The Secular Coalition wasn’t too happy they didn’t get invited to the Democratic National Convention’s Interfaith service.  And rightly so, their letter politely asked the Convention organizers to extend an olive branch, but in return they were called “befuddled” and called it “an angry letter from a secularist group.”

Now, the icing on the minor offense is that the Colorado Springs Gazette has run an opinion article that would border on hate-crimes legislation here in Canada (although since it targets an atheist, its unlikely the human rights tribunals would hear it).

I’ll highlight some of the intolerance, as it’s best left to speak for itself [emphasis added]:

The official reason for the interfaith services is “to honor the diverse faith traditions inside the Democratic Party,” which could easily include atheists. If they aren’t welcome, it’s probably because they’re rude.

…

Therefore a belief in creation – or an original intelligence, Jesus, Buddha, or the “Flying Spaghetti Monster” – is no more valid in the eyes of the law than the odd belief that nothing could possibly exist beyond what our embryonic state of scientific discovery has seen in our relatively primitive microscopes and telescopes. The humble and intelligent scientist understands that what we have proven about time and space is a microscopically small body of knowledge relative to the endless size and never-ending expansion of all that exists. To rational thinkers, atheism seems a sad and shallow belief.

Yet an amazing number of atheists have taken to confronting and insulting believers of other religions. They pretend that atheist beliefs are proven true, while others are proven false. They refer to other religions as “irrational,” and “superstitious.” Their approach to ministry is overbearing and rude. They engage in confrontation, with disregard for persuasion.

Consider the righteous indignation of Becky Hale, founder of Freethinkers of Colorado Springs: “By reaching out to people of faith, they have shown the back of their hand to those who do not believe,” Hale told The Gazette.

In other words, if I’m not invited to your party then you’re bad. Even the name of Hale’s group is insulting. It implies that people of other faiths are something other than “free thinkers.”

Although it starts off relatively tame, the author quickly picks up the tone and rhetoric.

Hitler imagined a world without Jews. The Freedom From Religion Foundation rented a billboard near the Colorado Convention Center that says: “Imagine No Religion.”

Imagine a world with no religion and one sees a world without the Golden Rule, devoid of most charities, hospitals and great universities. One sees hurricane recovery zones, minus all the chartered planes and buses full of churchgoers giving their time and money to rebuild homes. How many children are fed and clothed by atheist charity organizations? Approximately none.

Imagine no religion and one sees a world ruled by atheist tyrants – Pol Pot, Albania’s Enver Hoxha, Stalin and Mao, to name a few – who have murdered tens of millions in modern efforts to cleanse society of religion.

American Muslims, Baptists, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Mormons, Quakers, Amish, etc., don’t erect billboards saying “Imagine No Atheists.” They don’t advocate government force to cleanse atheist expressions and teachings from the public square. They don’t imply that atheists are “irrational,” even though atheists claim absolute knowledge. They don’t advocate theft and desecration of atheist property, even though an atheist hero in Minnesota stole and destroyed the Catholic Eucharist.

Although you probably figured out by now this “journalist” doesn’t really check facts, but here they don’t even bother to realize that Dr. Myers didn’t steal anything – he was given a Eucharist by his readers.

Democrats will nominate a Christian gentleman who respects others. It’s likely they didn’t invite atheists to their faith service because they didn’t want embarrassing guests. Atheists might bring pseudointellectual proselytizers, who are intolerant, self-aggrandizing and rude. Atheists should fund universities and hospitals. They should feed and clothe starving kids. They should act more like Christians and Jews. If they do some of that – if they contribute to a diverse humanity – they might get better party invites.

Now go back through this article and replace the word atheist with any other minority – say African American or Native American – and see how long it is before they ask for your journalistic license (at least, if not your head).