Where is your god now?


But seriously, I hope no atheist was responsible for this vandalism.

Authorities say someone drove across the Oklahoma Capitol lawn and knocked over a Ten Commandments monument that a group has been suing to have removed, smashing it to pieces.

Oklahoma Highway Patrol Capt. George Brown says the person drove into the monument on the statehouse steps Thursday night, abandoned the vehicle and fled. Brown says the vehicle was impounded and authorities are searching it for evidence.

At best, this was a drunk Oklahoman barrelling across public property; at worst; some stupid atheist decided to undermine our cause by carrying out a criminal act. DON’T DO THAT. All you can accomplish is to encourage theists in their sense of martyrdom.

Comments

  1. moarscienceplz says

    Whoever this person is, they sure didn’t do atheists any favors. And damaging or destroying your vehicle in the process doesn’t seem very smart, if it was a DUI, it sure must have been one hell of a party.

  2. Alverant says

    I agree that it shouldn’t have been done, but it shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

    Also I have to wonder if the cops will look for the person who did this with more or less effort when compared to when a non-christian monument is destroyed.

  3. cuervocuero says

    Nono. It was a false flag op by theists to make atheists look bad. Because that’s totally what’s happening to all the kewl kidz these days.

  4. steve78b says

    Could it have been someone who was trying to actually follow commandment number 2 about not having any graven images?

    Bad though that it probably defaced the lawn.

  5. UnknownEric the Apostate says

    “OH! Klahoma, where the cars go whipping ‘cross the lawn… LOOK OUT!!!”

  6. chigau (違う) says

    Proably a Catholic who is sick of the Protestant Heretic version of the Ten Commandments.

  7. steve78b says

    Maybe it was someone who had read the CORRECT version in chapter 34 of Exodus and decided to clear the way for a new monument.

    Or someone who was incensed at the misspelling of Sabbath.

  8. David Marjanović says

    the Protestant Heretic version

    Wikipedia: Ten Commandments: Traditions for numbering

    Specifically, Protestants follow Exodus, while Catholics follow Deuteronomy where “thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife” is listed before “thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s (other) stuff”, and (like Lutherans) put theological significance in having 3 commandments about the relationship of God and Man, and 7 about the relationships of people with each other.

  9. Alverant says

    I saw this story elsewhere. According to the cops the driver moved a ramp to get in the right spot so it probably wasn’t a drunk. Sadly this does look like a deliberate attempt to destroy it. Right now I’m still going with the idea that it was done by a christian who knew the courts wouldn’t make the “right” decision and is trying to manufacture some martyrdom.

  10. freemage says

    Alverant: It’d be nice if that turns out to be the case, but honestly, after multiple years of watching the asshat athiest brigade, I’ve got no illusions about there not being members of the atheist community who are both stupid and thuggish enough to pull this kind of stunt.

  11. anteprepro says

    If it was an atheist intentionally vandalizing it, they are fucking terrible vandals. Vandalize it by driving your car into it and then ditch the car? Either their car was worthless, they REALLY hated that monument, or they didn’t quite think their plan through.

  12. says

    God has his minions. We call them losers. They will avenge by wreaking all pagan and satan monuments. They may also show their stupidity by wreaking havoc on Judaic and islamic monuments. Oh, I so much love the religious comedy.

  13. abb3w says

    @13ish, anteprepro

    If it was an atheist intentionally vandalizing it, they are fucking terrible vandals. Vandalize it by driving your car into it and then ditch the car? Either their car was worthless, they REALLY hated that monument, or they didn’t quite think their plan through.

    I admit, I think a combination of “REALLY hated that monument” and “didn’t quite think their plan through” seems more likely. However, another possibility would be if they had the foresight to steal someone else’s car as a precursor step of their plan.

  14. gussnarp says

    If the last few years have taught me anything, it’s that when I used to hear things like Phil Plait’s “Don’t be a Dick” speech and think, are there really atheists out there who act like dicks to people about religion in person instead of just internet comments, I was utterly and completely deluded. I expect they’re still a minority of unbelievers, but there are clearly far too many asshole atheists.

  15. anteprepro says

    abb3w: Though it is the least probable, but I am very entertained by the idea of someone stealing a car in order to ram into the Ten Commandments statue because they just want to vandalize it that hard. Would be a great bit to include in a movie. Maybe someday there will be a satirical movie about asshole atheists and that could be a random side story.

