Toward Political Godlessness

National Journal's cover story this week is "The Godless Rise as a Political Force."

The trend seems self-evident to me, as we're entering into the age of full-blown secular collectivism under the Obama administration. But the National Journal piece reveals some interesting notions among the politically Godless: For one, they believe President Obama has expressed his Christian beliefs as a "cloak for political expediency."

Here's more:

In January, shortly before Obama's inauguration, the national leadership of the Secular Coalition for America -- an umbrella lobbying group for leading atheist, humanist, and related groups -- gathered at the Holiday Inn Capitol in Washington to talk strategy for the post-Bush era. A National Journal reporter was allowed to sit in on a portion of the session and ask a few questions, and afterward stayed around to chat with the leaders during a luncheon break ....

Seated around a horseshoe table were leaders of the American Humanist Association ("being good without a god since 1941"); the Atheist Alliance International ("a positive voice for atheism!"); the Internet Infidels ("a drop of reason in a pool of confusion"); and the Secular Student Alliance ("Mobilizing Students for a New Enlightenment"). Others at the table included the Freedom From Religion Foundation, headed by Dan Barker, a former Christian evangelical preacher now known for his musical CD Friendly Neighborhood Atheist; and the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, headed by Jason Torpy, a retired Army captain who served in Iraq ....

For the Age of Obama, part of the strategy is reminding the president of his roots. The American Humanist Association bought an ad in the January 20 special inauguration section of The Washington Post congratulating Obama and calling him "living proof that family values without religion build character." The ad featured a snippet from Obama's best-seller, The Audacity of Hope: "I was not raised in a religious household.... Without the help of religious texts or outside authorities, [my mother] worked mightily to instill in me the values that many Americans learn in Sunday school: honesty, empathy, discipline, delayed gratification, and hard work."

Also in the book, in a passage not quoted in the ad, Obama refers to his mother's "professed secularism," writing that "for my mother, organized religion too often dressed up closed-mindedness in the garb of piety, cruelty and oppression in the cloak of righteousness." Obama has also said, as he did on February 5 at the National Prayer Breakfast, that his Muslim-born father "became an atheist."

Leaders of the Humanist Association felt gratified when the Obama transition team named Jonathan D. Moreno, a prominent bioethicist, as a reviewer of policies of the President's Council on Bioethics. Moreno has written for the association's magazine, The Humanist, and he is generally regarded in nontheist circles as one of their own. "He is our key guy," said Appignani, the Florida mogul, who is the leading bankroller of the American Humanist Association as well as the funding source, through his foundation, for the Appignani Humanist Center for Bioethics at the United Nations, a think tank devoted to issues such as end-of-life care.

What's more, the remodeled White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships will not only be about the community work of faith-based groups, Obama said at the February 5 prayer breakfast; it will also reserve a place for "a secular group advising families facing foreclosure."

Yes, Obama has professed faith in Jesus Christ, which he arrived at as an adult, and has made high-profile efforts to reach out to the religious vote, as symbolized by his inviting Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at the inauguration. Activists have no real proof that Obama, whatever his mother's beliefs, is not a sincere Christian, but they are accustomed to seeing hypocrisy on the part of elected officials on the God issue. They reckon that things will change only when their movement gets bigger and is perceived as more consequential. "What we need to do is organize better," Silverman said. "Then the politicians will follow."

From my perspective, the president's actions speak louder than words.

This administration has already shown its disregard for human life, and its economic program so far is shaping up to be the most serious threat to political liberty this country has ever known.

It's interersting how the activists of the Secular Coaltion are more honest than other groups on the nihilist lef. So I take their endorsement of Obama as a good measure of this administration Godlessness.

God have mercy on this nation.