{"id":87,"date":"2011-05-24T13:27:23","date_gmt":"2011-05-24T17:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godscomic\/?p=87"},"modified":"2011-05-24T13:27:23","modified_gmt":"2011-05-24T17:27:23","slug":"gotta-love-them-atheists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2011\/05\/gotta-love-them-atheists.html","title":{"rendered":"Gotta love them atheists!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well with schools years beginning to come to a close around the country it didn\u2019t take the ACLU long to sniff out another example of theocratic tyranny in the form of a 70 yr old tradition in Ocean Grove New Jersey for a high school graduation ceremony that takes place in a building known as the great auditorium.<br \/>\nApparently last year, one atheist grandmother complained about the crosses attached to the building (it is owned by a Christian ministry) and immediately went to pray at the First United atheist church of the ACLU.<br \/>\nI must say I am shocked it took them so long to catch onto to another one of our evangelical ploys to capture and force attendees to convert to Christianity. Obviously it took an enlightened atheist, what with their \u201clogic\u201d and \u201creason\u201d and \u201cparanoia\u201d and, now what was that word again, OH yeah, Christaphobia, to realize that for 70 years the event held here was not so much about the beauty and majesty of the church that brought prestige and awe to this ceremony but instead was a covert way for Christians like myself to convert students and family members alike to our faith.<br \/>\nFor those of you unaware of this technique Christians are taught early that if we can surreptitiously get you into a church building under the guise of a \u201cceremony, we can begin implementing many age old secret devices found in the Bible. The normal looking pews for example are actually impregnated with a disarming secret concoction (\u201cJesus juice\u201d in Christianeese) designed to force your brain to no longer be able to make autonomous decisions and this opens your mind up to the brainwashing that comes with you simply having to look upon a cross.<br \/>\nWe are still ecstatic with the fact that many people, Christians and pagans alike, wear crosses which haven\u2019t as of yet been tied to the tremendous amount of conversions happening in public places, specifically malls and jewelry stores on any given day.<br \/>\nAtheists alone are aware of how mentally weak they are, and so they believe it is their duty as a public service to let the rest of America that haven\u2019t already succumbed to the deadly virus of faith to know that they too are susceptible to irrationality and God belief and it is as simple as a visit to a cathedral to start them on the road to ruin.<br \/>\nI can understand their point I must say because I myself have always despised the fact that many graduation ceremonies happen in gymnasiums. One wonders how many innocent victims have attended these gatherings only to leave the place with an inordinate desire to shoot free throws and to dribble. Yes I must say in America, a country built on the premise of \u201cLand of the free and home of the brave\u201d we can take a moment and thank these selfless atheists who prove on a regular bases that hating religion, demanding its destruction and their intolerance and inability to think of no one but themselves should inspire all the next generation of Americans to move forward with the motto, \u201cif you have a problem convincing people to embrace your point of view, never compromise, take the high road. When that fails\u2026sue. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well with schools years beginning to come to a close around the country it didn\u2019t take the ACLU long to sniff out another example of theocratic tyranny in the form of a 70 yr old tradition in Ocean Grove New Jersey for a high school graduation ceremony that takes place in a building known as&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":223,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-87","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy","tag-atheists-intolerant-bigoted-close-minded-ocean-grove-neptune-high-school-graduation-the-great-auditorium"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Gotta love them atheists! - God&#039;s Comic<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2011\/05\/gotta-love-them-atheists.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gotta love them atheists! - God&#039;s Comic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Well with schools years beginning to come to a close around the country it didn\u2019t take the ACLU long to sniff out another example of theocratic tyranny in the form of a 70 yr old tradition in Ocean Grove New Jersey for a high school graduation ceremony that takes place in a building known as&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2011\/05\/gotta-love-them-atheists.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"God&#039;s Comic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-05-24T17:27:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Brad Stine\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Gotta love them atheists! - God&#039;s Comic","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2011\/05\/gotta-love-them-atheists.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Gotta love them atheists! - God&#039;s Comic","og_description":"Well with schools years beginning to come to a close around the country it didn\u2019t take the ACLU long to sniff out another example of theocratic tyranny in the form of a 70 yr old tradition in Ocean Grove New Jersey for a high school graduation ceremony that takes place in a building known as&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2011\/05\/gotta-love-them-atheists.html","og_site_name":"God&#039;s Comic","article_published_time":"2011-05-24T17:27:23+00:00","author":"Brad Stine","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2011\/05\/gotta-love-them-atheists.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2011\/05\/gotta-love-them-atheists.html","name":"Gotta love them atheists! - God&#039;s Comic","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-05-24T17:27:23+00:00","dateModified":"2011-05-24T17:27:23+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/#\/schema\/person\/243d86fd9261f0ca95264b80e71e80e9"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2011\/05\/gotta-love-them-atheists.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2011\/05\/gotta-love-them-atheists.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/2011\/05\/gotta-love-them-atheists.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Gotta love them atheists!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/","name":"God&#039;s Comic","description":"God&#039;s Comic - Brad Stine","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/#\/schema\/person\/243d86fd9261f0ca95264b80e71e80e9","name":"Brad Stine","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/870\/870f4e7ff5414a60daaefcce61009a6cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/870\/870f4e7ff5414a60daaefcce61009a6cx96.jpg","caption":"Brad Stine"},"description":"\"Brad Stine is on a mission \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a mission to free us all from the chains of political correctness and prevent our eventual \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcwussification.' From his Nashville stronghold, Stine is mounting his crusade against these hypocrisies, all of which are explored in his highly anticipated 4th album\/DVD, aptly titled \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWUSSIFICATION!' \"You know what offends me?... Offended people,\" says Stine. A staunch supporter of first amendment rights and foe of political correctness, Stine asserts that rights should be universally applied. \"In a country with guaranteed rights to freedom of religion, its citizens are constantly trying to make faith in public spheres illegal, I am offended by that contradiction and want to talk about it as a comic.\" The strength of his conviction about our freedoms can be found in many places on WUSSIFICATION \u00e2\u20ac\u201c from \"Merry Christmas Too!\" (the right to celebrate religion) to \"At Least We're Not France!\" (the responsibility to take action as a country) to \"Spank\" (the ability to discipline our children the way we see fit). What would cause the wussification of Brad Stine? \"I hope that nothing ever wussifies me to deny my own personal beliefs,\" he says. \"Brainwashed wussies have been taught that standing up for yourself and defending your personal point of view makes you a close-minded hate monger.\" Stine stops short of defending his point of view as the ONLY one, adding \"...one must also be respectful of dissenting belief while supporting their own.\" He is, after all, an inclusive figure who trains his comedy to attack ideas, not the people who embrace them. Stine's faith forces him to acknowledge the respect and dignity of all\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 even the wussies with whom he disagrees! Stine models his approach to comedy after legendary practitioners that he has known and loved over the years. Despite George Carlin's disdain for theistic beliefs, he has been a big influence on Stine. \"I always enjoyed Carlin for turning the tables on culture. He is an excellent writer that has endured for decades.\" More current comedic touchstones are Brian Reagan, Paula Poundstone, Jim Gaffigan and Monty Python, among others. Fear not, true believers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c with his brand new album, Brad Stine is here to save the world from WUSSIFICATION \u00e2\u20ac\u201c one politically-correct, offended person at a time!\"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/author\/bstine"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/223"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions\/88"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godscomic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}