BrianJarrett.com

I was watching a particularly amusing video clip sent by a friend to me of Sean Hannity having his ass handed to him by Christoper Hitchens and Hannity, in true Fox News fashion, pulls out the same tired old list of atheist mass murderers in an attempt to vilify and dehumanize atheists across the world. O’Reilly does the same thing, as do a number of conservative ditto heads. He sites Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, and Joseph Stalin in particular. He refers to atheists as “good atheist communists” which is almost juvenile in its intended misrepresentation and blatant misdirectional “sleight of hand”. He’s pulling the same routine, attempting to imply that these people committed their heinous crimes because of their atheism, not because they were homicidal megalomaniacs.

The non-belief in a deity has little more to do with the motivation for these people’s crimes than their hair color or their favorite food. If someone is homicidal they’ll find a way to carry out their plans, regardless of religion. Religion can be twisted any which way; it’s not an impediment to immorality. It’s the same old tired argument, made time and time again to inextricably combine morality with religion. It’s a tactic fundamentalists have used for centuries and they’re still doing it today. It’s tired, it’s old, but, apparently, it’s effective.

Since Hannity has decided that all atheists are “good atheist communists” and are mass-murderers then I thought I’d present a list of other atheists to “watch out for”. You might be surprised by this list which includes the likes of Woody Allen, Lance Armstrong, Isaac Asimov, Berkeley Breathed, Warren Buffett, Rodney Dangerfield, Jodie Foster, Bill Gates, Katharine Hepburn, Penn Jillette, Billy Joel, Angelina Jolie, Diane Keaton, Bruce Lee, John Malkovich, Barry Manilow, Julianne Moore, Desmond Morris, Jack Nicholson, Ron Reagan Jr., Keanu Reeves, Gene Roddenberry, Andy Rooney, Salman Rushdie, Teller, Carl Sagan, Arthur C. Clarke, William Shatner, and Linus Torvalds, just to name a few.

I guess Hannity didn’t want to mention the …read more »