Speaker 1: We understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's
Speaker 1: a symbol, an idea.
Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through.
Speaker 1: The rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If
Speaker 1: I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,
Speaker 1: not because I put my hand on a book and
Speaker 1: made a wish and working together for a more rational world.
Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.
Speaker 2: Truth Usian wisdom will come to you that way.
Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast, hosted by Seth Andrews.
Speaker 2: Well. Here we are at the two hundred and fiftieth
Speaker 2: birthday of the United States for many a day of
Speaker 2: great celebration, but not for me and maybe not for you.
Speaker 2: And there's a lot of debate about how we're supposed
Speaker 2: to approach this particular occasion. Of course, I wake up
Speaker 2: this morning and I read that Donald Trump is still
Speaker 2: petitioning to have his own face put on Mount Rushmore.
Speaker 2: How much of the two hundred and fiftieth birthday can
Speaker 2: be hijacked so that he can masturbate I just and
Speaker 2: he's still polling around thirty percent in this country, and
Speaker 2: of course, we've all been laughing at the big fair
Speaker 2: at the National Ball, which you know, they've got this
Speaker 2: big strip of grass in the middle, and then they've
Speaker 2: got the booths on either side. Nobody's going and even
Speaker 2: the live feed from Fox News shows what looks like
Speaker 2: a giant bear pasture, and I am here for it.
Speaker 2: I love the there is schadenfreude. I love the idea
Speaker 2: that they're rarely struggling with attendance and the weather kind
Speaker 2: of sucks, and maybe the universe has a sense of
Speaker 2: justice after all, I'll admit, does it make me petty? Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm petty. But a few days ago, even on this show,
Speaker 2: we talked about how this administration and the culture that
Speaker 2: has really emerged over the past ten years or so
Speaker 2: has ruined the stars and stripes the American flag. Right,
Speaker 2: the fifty stars that represent the fifty US states and
Speaker 2: the thirteen stripes that alternate, and they represent the British
Speaker 2: colonies that declared independence. It's supposed to represent who we are.
Speaker 2: Too often in the past it has been kind of
Speaker 2: a statement of national or global superiority. Right, we're America
Speaker 2: and America is the world. We're greater than everybody else,
Speaker 2: and I'm so glad I'm American and I don't live
Speaker 2: in another part of the world where their freedom is
Speaker 2: less freedom me. Okay, Now I come to the point.
Speaker 2: I'm cruising down the road. Truck drives by, got an
Speaker 2: American flag on the window. You know, he's got one
Speaker 2: of those stickers. I judge that person. I got a neighbor,
Speaker 2: he's got an American flag in his yard this weekend.
Speaker 2: I judge that person. I'm like, I know who they
Speaker 2: voted for. I see somebody walking through the grocery store
Speaker 2: and they're dressed like a Roman candle. They've got a
Speaker 2: flag and they've got an eagle, and there's some platitude
Speaker 2: or empty calorie slogan like freedom isn't free, or I'm
Speaker 2: proud to be an American. They talk about are saying
Speaker 2: that Lee Greenwood song, who made it big with the
Speaker 2: tune I'm proud to be an American where at least
Speaker 2: done no, I'm free, And everybody gets all misty eyed,
Speaker 2: and I won't forget the men who died who gave
Speaker 2: that right to me. And I'd gladly stand up next
Speaker 2: to you and defend her. Still today, you know the
Speaker 2: song because there ain't no doubt. I love this lane.
Speaker 2: God bless the you is a here in this country,
Speaker 2: especially in my part of the country. People eat it up.
Speaker 2: They just eat that stuff up right. And it's a
Speaker 2: little tricky because when they invoke those who have legitimately
Speaker 2: died to provide the freedoms that we have. We don't
Speaker 2: want to dismiss the sacrifices that have been legitimately made
Speaker 2: for those freedoms. But if you have noticed throughout our history,
Speaker 2: many of the times that we've gone into combat and
Speaker 2: people have died on every side, we've called that fight
Speaker 2: or we've excused that fight with the hashtag freedom right.
Speaker 2: I mean the Vietnam War, which was a massive calamity.
Speaker 2: It cost fifty five thousand American lives two million Vietnamese lives.
