Overheard

Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike oblivious to the facts.
Bill Moyers
"There Is No Tomorrow"
Star Tribune, Jan. 30, 2005

I just kept telling myself that I had nothing to fear but fear itself, but it wasn't really working. When the door flew open I had to say it twice. I couldn't say Hail Mary or anything like that, because I'm an atheist.
Ron Flack
70-year-old parachutist
The [Tasmanian News] Examiner
Feb. 1, 2005

It's . . . hard for people to contend with the great probability that we are simply over-advanced fungi and bacteria, hurling through a galaxy in cold and meaningless space. Our existence may be unintentional, meaningless and purposeless; but that doesn't preclude meaning or purpose from emerging as a result of our interaction and collaboration.
If we could stop relating to meaning and purpose as artifacts of some divine creative act, and see them instead as the yield of our own creative future, they become goals, intentions, and processes very much in reach--rather than the shadows of childlike, superstitious mythology.
Media analyst Douglas Rushkoff
Edge.org, 2005

I am a total atheist.
David Plante
French Canadian novelist
The Providence Journal, Jan. 30, 2005

It is hard to believe that George Bush has ever read the works of George Orwell, but he seems, somehow, to have grasped a few Orwellian precepts. The lesson the President has learned best--and certainly the one that has been the most useful to him--is the axiom that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. One of his Administration's current favorites is the whopper about America having been founded on Christian principles. Our nation was founded not on Christian principles but on Enlightenment ones. God only entered the picture as a very minor player, and Jesus Christ was conspicuously absent.
Our Constitution makes no mention whatever of God. The omission was too obvious to have been anything but deliberate. . . .
Brooke Allen
"Our Godless Constitution"
The Nation, Feb. 21, 2005

Attacking a beloved cartoon character shows just how crazy religious conservatives can be. . . .
The scariest thing about the emboldened Christian conservatives, however, is that these are the people to whom George W. Bush promised a new Supreme Court--one modeled on the ultraconservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. A few years back Rev. Falwell led a prayer campaign for a new Supreme Court, and with President Bush poised to appoint several new justices in the next few years, the SpongeBob and Tinky Winky haters are close to winning.
Columnist Sheryl McCarthy
Newsday, Jan. 27, 2005

The reason why I didn't stand for "God Bless America" was because I didn't like the way they tied "God Bless America" and 9-11 to the war in Iraq and baseball.
Carlos Delgado, Florida Marlins
Associated Press, Jan. 27, 2005

I wasn't raised in any special denominations and I haven't taken on any so far. Actor Keanu Reeves
News24.com
Feb. 3, 2005

There is an attractive rationalist case for insisting that candidates for election anywhere in the world are required to sign a declaration forswearing religious affiliation . . . Government by atheists would relieve us of the irksome moral conceit that impels George Bush and Tony Blair to do deplorable things while remaining convinced that slots are kept open for them in heaven. . . .
Christian Crusaders were a menace to international peace in the 12th and 13th centuries, Christian missionaries in the 19th. God spare us from assertively Christian--or Muslim or Jewish--national leaders in the 21st, if that request is not blasphemous.
Max Hastings, former editor
Daily Telegraph & London Evening Standard
The Guardian, Dec. 6, 2004

It's [stem cell research] good science, and it's for the benefit of all people. We should have faith in our scientists.
Actor Michael J Fox, Founder
Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research
Wisconsin State Journal, Feb. 1, 2005

Bush's compassionate conservatism has turned out to be neither compassionate nor conservative. The policy of funding the work of faith-based organizations has, in the face of slashed social service budgets, devolved into a small pork-barrel program that offers token grants to the religious constituencies in Karl Rove's electoral plan for 2004 while making almost no effort to monitor their effectiveness.
The problem is that, under the Bush administration, the overall pot of money for social services has shrunk considerably. This means that well-established organizations that have provided services for decades are now competing with--and, in some cases, being displaced by--unproven, often less-successful groups, inflicting a double whammy upon the people who really need the help.
Amy Sullivan, editor
"Faith Without Works"
Washington Monthly, Oct. 2004