Atheists are crazy

So, a Christian cousin of mine just put a link on Facebook to a Christian comedian, with the title, "This guy proves it's crazy to be an atheist with one simple and hilarious question". Of course, I had to watch it, because these whole "One question that proves atheists are wrong" or "One question that atheists can't answer" or "One question that atheists are afraid of" genre is inevitably based on rather gross ignorance.



This one was no exception. The Christian comedian in the video talks about the American Pledge of Allegiance, and atheist efforts to have the words "Under God" removed. He says (paraphrased) "atheists are offended by this. But atheists don't believe in god. Why are they offended by something they don't believe in? They don't believe in unicorns...are they offended by those, too? Atheists are crazy! How nuts do you have to be to be offended by something you don't believe in?"



Several of my cousin's friends had responded to say things like, "Amazing!" "How true!" "Nailed it!"



Then I jumped in with the following post:

...except that his entire argument is a straw man. Atheists arguing that "Under God" should be removed from the pledge of allegiance do so because allegiance to one's country shouldn't be dependent upon which god you believe in (or don't believe in). Atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, Scientologists, etc. can all be equally patriotic, and show equal allegiance to their country. To illustrate just how ridiculous his argument is, consider how Christians would react to inserting "Under Allah" in the pledge of allegiance, for example -- they don't believe in Allah, but they'd certainly object!



Also, the Pledge of Allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy in 1892, and did not have the words "Under God" in it. Those words weren't added until 1954. It is particularly notable that Bellamy's daughter objected to that addition, because she said it went contrary to the message her father had meant to communicate, that allegiance to one's country was NOT dependent on one's religious beliefs.



So atheists are arguing that the Pledge of Allegiance should be restored to its ORIGINAL form, with the ORIGINAL intent of the author who wrote it.



The amazing difference between FACTS and blind rhetoric based on ignorance.

I will attempt to post replies to my comment here, as I fully anticipate a fair degree of hostility and irrational "rebuttals" (almost everyone on my cousin's Facebook are religious fundamentalists).