Speaker 2: We were talking the whole time about how this is
Speaker 2: necessary for global freedom, which is necessary for American freedom,
Speaker 2: And the truth was it was just a fiasco. It
Speaker 2: was a bloody calamity. And historians have come to realize
Speaker 2: what a clusterfuck the Vietnam War was. But the whole
Speaker 2: narrative at the time was freedom America. Freedom America. Soldiers
Speaker 2: died if you won't stand behind our soldiers. Why don't
Speaker 2: you go stand in front of them? And this is
Speaker 2: supposed to be a conversation stopper about whether or not
Speaker 2: we are colonizers, conquerors, oppressors in this country and around
Speaker 2: the rest of the world. And so we see the
Speaker 2: weaponization of the red, white, and blue. And there are
Speaker 2: a lot of outlets who have been reporting about the
Speaker 2: polarized country that we live in. Some people on the
Speaker 2: two hundred and fiftieth are thankful for their freedom. Certainly,
Speaker 2: I know I am. I'm thankful to be free. I
Speaker 2: could living in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, or it could
Speaker 2: be living in an impoverished place where you know, we
Speaker 2: are under the guns of a co opted government that
Speaker 2: is oppressing on all of its people, starving its people, etc.
Speaker 2: I mean, I get that, but I also am watching
Speaker 2: the step by step dismantling what was it Rolling Stone
Speaker 2: who called it a rolling coup of the United States,
Speaker 2: the oligarchy, the autocracy, the fascist state that is being
Speaker 2: installed on a day by day basis, and the cult
Speaker 2: of personality. As I watched Donald Trump reach out with
Speaker 2: his big meat arms and wrap him around the flag,
Speaker 2: and he then has decided he and the flag are married.
Speaker 2: So if you love Trump, you love America. And if
Speaker 2: you don't love Trump, you hate America. By the way,
Speaker 2: those are his words. NBC had an article that came
Speaker 2: out just a few weeks or a few days ago. It said,
Speaker 2: a nation turns two fifty and any Americans say the
Speaker 2: stars and stripes is now a red flag. Part of
Speaker 2: the article to fly or not to fly an American flag?
Speaker 2: That was never a question for Bruce Watson, who has
Speaker 2: put his national pride on display for years and nudges
Speaker 2: neighbors in his small New England town to do the same.
Speaker 2: He said, I'm very proud of our flag. It's the
Speaker 2: symbol of we the people. But as the polarized nation
Speaker 2: marks its two hundred and fiftieth birthday, Watson, seventy two,
Speaker 2: worries his stars and stripes may now need an asterisk.
Speaker 2: If we do fly the flag, we'll also put out
Speaker 2: signs to make it clear we are not to maga.
Speaker 2: The American flag is a symbol striped with many meanings,
Speaker 2: whether it's hung on front porches, waved in parades, protests
Speaker 2: and World Cup matches, or stamped on lapel pins and
Speaker 2: boxing trunks. Like so much else in American life, it
Speaker 2: has also been tangled up in politics and the policies
Speaker 2: of President Donald Trump. NBC News ask readers to share
Speaker 2: their feelings and practices around the flag. In a moment
Speaker 2: Poles suggest when patriotism, national pride, and optimism for the
Speaker 2: country's future are all freeing. Like Watson, some say the
Speaker 2: flag can be taken as an endorsement of the current administration.
Speaker 2: For others, it isn't tied to any one party, but
Speaker 2: is a way of life. Rather than not fly the flag,
Speaker 2: several readers said they planned to show their patriotism and
Speaker 2: protest Trump by flying it upside down to signal that
Speaker 2: the country is in distress. Donald Trump has turned everything
Speaker 2: upside down, so it makes sense our flag should be
Speaker 2: upside down, said Dina Bannick, sixty one, who lives outside
Speaker 2: Des Moines, Iowa. It's a shame. We used to be
Speaker 2: a proud nation. Now our country's in distress. Trump supporters
Speaker 2: such as Dave Cavanaugh of Months in Massachusetts, question such protests.
