The Atheist, believing only in the power of man, sees the destruction and prohibition of the symbols of deity worship as a sign of the strength of the religion of Atheism or Humanism. The absence of religious symbols is not a neutral position; it is a position favoring the atheistic belief.
I don't get where that thought process comes from other than the convenience to make a sweeping generalization from imagination in order to satisfy oneself. I don't recall any Atheist Inquisitions or Atheist Crusades.
Atheist beliefs are almost -always- self-arrived/realized by an individual or small group of people that ponder theological and philosophical subjects. There is no overwhelming global body of Atheists at the Vatican lead by a heirchy of Atheists that determine things like what shoes would Atheists wear or what holidays they should concoct. In fact,
Atheism has many sub-beliefs and varying degrees of extremity in and of itself, just as any religious, political, economic, or major belief system that guides the various cogs running the world. A reasonable introductory article can be seen here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist
As such, you would
find it impossible to back up such an argument that Atheism as a whole (since is is fragmented and isolated by socialogical and demographic environment)
is somehow out to erradicate theistic symbols as a prime directive of a governing or structured belief system, since there is no structure, period. There are no Sunday Atheist gatherings or Atheist dogma. There are some groups (mainly on the Internet) that might host small rallies or gatherings of Atheists for whatever reason it is they do (barbeques and t-shirt ideas perhaps) but nowhere near the magnitude of established theistic groups. Atheists do not follow proselytized theistic dogma and scripture engrained since early childhood that (in the case of Abrahamic-based religions) states their [belief] is the only way and that it is your job or tenant to convert others and push them into conformity (and historically, that included fear, torture, death, and genocide of indiginous natives).
I never stated that Atheism was a structured, hierarchical organization, with defined goals and methods of concerted actions. One could compare Atheist to Locusts; locusts share a common attribute with locusts of various types, no matter where they may be found. The locust will eat every plant in it's path, and keep eating until it dies; swarms of locusts will completely strip plant life from entire regions, and cause famine in the affected area. The locust swarm has no hierarchy, no command structure; there is an inherent common goal, that needs no structure or communication to coordinate actions by other members of the group. Similarly, the atheist has a common attribute; the disbelief in any deity, whatever religion's deity is under consideration. As one locust may be more voracious than another, one atheist may be more militant than another in trying to force his influence on those that profess faith in deity. Just as you can know that a swarm of locusts have been in an area by observing the consumption of vegetation, you can observe that atheists have been in an area by observing the forced destruction of religious symbols in public venues. The absence of the removal of religious symbols does not indicate the absence of atheists; it means that the atheists' influence is negligible at that time and location.
I would say such a statement is a complete lack of logical thought. If the Constitution of government were to favor Atheism using the illogical statement reposted above, it would erect a statue that would somehow represent the disbelief and dismissal of all theistic beliefs. However, that is not the case. It simply leaves a blank slate. Our Constitution is written in a way that it is secular and allows the expression of non-religion or religion.
Absence of religious symbols favors no particular religion or lack thereof. The absence of religion isn't the evidence of favoring the belief in no religion. Important: note how that is worded.
The forced REMOVAL of religious symbols is certainly evidence that one religion (Atheism) is being favored over others. If the religious symbols had never been allowed at all, it might be argued that neutrality was being exercised; in the case of removing symbols of historical and traditional value, SOLELY on the basis that they represent one particular religious belief, it is impossible to see anything other than an ANTI-RELIGIOUS (and thus atheistic) use of government power, which clearly violates the First Amendment. In order to NOT violate the first amendment, it requires that the historical and traditional symbols remain, and equal opportunity to display the views of the Atheist are allowed as well. If the Atheists can not afford to erect their own opposing viewpoint as individuals, there is no hindrance by the government, on the formation of a structured organization of atheists, raising funds to do so.
Absence of religion from an establishment does not mean the belief in no religion, which would be Atheism. The absence of religion does not favor any theistic beliefs, and it does not favor the lack of theistic beliefs either. It is such a simple concept that I find it hard to believe, from my viewpoint, why it is such difficult to grasp. Given any other topic or word besides religion, it would make crystal clear sense. The absence of a firearm from someone's home does not mean that they believe no one should own a rifle, pistol, or shotgun. Yet, it does not favor rifles, pistols, or shotguns. That homestead favors neither freedom from firearms, or any particular type of firearm. It is quite simply, (and elegantly) neutral. As far as the Constitution goes, do people honestly think so little of our Founding Fathers to think that, while drafting up the most important document of our nation, forget to insert numerous situations or lexicon involving God/god/Goddess/goddess/gods/goddesses/smorgasboard of deities into the US Consitution, but they really, really meant to...but it was too late since everyone already signed it?
If no symbols of religious nature had ever been allowed, the absence would show no favor of one religion over any other; that is not the case in question - we are discussing the FORCED REMOVAL of religious symbols, by opposing religious practitioners, using government power to effect the removal. The question is whether the Courts forcing the removal of religious symbols, is equivalent to "no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The other point that needs to be made is that the Constitutional prohibition is placed on actions by the CONGRESS; it says nothing about the COURTS becoming involved in matters of religion. Does that mean that the Court has the power to force each and every person to worship according to mandated religious ideology; of course it doesn’t - so why is Congress allowing Courts to continue this exercise of abuse of authority? Why is it that we have seen no action by Congress to limit the authority of the Court in this matter, as is the right and responsibility placed on Congress in the Constitution.
