The Rebellian against Atheist Legal Threats

There are religious groups in California now gloating that four townships have now stood up to the evil atheists and voted unanimously to continue to start city council meetings with specifically Christian prayers. They are willing to stand up to the lawsuits that the atheists threaten them with. For this, they are heroes.

(See: Examiner, Lodi joins 3 cities ruling for prayer, against atheists' legal threat

I suspect that these have been useful fundraising efforts. People like to pay money to defeat the evil atheists. This likely represents a fruitful form of political entrepreneurship.

And what can we expect if these cases go to court and the court now prohibits these prayers?

Then these organizations and the people running them have been given an opportunity to put their copious amounts of free labor and their copious amounts of contributors to work replacing those judges, in areas where judges are elected. Where judges are appointed, they will use their resources to replace appointees who are on record as appointing those no-good judges who kicked God out of the city hall.

What is the counter to this movement?

In all of the articles I have read the defenders of secular city councils have done nothing but threaten the very lawsuits that play directly into the political strategy of the organizations supporting these prayers. I imagine playing chess with somebody where I can be perfectly confident that my opponent will make exactly those moves that will leave me in the strongest possible position. "I move my pawn, she places her queen right where I can take it, I take her queen."

I would like to suggest an alternative set of moves, if I may.

Sure, move the queen – I would certainly not argue that the best move is to simply refuse to use one’s most powerful piece. However, it is foolish to move the queen without taking measures to support her position.

That support has to come from making a moral case against what these religious groups are doing. A moral case is very easy to make since these people are, in fact, behaving immorally.

"These people are acting like they somehow have a right to demand that everybody in town attend their church before they can attend a government meting. They have no such right."

Create a video in which an atheist council begins a government session with a ceremonial rant against religion, and Christian towns people sit uncomfortably in the audience while the council explicitly states that their views must be rejected, and post it on You Tube. End the video with a simple slide: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

"History is filled with examples of what happens with countries when different religions start to compete over which one of them gets to control government. You can travel through the Middle East and Europe and see the graves and the ruins that result. Most of that death and destruction has been caused by fights breaking out among different factions of the same religion."

"The only connection between religion and morality that we witness here in this case is the arrogant and dangerous belief that if a religious person does something, it is not immoral."

"Ask them what they think their God’s opinion is of arrogant and self-righteous individuals using government to shove their religion down everybody else's throat."

File the lawsuits, by all means. Move the queen into position to check-mate the opponent. However, make sure that the queen is covered or you will lose her, and the game – making exactly those moves your opponent would want you to make.