Atheist Douches Object to Gospel Music at MLK Celebration

[notimportant1234]

The truly mind boggling thing is that Dr. King embraced a religion that advocates slavery.

It's not like he had a choice, the only schools available for black people in that time were religious schools.

[Antares]

The truly mind boggling thing is that Dr. King embraced a religion that advocates slavery.

It's not like he had a choice, the only schools available for black people in that time were religious schools

He did have a choice later in life.

[notimportant1234]

Maybe , but if you think about it , most people were religious in the time of MLK so it was the best tool available.
But , later in life isn't apropriate , he died at 39 , I would argue that he had very deep religious roots and lacked social/cultural influences too make him consider leaving religion behind.

[GrandizerII]

Gospel music is specifically Christian music, not to mention all this talk about faith and God and Jesus. In a place where this shit isn't supposed to happen. Yeah, no, sorry, I'm with the FFRF on this one.

[downbeatplumb]

It's Marmite 'music'; you either loathe it or jizz over it. Feeding me more just in case I haven't tasted it properly isn't going to make me suddenly switch. Sorry.

(For the record, I actually adore Marmite. I just can't stand Gospel.)

Indeed.

If people tell me that if I don't enjoy genital sanding its only because I haven't experienced the "good" kind of genital sanding does not make me want to smooth my genitals.

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Now starts to wonder if genital sanding is a thing, but fears any positive google search results.

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[vulcanlogician]

If it's just gospel music, I'm fine with that. It's the "and religious messages " that I'd need more information on. Christians always misportray what atheist groups are complaining about,  so I don't know why this instance would be any different. It's easy to throw in MLKs name as a cover to avoid criticism for what your real agenda is. If it were just a speech or program about MLK with a little gospel music, that seems fine. If it's really a religious program with a little MLK thrown in to set up an attack like this, that's obviously wrong on a number of levels. MLK himself was against prayer in public school. This is his comments on the supreme court decision on prayer in public school.
...
So is this really about gospel music? I doubt it. It also seems like MLK comes down on the side of the atheists in this one.

Gospel music is specifically Christian music, not to mention all this talk about faith and God and Jesus. In a place where this shit isn't supposed to happen. Yeah, no, sorry, I'm with the FFRF on this one.

Y'know, I am all for taking religion out of the public sphere. On the issue of prayer in school, I'm like Rambo with a grenade launcher. That shit ain't happening. On placing monuments of the Ten Commandments in front of courthouses, I'm against it. I do not tolerate public religious displays/monuments or any attempt to funnel public funds toward religious indoctrination.

What I think is important here, though, is context. Assuming the article wasn't being misleading, we have two things going on at this event:

1) Gospel music being played in the background.
2) "Numerous speakers made reference to God and Jesus" in their speeches

This doesn't bother me. If there were a public event commemorating George Harrison, I would have no problem with music being played that endorsed Hinduism, nor would I have a problem with certain figures making mention of Bhakti yoga or reincarnation in their speeches. This would be appropriate.

I've known atheist music artists who made use of Christian symbolism in their songs in order to make a point that had nothing to do with religion. Expression is a funny thing, and if we invite people to speak at public events, we have to allow that their personal beliefs will find their way into their speeches on occasion. We'd need a Nazi censor reading all speeches beforehand to prevent this from ever happening. We ought not allow overt, one-sided religious favoritism at public events, but neither should we try to purge public events of all religious expression.

This is what secularism is really about. It's not just about stopping subtle attempts at indoctrination (though this is part of it, when the situation calls for it). It's also about allowing a plurality of messages (whether they be Christian, Jewish, Satanist, or anti-theist) to be permitted in the public arena, and, yes, even at publically funded events.

As I said before, context matters. If a speaker went beyond simple mention of his/her faith and took time to endorse one religious view over another, this is a problem. Otherwise, I think (in the interests of secularism) we ought to permit benign mention of God or religion in certain public contexts.

[CapnAwesome]

Context does matter, and that article provides none. It doesn't clarify at all what religious messages are. But the little context we do have, speaking about Jesus and such, seems totally unneccesary and MLK would obviously be against that. His speeches weren't at public schools or to teenage audiences held captive and forced to listen. He was against that. Instead he spoke to people who wanted to show up and listen.

So these people are totally abusing MLK's beliefs. He was against religious messages in schools. I'd like to know exactly what was said, since that is not covered in the article, and they make a big deal about the gospel music but don't cover at all the religious messages or what exactly that was.

I can only suspect what it is, largely based on that they don't mention at all the context of it. If it was appropriate, I can't think of a reason why they wouldn't. If it was preachy and prayers, I can see why they wouldn't mention it.

[vulcanlogician]

But, Cap'n, it was at a school ON MLK DAY. Not DURING school. School was out that day. That makes all the difference. People chose to come participate in the event which just happened to be on school grounds. If this happened during the school day, I'd feel differently about it too.

[Cecelia]

Pathological Liar Todd Starnes makes up news story so the Christians can feel oppressed. Are people really this gullible?

A cursory search on the internet reveals that... the only person reporting this nonsense is... Todd Starnes. You'll see nothing about it on the FFRF website, or anywhere else on the web. I wonder why. Oh right, Todd Starnes is a liar. A pathological liar who likes to make up oppression stories so that he can masturbate to his oppression complex.

[Whateverist]

One should also worry at what point not permitting any expression of music which arose in a religious context from being played in a state sponsored cultural event, becomes state sponsored atheism. And what is possible for gospel music should be open to music from any other religious tradition as well. I don't think you have to wring out every vestige of religion from every state sponsored cultural event, you just can't favor one over another.