{"id":3662,"date":"2010-01-18T16:19:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-19T00:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=3662"},"modified":"2010-01-18T16:21:05","modified_gmt":"2010-01-19T00:21:05","slug":"on-the-miscellany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/on-the-miscellany\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Miscellany"},"content":{"rendered":"

Walter, that’s an interesting round-up<\/a>. The Irish blasphemy law merits a separate post of its own (the issues are a touch more complicated than they seem), but for now I’ll just comment on two of the other stories you pass on.<\/p>\n

I have no idea whether Obama is right or wrong in thinking that there’s a ‘spark of the divine’ within each of us, but I see no reason for anyone to be ‘offended’ (dread word) by the assertion. Coming from a believer it is, in fact, a compliment.<\/p>\n

And then there’s Mitch Daniels. The Indiana governor’s claim that “all” the horrific crimes of the last century were committed by atheists is absurd, even if we assume that he is referring to the major historical atrocities that defiled that unhappy period. In this context, it says something in particular\u00a0about Daniels\u2019 knowledge of history that he so confidently includes Hitler in the atheist ranks. Hitler was no Christian, certainly, but to work out what his religious beliefs really were is no easy task, not least because many of his own statements on the topic were more a matter of cynical political expediency than serious\u00a0professions\u00a0or rejections of faith. So far as one can discern, however, Hitler does appear to have had some belief in God or ‘Providence’, but perhaps Gov. Daniels has a different interpretation of what the word “atheist”\u00a0actually means.<\/p>\n

Or maybe he just doesn’t know what he’s talking about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walter, that’s an interesting round-up. The Irish blasphemy law merits a separate post of its own (the issues are a touch more complicated than they seem), but for now I’ll just comment on two of the other stories you pass … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[93,443],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3662"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3662"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3666,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3662\/revisions\/3666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}