Speaker 2: The professional wood carver is so devoted to Trump that
Speaker 2: he's busy chiseling a statue of him that right now
Speaker 2: sits partially finished on his front lawn. I couldn't be
Speaker 2: prouder to be an American, Kavanaugh, forty nine said. I
Speaker 2: believe Americans should be proud to fly the flag and
Speaker 2: fly it the right way. What shameful is that people
Speaker 2: who hate Trump are flying the flag upside down. By
Speaker 2: the way, you should see the wood carving of Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: You know what, I may put it on the show
Speaker 2: thumbnail or are linked to it in the notes. Maybe
Speaker 2: I'll just link to the article. Oh, it's you know
Speaker 2: what it looks like. What does it look It looks
Speaker 2: like an alien, except it has Donald Trump's hair in
Speaker 2: wood and the face looks like the twisted cousin of Pinocchio. Okay,
Speaker 2: back to the article. Trump supporters have also flown the
Speaker 2: flag upside down, most notably after his defeat in the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty election to Joe Biden. An upside down flag
Speaker 2: was also spotted flying outside the Virginia home of conservative
Speaker 2: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito January twenty twenty one, the
Speaker 2: month pro Trump rioters stormed the Capitol. Rather than fly
Speaker 2: the stars and stripes, Master Sergeant Frank Chappelle of the
Speaker 2: Air National Guard has gone with an alternate flag. He said.
Speaker 2: Part of what makes us Americans is that we can
Speaker 2: meet in the middle. We can come together in the
Speaker 2: center and find things we can all agree on. Chapels
Speaker 2: assigned to the one hundred and seventy first Air Refueling
Speaker 2: Wing outside Pittsburgh, and stress that he was speaking only
Speaker 2: for himself. He said, but what Trump's been doing through
Speaker 2: some of his rhetorican policies is driving a wedge between Americans,
Speaker 2: dividing us even further. So when I bought my home,
Speaker 2: I replaced the US flag with the state flag of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: Chappelle is a religious affairs airman, and wait a minute,
Speaker 2: why do we have a religious affairs air? Never mind,
Speaker 2: he provides crisis counseling and spiritual care for people from
Speaker 2: all faiths or none. He said he plans to fly
Speaker 2: the flag again. Quote once, I believe that the States
Speaker 2: are more united in vision, tolerance, and empathy toward our
Speaker 2: fellow Americans. I am not holding my breath. There's a
Speaker 2: section of the article that is subtitled poll pressure. It
Speaker 2: says some readers said they were motivated by peer pressure
Speaker 2: more than patriotism. I display my flag outside my home
Speaker 2: mainly because everyone else around my neighborhood does it, even
Speaker 2: though I'm not one hundred percent proud to be American,
Speaker 2: said a woman from Newtown, Pennsylvania. She hasked to remain anonymous.
Speaker 2: I feel that if I don't have a flag displayed somewhere,
Speaker 2: people will think I'm against our country or something. And
Speaker 2: then there were readers like Rebecca Dyer, mother of five,
Speaker 2: who lives outside Salt Lake City, who said she flies
Speaker 2: the flag no matter who occupies the White House or
Speaker 2: how disappointed she may feel about the state of the Union.
Speaker 2: I'm not flying the flag. I mean, I've never been
Speaker 2: that guy. I've never gotten misty eyed when they play
Speaker 2: the anthem, you know. I mean maybe more so when
Speaker 2: I was religious a little bit, but it always seemed
Speaker 2: a little performative, or very much performative. It's a cheaply
Speaker 2: bought nobility. You bring out a piece of fabric and
Speaker 2: you put your hand over your heart, and you play
Speaker 2: a song, and essentially you are acting like you are
Speaker 2: something special. And I've become convinced that we really ain't.
Speaker 2: I talked to Magus all the time, like, you know,
Speaker 2: what's so special about, what's so great about what is
Speaker 2: it about the United States? And it always one word freedom.
Speaker 2: We have freedom. And I wrote about this in my
Speaker 2: book Confessions of a Former Fox News Christian. I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: Australia has got freedom. Yeah, the UK's got freedom, Canada's
Speaker 2: got freedom. What are you talking about? Switzerland's got freedom.
Speaker 2: And then, of course we fail in all the major
Speaker 2: metrics when it comes to the quality of being alive, education,
Speaker 2: don't get me started. We are way down the list,
Speaker 2: cost of living, quality of health care, violent crime statistics, attc.