  16. nich says

    Well at least if an atheist did it most people will be content to just call it vandalism. If a Muslim did it though we can all guess which -ism it would be called.

  17. Kevin Kehres says

    Over at Raw Story, they’re saying someone’s been arrested who claims Satan told him to do it…and to kill Obama.

    Thinking a psych eval is in this person’s near future.

  18. cmotdibbler says

    Your Honor, the defendant heard the voice of god telling him to knock down the statue.

    An asshat move but I shed no tears. Why not fill in the hole with the Satan statue for a few years just to even things out.

  19. hexidecima says

    I can pretty much lay odds that it was some drunk redneck that hates that “guvmint” and hadn’t a clue some religious nonsense was there.

  20. anbheal says

    @20 — whose Scientologist employer used the religious exemption to deny him his psych meds.

  21. Nick Gotts says

    Ah, the problem Yahweh has with iron chariots strikes again. – Nerd of Redhead@5

    Nerd wins the thread!

  22. jimbo2k7 says

    It was satanists who had a beef with the Okies, since they were not allowed to put up their statue of satan or whoever, so why are we assuming that atheists were somehow to blame?

  23. Hatchetfish says

    The story at the link’s been updated with the arrest as well:

    The man was detained after he showed up at a federal building in Oklahoma City Friday morning, rambling and making derogatory statements about the president, and admitted destroying the monument, said David Allison, an agent with the U.S. Secret Service in Oklahoma City.

    “He claimed he got out of his car, urinated on the monument, and then ran over it and destroyed it,” Allison said. “He said Satan told him to do it, and that he was a Satanist.”

  24. frog says

    The problem now will be all the ignoramuses who think “atheist” = “satanist” and blame us anyway.

  25. Alverant says

    #26 Of course Atheists are going to be blamed anyway because we’re convenient targets. Besides stoking the fires of false persecution brings in more money than admitting it was a mentally disturbed man.

  26. says

    @11: “the atheist community”

    I’m increasingly feeling like there’s no such thing; it’s a granfalloon. There’s people who value reason (and as one consequence, reject the idea of gods as false) and want to make the world a better place for humans in the here and now (a.k.a. Secular Humanists), and there’s self-important assholes who think they’re terribly clever and edgy for rejecting a certain popular superstition, and get all self-righteous and supercilious about it. They’re only superficially similar.

    All the same, I’m just as glad the guy turns out to be neither of those.

  27. throwaway, never proofreads, every post a gamble says

    Jimbo2k7 @ 25:

    It was satanists who had a beef with the Okies, since they were not allowed to put up their statue of satan or whoever, so why are we assuming that atheists were somehow to blame?

    I want you to look at the timestamp of the first comment here and the time of the update on the website linked to in the OP. I think you’ll find out that no one was blaming atheists in spite of the evidence. It was merely hope that it would not be one responsible for the act.

  28. mrcharlie says

    Well, he may have claimed to be a Satanist, but he doesn’t sound too much like the New York Satanic Temple who are the ones working to get their monument on public property right next to that one for another mystical being that just got smashed.

    Since I have no proof for either being, or any others, all should be allowed, including one that says none of them exist. Personally I’d like all that silly stuff off of the lawn!

  29. throwaway, never proofreads, every post a gamble says

    “blaming atheists in spite of the evidence”
    What evidence?

    Replace “in spite” with “in lieu” to get the desired effect.

  30. throwaway, never proofreads, every post a gamble says

    Just to make it crystal, my meaning was that no one was blaming atheists in spite of the evidence that it was not atheists. If I could rephrase: “No one here was blaming atheists. There was no evidence that it was not an atheist prior to the update. What people were doing was hoping that the evidence would reflect what it eventually did – that it wasn’t atheists.”

  31. Trickster Goddess says

    According to this story:

    U.S. Secret Service Agents say it all started after a man walked into the Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City Friday morning making strange threats against the President and Federal Government.

    Agents say he then admitted to them that he crashed his car into the Ten Commandments monument at the Capitol, then left his damaged car and walked to the Federal Building.

    The Secret Service says the man told them that Satan made him crash his car into the statue.

    He also told agents that Satan told him to urinate on the statue.

    According to investigators, the man says he is bipolar and had been off his medication for quite some time.

    Apparently the authorities can confirm that Satan was behind it:

    Secret Service Agents determined all of the information the suspect had given them about damaging the monument to be true and turned him over to OHP Officers.

