Fox News) – An atheist organization is blasting the U.S. Postal Service for its plan to honor Mother Teresa with a commemorative stamp, saying it violates postal regulations against honoring “individuals whose principal achievements are associated with religious undertakings,” Fox News reported Thursday.
The Freedom from Religion Foundation is urging its supporters to boycott the stamp — and also to engage in a letter-writing campaign to spread the word about what it calls the “darker side” of Mother Teresa.
The stamp — set to be released on Aug. 26, which would have been Mother Teresa’s 100th birthday — will recognize the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize winner for her humanitarian work, the Postal Service announced last month.[reference]
Hey where were they when Rev. Martin Luther King was honored. The Civil Rights movement was predicated on the fact that men are created in the image of God. That all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. I mean a Reverend forcing his viewpoint on us and causing the passage of the Civil Rights act by the government surely spells “THEOCRACY!!!”
As an ex-atheist I find it rather funny that people whose basic creed is “Survival of the Fittest” whine about a stamp. Yep Darwinian Evolution leads to being upset about a picture on a stamp.
Atheists are often prickly about the idea that atheists can’t be good people even if they can’t define good in a non-relativistic matter. While atheists can certainly have the natural virtues and even holiness to the extent that they participate in God’s grace – it is often the case that they put up blockages to that grace as I know from my own life. The holiness of Blessed Mother Teresa is really quite shocking to the sensibilities of the atheist. This total pouring out of yourself for others is beyond their ken for the most part. Though by their logic if we can be good totally on our own then it was just Mother Teresa’s decision to be good that made her good and had nothing to do with her being a nun. It was just a matter of her will so why should she annoy them?
Now as to Mother Teresa’s Dark Side I would guess they are not referring to her long time Dark Night of the Soul. Though it is rather interesting that Blessed Mother Teresa lived totally by faith for about 50 years with no consolations from God at all. Atheists also live with no seeming consolations from God and if anything Mother Teresa would totally understand the feelings of atheists. I guess the idea of living totally by faith without being able to feel God at all is what is so offensive to atheists. Then again I doubt if they realize this part of her life. Christopher Hitchens is one of those haters of this saint and wrote a short book without footnotes and couldn’t even get the name of one of the figures involved correct.
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Interesting. I didn’t hear any QQ’ing about the Madonna and Child Christmas stamp (http://www.squidoo.com/christmas-stamps-2009, granted that they also have a stamp for the utterly bogus Kwanzaa holiday). St. Teresa seems to be some kind of magnet for hate.
I’ve said it elsewhere, but Annie Laurie Gaylor needs to get a life, and a clue, seeing as the actual meaning of the First Amendment totally escapes her.
Now Jeffrey, can’t get mad a a dog for being a dog! 🙂 Of course Reddog, the great and caring friend of Planned Parenthood that he is, is only acting consistently with the premises upon which that fine institution was founded. Heck, had Sanger had her way those poor that Mother Theresa helped would’ve have been sterilized so as to make sure they didn’t propagated their ‘lesser strain of humanity’ that she believed needed to be eliminated. Of course those former orphans turned religious only reach out and help the poorest of the poor across the world..furthering a trend I would think reddog would think disturbing (if he holds true to Sanger’s philosophy). Now if those former orphans would just forcibly sterilize those poor they serve I am sure reddog would join them tomorrow!! But why wait for such things that will never happen when you have Planned Parenthood to volunteer for here and now! Yes, I know reddog, they sadly don’t sterilize all their clients…but had Sanger her way, according to her writings, they would be drifting solidly in that directions.
“The Freedom from Religion Foundation is urging its supporters to boycott the stamp”
Oooh! That’s gonna hurt! 😉
It might reduce sales of the stamp by literally dozens.
I’ve read things alleging that Mother Theresa had many of her nuns collecting huge sums of money, but they themselves lived in abject poverty. Can you imagine! Yes, the people who say this have no idea of what a religious sister DOES. They’re supposed to live in poverty — at least these sisters. They whole point of her order is that they live in voluntary poverty. Like the brothers and sisters in many other orders.
I’ve also read allegations that Mother Theresa “should have” used all that money to build hospitals to help keep people from getting sick in the first place — she just wasted it on all those dying people. Such a profligate! Again, a lack of understanding of charity AT ALL. People gave her the money, nobody made them. And she chose to spend it on the dying. Anyone else who wanted to build hospitals for the indigent in India or anywhere else were (and are) free to do so. But the sort of people who complain about this are not rushing out to build them, are they?
Just have to tease poor reddog with a reminder that she also won the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.”
Are the atheists organizing hospices in India to compete with Mother Theresa’s charity?
Mother Theresa again:
Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for someone to call their own.
The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.
I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?
“The Freedom from Religion Foundation is urging its supporters to boycott the stamp”
The FFRF was founded by an evangelical preacher who’s just switched sides to become obnoxiously pushy about atheism. Even my friends who are atheists don’t have any respect for it.
Here in Michigan, their last brouhahas were against 1) a nonprofit setting up a prayer booth in Warren City Hall (June 2009) and 2) a church 12 miles from City Hall whose nativity scene had been on public property every holiday season since the city was just a village. So I can’t help but be relieved if the FFRF members are kvetching about postage stamps instead of cruising the Detroit Metro for more opportunities to be outraged.