Speaker 2: You know, we suck in so many ways. What am
Speaker 2: I proud of? What am I proud of? Just being? Well,
Speaker 2: that's not patriotism, that's just tribalism. That's in grouping and
Speaker 2: out grouping. And it's a totally emotional response. And so
Speaker 2: here we are at two point fifty and everybody around
Speaker 2: me seems to be split. I've got one group of
Speaker 2: people who are dressed up like a Roman candle and
Speaker 2: they're saluting in handover heart and they're puffing out about
Speaker 2: our greatness and how it's amazing to be an American.
Speaker 2: I'm so lucky to be American. There's a bunch of
Speaker 2: other people going, what the hell do we have to
Speaker 2: be proud of you're kidnapping people in the streets. We've
Speaker 2: got a president who has enriched himself to the tune
Speaker 2: of what three and a half billion dollars by weaponizing
Speaker 2: our government against us. He's got the DOJ and the
Speaker 2: Department of Education in pieces. He's got a plumber running
Speaker 2: the Department of Homeland Security. He is surrounded by sick
Speaker 2: of fans, and all he talks about is himself, not America.
Speaker 2: Unless he's linking the two. He has to be part
Speaker 2: of the equation. Recently, he did like an interview where
Speaker 2: he was asked what he reads when you're reading about
Speaker 2: the world. And by the way, this man does not read.
Speaker 2: He doesn't read. He gets all of his information by
Speaker 2: watching TV. Right, he has to be spoon fed. I
Speaker 2: guarantee you this man does not read. But his answer was, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I read lots of news stories, mostly the
Speaker 2: ones about me. So we live in the United States
Speaker 2: of me and more me. What am I proud of?
Speaker 2: What am I proud of? Our allies are issuing her,
Speaker 2: former allies are issuing. Travel warnings. Be careful if you
Speaker 2: travel to the United States, because you could get messed up?
Speaker 2: What am I proud of? We're declaring ideological war and
Speaker 2: often real war on people of other nations with no accountability.
Speaker 2: What am I proud of? The leader of this country
Speaker 2: is labeling entire demographics garbage people, garbage people. A racist, sexist, sociopathic,
Speaker 2: grifting manchild of extreme privilege has taken over the United States?
Speaker 2: What am I proud of? And I know that you
Speaker 2: may feel the same, and I wish it wasn't the case.
Speaker 2: I agree. What was it that Martin Luther King Junior said? Right,
Speaker 2: I don't criticize America because I hate her. I criticize
Speaker 2: her because I love her. I want her to see
Speaker 2: the best version of itself. That's a paraphrase. I'm doing
Speaker 2: it from memory. I should have pulled up the quote directly,
Speaker 2: but you can look it up. And that's the gist. Right,
Speaker 2: I criticize because I love her In that way, I
Speaker 2: don't feel affection, but I do want the United States
Speaker 2: to heal and reverse course and achieve the best version
Speaker 2: of itself. In that sense, do I love my country?
Speaker 2: I love it in the way that I would love
Speaker 2: a loved one who is life had gone off the
Speaker 2: rails and I say, man, I sure would like to
Speaker 2: see them recover and be better and do better, right.
Speaker 2: I would love to see them maximize the best versions
Speaker 2: of themselves and spread goodness into this world. I care
Speaker 2: about them in that way. So in that way, I
Speaker 2: love my country. But in some ways the two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty it feels like a funeral, doesn't it. It feels
Speaker 2: like a funeral. Well, doctor Christen Dumay, who is a Christian.
Speaker 2: She is a Christian, but she's also a fierce champion
Speaker 2: for state church separation. She recently released a piece that
Speaker 2: invoked Civil War era civil rights icon Frederick Douglass and
Speaker 2: talked about how the slaves might have felt about the
Speaker 2: United States as everybody else was handover heart, bloviating about
Speaker 2: greatness and how you know, if you're a slave in
Speaker 2: this country, you're not exactly singing the songs of liberty.
Speaker 2: And when I read it, I thought, wow, this is remarkable.
Speaker 2: She did a great job of summing up what I
Speaker 2: was thinking and how I was feeling. Let me take
Speaker 2: a very short break and I'll come back with a
Speaker 2: piece that published just today called Oppression makes a Wise
Speaker 2: Man Mad. With her permission, allow me to read for You,
Speaker 2: an article that was published today, the fourth of July,
Speaker 2: on the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary by doctor Christin Dumay,
Speaker 2: a historian of gender, faith politics and author of the
Speaker 2: New York Times best selling book Jesus and John Wayne.