  32. Ichthyic says

    The problem now will be all the ignoramuses who think “atheist” = “satanist” and blame us anyway.

    frankly, if that was the only problem atheism faced in the US, there would be no problem.

  33. Nick Gotts says

    Apparently the authorities can confirm that Satan was behind it – Trickster Goddess

    Does the USA have an extradition treaty with Hell? Even if it does, doesn’t Satan have diplomatic immunity as a Head of State?

  34. hyrax, Social Justice Dual-Class Wizard/Bard says

    UnknownEric @6, I have giggled at your comment every time I’ve checked this thread today, and I figured it’s high time I tell you how much I’ve enjoyed it. I’m gonna sing those lyrics next time I hear that song, I know it.

    “OH! Klahoma, where the cars go whipping ‘cross the lawn… LOOK OUT!!!”

    Hee hee hee!

  35. microraptor says

    Tomorrow on Fox and Friends we’ll hear all about how a Liberal Atheist done did it.

    A Liberal Atheist Communist Muslim!

  36. Pierce R. Butler says

    At best, this was a drunk Oklahoman barrelling across public property; at worst; some stupid atheist decided to undermine our cause by carrying out a criminal act.

    I see nothing in either clause which excludes anything in the other.

  37. Olly Oxinfrei says

    News reports here lead me to guess is that the guy likely has some sort of delusional disorder.

  38. erik333 says

    @38 Nick Gotts

    AFAIK they think they do. Texas seems especially eager to honor the unilateral agreement.

  39. Jacob Schmidt says

    At best, this was a drunk Oklahoman barrelling across public property; at worst; some stupid atheist decided to undermine our cause by carrying out a criminal act. DON’T DO THAT. All you can accomplish is to encourage theists in their sense of martyrdom.

    I’d have gone with “Don’t do that because vandalism is wrong.”

  40. anteprepro says

    Jacob Schmidt:

    I’d have gone with “Don’t do that because vandalism is wrong.”

    That’s a good point. It’s roughly equivalent in ethical reasoning to gamergaters telling each other to tone down harassment because it reduces their collective credibility. It’s very self-centered, focusing more on how our actions might not be beneficial to ourselves rather than focusing on the harm we cause to others.

    That said: I’m not sure if “vandalism is wrong”, universally. Even when it is, it usually isn’t that bad or falls into a gray area. This case is a fairly dark gray. Blatant destruction, causing a rather large amount of property damage. It sure ain’t banksy.

  41. jnorris says

    I want to remind all that the original set of Ten Commandment tablets were broken by Moses himself. So this vandal is only following his Bible like a good True Christian ™.

  42. sugarfrosted says

    @52, clearly it’s not always wrong. There are instances when I’d encourage it, but I have an illegalist bent about me, so I wouldn’t necessarily take my word for it.

    @53 Oh man, he’s the second coming of moses.

  43. Matrim says

    @Jacob Schmidt, 51

    I’d have gone with “Don’t do that because vandalism is wrong.”

    Setting aside the already mentioned fact that vandalism isn’t always wrong, it’s also ineffective to use that as an argument. If the person is already willing to destroy the thing in such a blatant way I don’t think appealing to ethics will work. Appealing to practicality might.

  44. Jacob Schmidt says

    That’s a good point. It’s roughly equivalent in ethical reasoning to gamergaters telling each other to tone down harassment because it reduces their collective credibility. It’s very self-centered, focusing more on how our actions might not be beneficial to ourselves rather than focusing on the harm we cause to others.

    That’s actually what I was thinking of. I’ve seen it so often from them, seeing what looks like an example from someone with whom I largely agree was a little grating.

    Setting aside the already mentioned fact that vandalism isn’t always wrong[1], it’s also ineffective to use that as an argument. If the person is already willing to destroy the thing in such a blatant way I don’t think appealing to ethics will work.[2] Appealing to practicality might.

    1) I really didn’t care about the minutia of vandalism ethics, particularly when I was trying for concision.

    2) I’ve seen the same argument for a wide variety of shitty behaviours. I think it under estimates how strongly we abide by the standard of our social group. Even if we can’t convince the vandal (which I’m not willing to grant), convincing the vandals friends would be beneficial.

  45. birgerjohansson says

    Maybe the vandal was a Gnostic working on behalf of the Demiurge?
    Also, they should ask Melek Taus to protect the monument.

  46. Crimson Clupeidae says

    Nikc Gotts@38:

    Does the USA have an extradition treaty with Hell?

    Extradition to the US would be hell….