Posted by: Shola Akinnuso on October 2, 2009 at 3:23 pm
A friend forwarded this transcript from commentary made by comedian Ben Stein on CBS Sunday Morning. As an observation on the direction that America is going, many of the points that Stein makes hit home with me. I’ll cut-n-paste this commentary in full, but what do you readers think? Stein proposes – an not in the voice of a religious zealot – that the decline of American values and our communal abandonment of religion, might be intertwined. Has the constitutional right to Freedom of Religion in this country become disfigured into some silent wholesale embrace of atheism? Perhaps you think you know, but Ben Stein offers a different viewpoint…
Note: After some digging, I discovered that this was originally published in 2005. The altered version of this piece, which you might have received in an email or facebook note, has reached such levels of infamy that it has earned a place on the urban legends website. The letter pasted below comes directly from Ben Stein via his official website. Although not as ‘dramatic’ as the letter you might have received, the message isn’t any less poignant.
From Ben Stein:
Herewith at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart:
I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don’t know who Lindsay Lohan is, either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise’s wife.
Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young. It’s not so bad.
Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, “Merry Christmas” to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.
I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.
Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him?
I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.
3 Responses to "Funny Man Ben Stein Gets Serious About God. Is Anybody Listening?"
1 | Guy Smiley
This is crap writing, with no real complaint voiced except that this “Nick and Jessica” got too much coverage in magazines I don’t read. He feels religion is under fire? That someone thinks America is being mislabeled an “explicitly atheist country”? It astounds me how the Americans who believe in God, despite being in the VAST majority, love to play at being an under-fire minority. It’s ludicrous. Stein’s piece plays into that mentality perfectly by giving no examples of how separation of church and state, which I can only guess is his problem, are denying him his ability to worship God as he understand him/her/it.
The Constitution says the state shall not establish a religion. That means religious notions are kept out of official government stuff, and DESPITE that, we have God on our money, prayers before Congressional sessions and presidential inaugurations, and more. And I’m not complaining about that, I’m just saying, religion is hardly under fire. But as someone who does not believe in the judeo-christian god, I’m pretty glad not to have, say, the 10 commandments posted in courtrooms (several of them not being legally enforceable, anyway), or creationism taught in public schools, particularly as “science.”
Of course, I also don’t believe in the Islamic god, so I’m glad there’s not a majority here to impose Islamic religious law, either.
No one is stopping Stein from going to Synagogue, blogging about his god, or wearing a “God Hates Atheists” T-shirt if he wants to. And nothing compels me to bow to any religious authority or concept I don’t believe in. What a wonderful country.
2 | Shola Akinnuso
Well I think that Stein was making an observation about how the values of this country seem to have significantly shifted in 30 or so years. I don’t think that anyone is arguing against a separation of Church and State, however, the complete treating of religion as if it’s the shameful elephant in the room is telling. I won’t dare dictate who worships who and why. However, even in your own words, the vast majority of America is Christian. Why then, do we displace any observable christian behavior for the comforts of a few? To be honest, that’s not even what’s happening. It’s like racism in this country. We act like the best way to deal is by acting like it’s not an issue (or acknowledging that it’s there).
Historically, that hasn’t worked yet. No reason to think that it’ll be a hit going forward.
3 | Matt Bergin
A wonderfully truthful quote for which I don’t know the source: “Morality is doing what is right no matter what you’re told. Religion is doing what you’re told no matter what is right.”
Now what does this have to do with tabloids and celebrity gossip or Ben Stein feeling persecuted? I don’t know. But maybe it is worth noting that current tabloid celebretard cover couple Heidi and Spencer Pratt claim to be Christians and also happen to be professionally horrible people (at least they play horrible people on “reality” TV). Ben Stein would not know who these people are.
I watch Bill Maher, so I get the sense that there is a rise in admitted atheism in this country…but that doesn’t mean established religions are under attack. All it means is some people are finding the will to stand up for a DIFFERENT set of beliefs. It is easier and more comforting for people of one religion to accept that there are people with opposing religious beliefs than it is to accept that there are people with NO religious beliefs–because atheism and even agnosticism begin with the notion that all religious faiths are WRONG and wrongminded. That is a hard pill for someone “of faith” to swallow.
But at the end of the day, the only thing anyone can say with any confidence and with zero degree of self-delusion is that they DO NOT KNOW (which is agnosticism). And with that, the whole faith-based tapestry starts to unravel. It isn’t an anti-religious movement, per se. It is just a way of thinking that is steeped in logic and therefore very dangerous to the religious establishment.
