Apparently, last weekend Congressman Pete Stark (D-California), has come out as someone who does not believe in a supreme being. This makes him the first congressperson ever to\u00c2\u00a0admit such a thing.
\nHe made this statement:<\/p>\n

When the Secular Coalition asked me to complete a survey on my religious beliefs, I indicated I am a Unitarian who does not believe in a supreme being<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To be perfectly clear:<\/p>\n

ALL HE DID WAS INDICATING ON A POLL THAT HE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That’s all. Nothing more. He didn’t confess that on ‘the floor’, he didn’t request special treatment and he certainly didn’t bash other people’s beliefs. He was just being honest (while he was the first one to ADMIT this, I’m sure there are more people in congress who share his disbelief).<\/p>\n

And LOOK at the reactions!<\/p>\n

For a long time I have\u00c2\u00a0believed that a very\u00c2\u00a0important basic\u00c2\u00a0ingredient for people’s tendency to be religious is fear. (To be a God-fearing person is considered a positive Christian trait, and you’d better fear hell too!).<\/p>\n

I have seen the fear component manifest itself often and at various levels of consciousness, but\u00c2\u00a0seldom have I seen it so clearly as in this outburst from The Christian Seniors Association (CSA). See link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Allow me a few quotes from that article and my comment on it:<\/p>\n

… they want to establish a right for liberals to bash Christians and berate God around the clock …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

ALL HE DID WAS INDICATING ON A POLL THAT HE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is time for religious members of Congress to push back.\u00c2\u00a0 A simple declaration of a belief in God by members of Congress on the House floor will be greatly informative for the American people…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To “push back”? Note: Pete Stark did NOT announce his disbelief on the House floor.<\/p>\n

ALL HE DID WAS INDICATING ON A POLL THAT HE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have long recognized that all of this hot air about \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcseparation of church and state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 has been a veiled effort to intimidate and silence religious voices in public policy matters …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Isn’t it a bit ‘un-American’ to call your own\u00c2\u00a0country’s Bill Of Rights\u00c2\u00a0‘hot air<\/em>‘? And no, it was not to intimidate, and no it was most certainly not veiled. It is a very CLEAR meassure to, indeed, keep ‘religious voices out of public policy matters’<\/em>. That’s why it’s called ‘separation of church and state’<\/em>. But in any case, it’s not something that Mr. Stark even so much as mentioned.<\/p>\n

ALL HE DID WAS INDICATING ON A POLL THAT HE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If the liberal House leadership refuses to recognize lawmakers who want to affirm their belief in God …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wait a minute now,\u00c2\u00a0NOBODY was refusing anyone anything …<\/p>\n

ALL HE DID WAS INDICATING ON A POLL THAT HE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But based on some of these remarks, I think it IS valid to state that it is the CSA who ‘refuses to recognize lawmakers who want to affirm their<\/em> dis<\/strong>belief in a god<\/em>‘.<\/p>\n

Congressman Stark\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s statement\u00c2\u00a0[ … ] could be the moment which defines the decline of our country …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You’ve GOT to be kidding me! This would define the decline of our country?<\/p>\n

ALL HE DID WAS INDICATING ON A POLL THAT HE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING.<\/strong><\/p>\n

… the day that religious Americans stood-up to the liberal bullies who are so determined to use the power of government to silence prayer and every other religious expression of free speech.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Okay, NOW someone is REALLY going overboard here. NOBODY wants to deny religious people their right to pray and believe whatever they want. All that the non-religious people ask is to not have those beliefs FORCED upon them and that their tax money isn’t spent on some specific religions.<\/p>\n

However, congressman Stark didn’t even mention that request.<\/p>\n

ALL HE DID WAS INDICATING ON A POLL THAT HE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING.<\/strong><\/p>\n

While I agree there is some rather nasty bullying going on here, it is NOT Pete Stark who is the bully!<\/p>\n

This is a fight which is destined to be fought in America and we think it should begin today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a FIGHT?<\/p>\n

ALL HE DID WAS INDICATING ON A POLL THAT HE DIDN’T BELIEVE IN A SUPREME BEING.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apparently, last weekend Congressman Pete Stark (D-California), has come out as someone who does not believe in a supreme being. This makes him the first congressperson ever to\u00c2\u00a0admit such a thing. He made this statement: When the Secular Coalition asked me to complete a survey on my religious beliefs, I indicated I am a Unitarian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,6,14,16,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emotions","category-in-the-news","category-opinions","category-politics","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/claessen.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}