Speaker 2: She is a believer, and she is also a humanist
Speaker 2: and fierce advocate for justice, state, church separation, and basic
Speaker 2: human decency. I am a fan of doctor Christin Dumay
Speaker 2: and with her blessing. The words that she wrote, which
Speaker 2: I have linked in the description box are these. Earlier
Speaker 2: this week, a Gallup survey reported that quote American pride
Speaker 2: falls to twenty five year record low. It's especially low
Speaker 2: among Democrats and independents. There are all sorts of reasons
Speaker 2: for this, some obvious and others perhaps less obvious, but
Speaker 2: it's worth pointing out that pride in one's nation and
Speaker 2: love for that nation are not the same thing. I'm
Speaker 2: not particularly proud of my country right now, but I
Speaker 2: think it's fair to say that I've never felt more
Speaker 2: patriotic because I love this country. I think it's worth
Speaker 2: fighting for. All week, I found myself wavering between celebration
Speaker 2: and lament. If you listened on our live episode of
Speaker 2: the Convocation unscripted on Thursday. You heard all of us
Speaker 2: moving back and forth between the two what is and
Speaker 2: what could be. We dreamed of what we could be celebrating,
Speaker 2: But by yesterday my positivity had faltered. I started to
Speaker 2: draft a more sober posts for today, titled what We Lost,
Speaker 2: thinking it was perhaps best to save that for another day.
Speaker 2: I tried to return to a sense of optimism, or
Speaker 2: at the very least, resilience. At the very least. I
Speaker 2: thought I could write about what I was going to
Speaker 2: do to celebrate. I'm hoping to take at least one
Speaker 2: kid to the celebration and historical reenactments at the gerald
Speaker 2: Ford Museum here in Grand Rapids. And I could share
Speaker 2: a recipe I found online that I hope to make,
Speaker 2: or better yet, get my daughter to make. That's a
Speaker 2: layer of cheesecake in the middle, by the way, and
Speaker 2: she's got a photograph of something that looks delicious, she says.
Speaker 2: I thought I could also share a couple of verses
Speaker 2: of America, the beautiful versus that hold intention, the nation's
Speaker 2: promise and its shortcomings. So beautiful for pilgrim feet whose
Speaker 2: stern impassioned stress a thoroughfare for freedom beat across the
Speaker 2: wilderness America, America. God mend thine every flaw, confirm thy
Speaker 2: soul and self control, Thy liberty in law, Oh beautiful,
Speaker 2: for heroes proved in liberating strife, who more than self
Speaker 2: their country, love and mercy more than life. America America.
Speaker 2: May God thy gold fine till all success be nobleness
Speaker 2: and every gain divine. But then came this video across
Speaker 2: my feet. It is a recitation of Frederick Douglas's What
Speaker 2: to the Slave is the fourth of July by his
Speaker 2: own descendants, and that is linked in the description box.
Speaker 2: And I encourage you to go back and watch this
Speaker 2: on YouTube. I will read the words myself, but it's
Speaker 2: pretty remarkable. Douglas holds the nation up to the standards
Speaker 2: of their founding, to the ideals they celebrated with their
Speaker 2: picnics and fireworks, and he finds it woefully wanting. He
Speaker 2: doesn't flinch from the darkness, but he ends with a
Speaker 2: gritty and hard earned hope. By the way, I am
Speaker 2: a huge fan of Frederick Douglas. His values were secular values.
Speaker 2: He was a fierce critic of religion. The article says
Speaker 2: he writes in a different time and addresses a different
Speaker 2: set of circumstances, but not entirely different. I found the
Speaker 2: words words resonating with me this year in a different way.
Speaker 2: Oppression makes a wise man mad, Douglas said to the
Speaker 2: crowd of white Americans. He said, your fathers were wise men,
Speaker 2: and if they did not go mad, they became restive
Speaker 2: under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs,
Speaker 2: wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men, there
Speaker 2: was always a remedy for oppression. Just here the idea
Speaker 2: of total separation of the colonies from the crown was born.
