring the late actress Katharine Hepburn, who was an atheist, instead — or any of the other 2010 stamps, which include cartoonist Bill Mauldin, singer Kate Smith, filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, painter Winslow Homer and poet Julia de Burgos.'
WTF?
One thing I notice is that there seems an incredible loneliness about a lot of atheists. My best pal is an agnostic of Slovenian ancestry. That I'm Orthodox doesn't matter at all to either of us. But it seems that atheists are the ones with the real us v them attitude.
I find it especially disturbing here in Britain, because many 'atheist' campaigners only ever meet other atheists and are too lazy to look beyond their own small circle.
It would seem that they want Katherine Hepburn to be commemorated on stamps simply for being an atheist.
OK, she was at the top of Hollywood for a while but she has been chosen for her beliefs (or lack of them) rather than her actual achievements, which seems a very un-atheist way of doing things.
I think i'll call myself an agnostic from now on.
Atheists are just agnostics with a high opinion of themselves.
My dad is an atheist with a healthy respect for religion, and certainly does not make a habit or career off bashing the beliefs of other people.
Personally I do not use the category agnostic, it is too ambiguous. I am comfortable with the simple dichotomy of atheist/religious. I have understanding for people who chose not to believe as long as they don't come around denigrating people who do believe.
@CK
Sounds similar to my views on the monarchy and republicanism. I wouldn't turn around in a swivel chair if I was told a Windsor was outside, but when I see big babies like Johann Hari saying 'I think we should make Stephanie Beacham queen of Britain' (oh, you edgy offensive rebel you) I just call myself a nominal monarchist. (Actually I do think that constitutional monarchy can be a useful stupidity limiter, though not an essential one: the French get by without one, though I reckon the Yanks need a figurehead to vent their excess emotions on).
@Leos
I don't know. I sometimes tongue-in-cheek think of Orthodoxy as the Eastern Agnostic Church, because there is very little (as I see it) 'religion' in Orthodoxy, in the sense of an incessant focus on the afterlife or finger pointing. I am not saying that I am an agnostic, I feel that I have experienced a miracle. But I really don't like 'religion' if it means Muslim or Protestant fanatics telling people how to live because of what some voice in their head has told them.
My dad is also an atheist but I don't think my faith matters to either of us.
@ Gregor
I meant it in terms of believing in God and not, all Orthodox acknowledge the existence of God. Of course the Budhists are totally careless to the existence of deities, so I use this dichotomy in terms Western Monotheisms most of the time.
To me religion is about belief in the supra-secular, supra-human, supernatural and associated rituals. In this way even Buddhism can be called a religion. Orthodoxy has very beautiful rituals. Other expressions of religion are not so relevant to this category, At least that is my opinion.