Well, here it is the First of March, and it feels as if yesterday was only the 28th of February. The Czar dislikes February for one reason: as the shortest month, you get the lest value from monthly services and subscriptions. Seriously, divide your monthly bill by 28 and then by 31 and see which one is higher. February.

Any Operative BJ drops in a note to ask about humanists who hate religion:

Your Greatness, This lowly one just heard about (yet another) “atheist activist group” suing a local small-town school system to remove angels from a memorial to a teacher who was killed in an auto accident. Apparently, they had sued previously to remove religious symbols (e.g., multiple “Latin Crosses”) from the memorial – and won – but that wasn’t sufficient. Now, they want the images of angels removed. Supporters of the teacher claim that the angels represent the teacher (“She was an angel to her students”). The nonprofit (and apparently non-conscience) group that sued to remove the crosses claims that they won’t require that the angels are removed, but they want documented proof and testimony that the angels represent the teacher and are not additional religious imagery that must also be removed from the memorial to this dead teacher. This lowly one has watched “atheist activist groups” sue to remove religious representations from local schools, city property, and to have long-existing memorials on federal ground permanently removed or defaced. These lawsuits have targeted everything from full-blown nativity displays on public property to simple roadside markers next to local county roads. These fights have even reached the Supreme Court, where decisions have fallen on either side. In Lynch v. Donnelly, the SCOTUS decided that a Christmas display which included a creche, Santa, reindeer, and other generic holiday objects did not violate the First Amendment because it did not specifically endorse one religion over others. But in McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky, the SCOTUS decided that framed copies of the Ten Commandments that were mounted inside a courthouse alongside many other documents that emphasized the basis of religion in American law violated the First Amendment because they were seen as endorsing a specific religion. Your Majesty, this lowly one wonders when the ACLU and the other “athiest activist groups” will sue the US Government to have all remaining religious objects and imagery removed from all federal property and buildings. After all, a huge number of tombstones at Arlington Cemetery contain a religious icon (a cross, star of David, or other representation), the dome of the US Capital Building contains an image of Judea (representing “religion”), the Supreme Court building contains an image of Moses and the Commandments in the edifice on the east side of the building (as well as elsewhere) – and that’s just for starters. This lowly one is waiting to see if these “atheist activist groups” have the courage of their convictions to sue the Federal government to remove all traces of religious imagery from every location over which the Federal government has control … … or to admit that they, the “atheist activist groups” are only picking on – and bullying – those smaller groups and organizations that they can easily intimidate into obedience. Because they’re either really interested in universal enforcement of the “establishment clause” of the 1st Amendment or they’re hypocrites and should feel your wrath just as the Mongols did at the Ugra River back in the late 1480s. As the recently-disgraced Bill Cosby once said, “Everyone calls out to G-D when they’re about to hit a truck.”

The Czar smirks when he reads that displays of the Ten Commandments endorse a particular religion. He is curious as to which religion is being endorsed, since by his count two religions embrace them—three, if you count Mormons as a separate faith from Christianity. Four, if you include the running summary in the Qur’ān’s sura Al-An’am 6:151.

Anyhow, the Czar feels compelled to point out to Operative BJ that these folks are not after every trace of religious iconography, nor are they looking to bully the smaller groups.

First, obviously, they are only after Christian symbolism. To be fair, there isn’t a whole lot of non-Christian symbolism in play, but these groups fall oddly quiet when it isn’t explicitly tied to Christianity. Seriously: try to have a Christmas party at a school or a musical montage that includes “Silent Night.” Now propose an inter-faith Ramaḍān fast at the same school and you won’t hear a peep.

The Czar will go one further: find us an atheist who is behind an effort to remove a Christian element from a public event and the Czar will not need to scratch deeply to find a disaffected child who is rebelling against a particular faith. It’s the ex-Catholics who want to eliminate the nativity scenes for the most part, and it’s largely the ex-Baptists who want to see the Decalogue stricken from every courthouse. We have no facts to back us on this claim, but few doubt us correct here.

Also, let the Czar point out that he has known many atheists over the years, and found them uniformly nice, respectful, understanding people. The Czar’s encounters with the other kind are limited, but he has identified them as humanists, more than atheists. In addition to being loud-mouthed, surly, and litigious over religious Christian icons, they are firebrands at their other beliefs: climate change, pro-socialism, and pro-infanticide as well. Basically they hate anything with which they disagree at present, but lack the numbers to effect change in any real way. So they sue the crap out of everyone.

And that leads us to our second point: it’s an extreme minority behind all this. Despite monthly polls that say Americans are less spiritual than ever, there are more polls that say Americans are more religious. If you and we were not so busy, we could play a game: you find a poll that says Americans are less spiritual, and the Czar will counter with a different poll that says they are. All afternoon.

Why the disconnect? Because the media are unable to weed out the bad polls from the good ones and report this correctly. Morons. Anyway, if you dig into it—and you might the next time this occurs—you will find that the polls concluding American religion is on the way out are really polls about something else.

On Monday, perhaps, there is a headline that says only 30% of Americans believe in God. On Thursday, another headline that says 60% of Americans believe in astrology. What are the odds these come from the same poll? Hint: they do.

And there’s the problem: the pollsters stop asking religious identity questions once they get the answers they need on quackery. Yes, among people who believe in astrology, perhaps only 30% are religious. See the point? The poll is rigged against the religious believers, because if you answer “no,” to the astrology question, they stop asking you questions on religion.

Conversely, another poll will ask the person to identify their faith up front: on these polls, the results are dramatic. About 84% of Americans are religious, according to the Pew poll that conducted a more honest survey, but 92% of Americans believe in God. So you can urinate conclusively on the thought that religious Americans are a minority.

In the same Pew poll, by the way, true Atheists represent less than two percent of the population, and religious “drifters,” who make up a lot of the woo crowd, are only 12% of the nation. That’s a far cry from the other headlines trying to convince you that America is done with religion and is ready for some government intervention on formerly spiritual matters.

The Czar’s own position is mixed: just as the Czar would be uncomfortable with a judge quoting the Qur’ān as the basis of his decision, he understands that almost 20% of the country might not be a fan of the Ten Commandments being on display in that courthouse. But removing these bas reliefs from court house walls or destroying priceless frescoes on state building walls or removing crosses from village water towers will cost tax payers a hell of a lot of money for less than one percent of two percent of the country (humanists within atheists). Having tax payers pay for your atheist attitudes is like you asking tax payers to pay for your religious views. No way. Maybe we did back in the 1940s and 1950s, but we don’t now and that includes humanists as well.

Village nativity scenes are harmless and fun, and largely non-denominational. When humanists get bent out of shape about this, we know they’re bent out of shape about a lot of things that happened to them long ago.