Speaker 2: It was a startling idea, much more so than we
Speaker 2: at this distance of time regarded the timid and the prudent,
Speaker 2: as has been intimated of that day, were of course
Speaker 2: shocked and alarmed by it. Citizens, your fathers made good
Speaker 2: that resolution. They succeeded, and today you reap the fruits
Speaker 2: of their success, the freedom gained as yours, and you
Speaker 2: therefore may properly celebrate this anniversary. The fourth of July
Speaker 2: is the first great fact in your nation's history, the
Speaker 2: very ring bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny.
Speaker 2: The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified,
Speaker 2: and sublime. The population of the country at the time
Speaker 2: stood at the insignificant number of three millions. The country
Speaker 2: was poor in the munitions of war, the population was
Speaker 2: weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. There
Speaker 2: were then no means of concert and combinations such as
Speaker 2: exists now. Neither steam nor lightning had been reduced to
Speaker 2: order and discipline. From the Potomac to the Delaware was
Speaker 2: a journey of many days under these and innumerable other disadvantages.
Speaker 2: Your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed fellow citizens.
Speaker 2: I'm not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic.
Speaker 2: The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men.
Speaker 2: They were great men, too great enough to give fame
Speaker 2: to a great age. It does not often happen to
Speaker 2: a nation to raise at one time such a number
Speaker 2: of truly great men. The point from which I am
Speaker 2: compelled to view them is not certainly the most favorable,
Speaker 2: and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less
Speaker 2: than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots, and heroes, and for
Speaker 2: the good they did, and the principles they contended for.
Speaker 2: I will unite with you to honor their memory. They
Speaker 2: loved their country better than their own private interests. And
Speaker 2: though this is not the highest form of human excellence,
Speaker 2: all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and
Speaker 2: when it's exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who
Speaker 2: will intelligently lay down his life or his country is
Speaker 2: a man whom it is not in human nature to despise.
Speaker 2: Your father staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred
Speaker 2: honor on the cause of their country. In their admiration
Speaker 2: of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. They
Speaker 2: were peace men, but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission
Speaker 2: to bondage. They were quiet men, but they did not
Speaker 2: shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance, but they
Speaker 2: knew its limits. They believed in order, but not in
Speaker 2: the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was settled that
Speaker 2: was not right. With them. Justice, liberty, and humanity were final,
Speaker 2: not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory
Speaker 2: of such men. They were great in their day and generation.
Speaker 2: Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast
Speaker 2: it with these degenerate times. How circumspect, exact, and proportionate
Speaker 2: were all their movements. How unlike the politicians of an hour,
Speaker 2: their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment and stretched away
Speaker 2: and strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal
Speaker 2: principle and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them,
Speaker 2: fully appreciating the hardships to be encountered, firmly believing in
Speaker 2: the right of their cause, honorably inviting the scrutiny of
Speaker 2: an onlooking world, reverently appealing to Heaven to attest their sincerity,
Speaker 2: soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were about to assume,
Speaker 2: wisely measuring the terrible odds against them. Your fathers, the
Speaker 2: fathers of this Republic, did most deliberately, under the inspiration
Speaker 2: of a glorious patriotism, and with a sublime faith in
Speaker 2: the great principles of justice and freedom, lay deep the
Speaker 2: cornerstone of the national superstructure, which has risen and still
Speaker 2: rises in grandeur around you. We have to do with
Speaker 2: the past only as we make it useful to the
Speaker 2: present and to the future. I say it with a
Speaker 2: sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not
Speaker 2: included within the pale of this glorious anniversary. Your high
Speaker 2: independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings
Speaker 2: in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common.
Speaker 2: The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed
Speaker 2: by your fathers is shared by you, not by me.
Speaker 2: The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has
Speaker 2: brought stripes and death to me. This fourth July is yours,
Speaker 2: not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn at a
Speaker 2: time like this, scorching irony. Not convincing argument is needed.
Speaker 2: Oh had I the ability and could I reach the
Speaker 2: nation's ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream
Speaker 2: of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.
Speaker 2: For it is not light that is needed, but fire.
Speaker 2: It is not the gentle shower but thunder. You need
Speaker 2: the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of
Speaker 2: the nation must be quickened, The conscience of the nation
Speaker 2: must be roused, The propriety of the nation must be startled.
Speaker 2: The hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed, and its
Speaker 2: crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
Speaker 2: What to the American slave is the fourth of July
Speaker 2: I answer a day that reveals to him, more than
Speaker 2: all other days in the year, the gross injustice and
Speaker 2: cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him,
Speaker 2: your celebration is a sham, Your boasted liberty, an unholy license,
Speaker 2: Your national greatness swelling vanity. Your sounds are rejoicing, are
Speaker 2: empty and heartless. Your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence.
Speaker 2: Your shouts of liberty and equality hollow mockery. Your prayers
Speaker 2: and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings with you, your religious
Speaker 2: parade and solemnity are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety,
Speaker 2: and hypocrisy, a thin veil to cover up crimes which
Speaker 2: would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a
Speaker 2: nation on this earth guilty of practices more shocking and
Speaker 2: bloody than are the people of these United States at
Speaker 2: this very hour. Go where you may search, Where you
Speaker 2: will roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the
Speaker 2: old world. Travel through South America, search out every abuse,
Speaker 2: and when you found the last, Lay your facts by
Speaker 2: the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and
Speaker 2: you will say with me that for revolting barbarity and
Speaker 2: shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival. At the very
Speaker 2: moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of
Speaker 2: civil and religious liberty and for the right to worship
Speaker 2: God according to the dictates of their own count they
Speaker 2: are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs
Speaker 2: religion of its chief significance and makes it utterly worthless
Speaker 2: to a world lying in wickedness. But the Church of
Speaker 2: this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of
Speaker 2: the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It
Speaker 2: has made itself the bulwark of American slavery and the
Speaker 2: shield of American slave hunters. Many of its most eloquent divines,
Speaker 2: who stand as the very lights of the Church, have
Speaker 2: shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to
Speaker 2: the whole slave system. They've taught that man may properly
Speaker 2: be a slave, that the relation of masterman slave is
Speaker 2: ordained of God, that to send back an escaped bondman
Speaker 2: to his master is clearly the duty of all the
Speaker 2: followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, and this horrible blasphemy
Speaker 2: is palmed off upon the world for Christianity. For my part,
Speaker 2: I would say, welcome infidelity, Welcome atheism, Welcome anything in
Speaker 2: preference to the Gospel as preached by those diminds. They
Speaker 2: convert the very name of religion into an engine of
Speaker 2: tyranny and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels
Speaker 2: in this age that all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine,
Speaker 2: Voltaire and Bowlingbroke put together have done. These ministers make
Speaker 2: religion a cold and flinty hearted thing, having neither principles
Speaker 2: of right action nor bowels of compassion. They strip the
Speaker 2: love of God of its beauty, and leave the throne
Speaker 2: of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a
Speaker 2: religion for oppressors, tyrants, man stealers, and thugs. It is
Speaker 2: not that pure and undefiled religion which is from above,
Speaker 2: and which is first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated,
Speaker 2: full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hippocri,
Speaker 2: but a religion which favors the rich against the poor,
Speaker 2: which exalts the proud above the humble, which divides mankind
Speaker 2: into two classes, tyrants and slaves, which says to the
Speaker 2: man in chains, stay there, and to the oppressor oppress on.
Speaker 2: It is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed
Speaker 2: by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind. It makes
Speaker 2: God a respector of persons, denies his fatherhood of that race,
Speaker 2: and tramples in the dust the great truth of the
Speaker 2: brotherhood of man. All this we affirm to be true
Speaker 2: of the popular Church and the popular worship of our
Speaker 2: land and nation. A religion, a church, and a worship which,
Speaker 2: on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be
Speaker 2: an abomination in the sight of God. In the language
Speaker 2: of Isaiah, the American Church might well be addressed, bring
Speaker 2: no more vain oblations. Incense is an abomination unto me.
Speaker 2: The new moons and sam the calling of assemblies I
Speaker 2: cannot away with. It is antiquity. Even the solemn meeting,
Speaker 2: your new moons and your appointed feasts, My soul hateist.
Speaker 2: They're a trouble to me. I am weary to bear them.
Speaker 2: And when you spread forth your hands, I will hide
Speaker 2: mine eyes from you. Yeay, when you make many prayers,
Speaker 2: I will not hear your hands are full of blood.
Speaker 2: Cease to do evil, learn to do well, Seek judgment,
Speaker 2: Relieve the oppressed, Judge for the fatherless, plead for the widow.
Speaker 2: My spirit wearies of such blasphemy. And how such men
Speaker 2: can be supported as the standing types and representatives of
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ is a mystery which I leave others to penetrate. Americans,
Speaker 2: your Republican politics, not less than your Republican religion, are
Speaker 2: flagrantly inconsistent. Your boast of your love of liberty, your
Speaker 2: superior civilization, and your pure Christianity. While the whole political
Speaker 2: power of the nation has embodied and the two great
Speaker 2: political parties is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the
Speaker 2: enslavement of three million of your countrymen. You hurl your
Speaker 2: anathemis at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria,
Speaker 2: and pride yourselves on your democratic institutions, while you yourselves
Speaker 2: contend to be the mere tools and bodyguards of the
Speaker 2: tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. Fellow citizens, I will not
Speaker 2: enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery
Speaker 2: in this country brands your Republicanism as a sham, your
Speaker 2: humanity is a base pretense, and your Christianity as a lie.
Speaker 2: It destroys your moral power abroad, It corrupts your politicians
Speaker 2: at home. It SAPs the foundation of religion. It makes
Speaker 2: your name a hissing and a byword to a mocking earth.
Speaker 2: It is an antagonistic force, and your government the only
Speaker 2: thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your union. It fetters
Speaker 2: your progress. It is the enemy of improvement, the deadly
Speaker 2: foe of education. It fosters pride, it breeds insolence, It
Speaker 2: promotes vice, It shelters crime. It is a curse to
Speaker 2: the earth that supports it, and yet you cling to
Speaker 2: it as if it were the sheet anchor of all
Speaker 2: your hopes. Oh, be warned, Be warned. A horrible reptile
Speaker 2: is coiled up in your nation's bosom. The venomous creature
Speaker 2: is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic.
Speaker 2: For the love of God, tear away and fling from
Speaker 2: you this hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty
Speaker 2: millions crush and destroy it forever. Allow me to say
Speaker 2: in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day
Speaker 2: presented of the state of the Union, I do not
Speaker 2: despair of this country. There are forces in operation which
Speaker 2: must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. The arm of
Speaker 2: the Lord is not shortened, and the doom of slavery
Speaker 2: is certain. I therefore leave off where I began with hope,
Speaker 2: while drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great
Speaker 2: principles it contains, and the genius of American institutions. My
Speaker 2: spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age.
Speaker 2: God speed the year of Jubilee. Now, Frederick Douglas was
Speaker 2: a complicated man. I believe he was devoutly Christian, and
Speaker 2: his religious beliefs kind of shifted. You heard some invocations
Speaker 2: of God in the writings that I just read. But
Speaker 2: he was also the guy who was a tremendous admirer
Speaker 2: of the atheist and brilliant writer Robert green Engersol. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: the message about Douglas is he was a human sanitarian
Speaker 2: and humanist first, and he was a fierce champion for
Speaker 2: the oppressed and a fierce critic of the oppressors. And
Speaker 2: his words can be applied in so many other contexts
Speaker 2: or related context today. I wonder what Frederick Douglass would
Speaker 2: have said, and he looked around today, on our two
Speaker 2: hundred and fiftieth and seen what we have become. Whether
Speaker 2: you celebrate or not, whether you fly the flag or not,
Speaker 2: just know that you are seen and heard. If you
Speaker 2: grieve about where we have come and where we might
Speaker 2: still go, and yet you hold on to a sliver
Speaker 2: of hope that if we keep fighting, maybe we can
Speaker 2: reverse or alter course and become one day a nation
Speaker 2: we can truly be proud of. Thank you so much
Speaker 2: for listening.
Speaker 1: Follow The Thanking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a
Speaker 1: complete archive of podcasts and videos, products like mugs and
Speaker 1: t shirts featuring the Thinking Atheist logo, links to atheist
Speaker 1: pages and resources, and details on upcoming free thought events
Speaker 1: and conventions. Log onto our website, The Thinkingatheist dot com.