Opinion: Fox News – Think Bigger?
The close ties between Republicans and Christianity is evident to everyone. After announcing that I recently became the New York Correspondent for Republican Atheists, the most common response from those in my life was, “Isn’t that an oxymoron?” Of course this isn’t true. Anyone who knows me would know where I stand on both religion and politics but I guess hearing it out loud came as a surprise to some people. I don’t blame them, especially when watching Fox News long enough to endure a commercial break.
I like Fox News. Although the channel barely ever criticizes President Trump, the stories and the views expressed on current political affairs strike me as mostly true and accurate. However, during a Fox News commercial break, I witness the strong Christian theme. One commercial showcases a father and son sanding wood in a workshop. The son stresses about the hard work they’re putting in. With a grin, Dad replies, “You think this is rough? Try building one of the most massive wooden ships in history without modern tools.” The father and son are then seen exploring a recreation of one of (if not the most) fantastical and highly debated stories in the bible. Noah’s Ark surrounds the young boy who looks up in wonder listening and watching as dad gestures in seemingly carpenter-like movements showing how it must have been built. The inspirational music climaxes as the two walk away from their experience, complete with dad’s arm around his son’s neck. The commercial comes to a close with the words “Think Bigger” plastered on the screen before revealing the name of the attraction – The Ark Encounter.
Don’t get me wrong, as a father, the bonding experience isn’t lost on me. It’s the lying that is. Think Bigger? Fathers are supposed to pass down to their children what they’ve learned through experience and what can better the lives of their kids. Dad has no idea how a ship, which is dimensionally smaller than the titanic, could have been built for the survivability of all animal and mankind. If he thinks he does, he’s lying to himself or at the least, looking the other way. With a growing population of Christians believing that the stories in the bible are metaphors, The Ark Encounter tries to ground this story in reality. The issue for me is that a channel like Fox News, whom in my own opinion, presents a side of the story not tainted by pure hatred for the man in the oval office accepts money from an entity called the Ark Encounter, LLC which is operated by Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis. This is fiction presented as fact and this is the problem. I’m talking about a man who fought to have the Ark Encounter built so he could host lectures and tell children the earth is only 6,000 years old and actually coaches children who come to his park not to trust scientists. Of course it’s healthy to question what we hear but when the theory of evolution is questioned simply because it doesn’t jive with what the good book says – that’s a problem.
Whether you believe in God(s) or not, the story of Noah’s Ark involves every known animal species boarding a ship, with very limited dimensions as recorded in the bible, leaving each unfortunate beast the cramped space of a fraction of an inch to live, eat and defecate until God’s flood subsided. The boat lands and everyone is free to roam again. We can poke a million holes in a story that’s only a few pages in Genesis. How then is it that the same channel, which is so much a voice of reason in the face of Nancy Pelosi’s open borders and A.O.C.’s “TAX THE RICH!” policies, be the same channel of belief in something just as likely as fairy tales with absolutely no corroborating evidence in history or science? The same fantasy stories presented in the bible are the similar types of myths perpetrated by the modern Left and which conservatives reject.
The two trains of thought do not go together. The mythological stories of the bible belong in the democratic. The Republican party is one of many facets and many different viewpoints and at the end of the day, we’re all in this for essentially the same things; limited government, personal responsibility and free markets. I believe we stick together regardless of differences within the party – something democrats don’t tolerate within their own party. The way I see it, is that conservatives are the party of reality and the Left has become the coddling feel-good party regardless of what history tells us. It would seem to me that fanatical religious beliefs belong somewhere on the left.
The first amendment gives us both the freedom of religion and the freedom from religion. Of course, it’s up to us to determine how much we believe of any religious dogma and any political party. “Common sense” isn’t common anymore. While conservatives on Fox News cling to stories about a man surviving a structure fire because he was reading the bible at the time the place blazed up just seems out of place when also combating the latest transgender bathroom law to come down the pipeline. I could be wrong, but I highly doubt the Ark Encounter commercial appears on CNN. I just don’t see it. It’s upsetting that modern atheism surrounds itself with leftist policies. There will always be a spectrum of belief on both sides, but I feel that Republican atheists must become a larger part of the party. We must step further into the spotlight and strive to become mainstream. Republicans don’t need a two-thousand year-old book to have morals and dignity. It’s about time America realizes that the policies put forth by conservatives can have nothing to do with the almighty and still come from the heart.
Skuyler Szigethy is a Republican Atheists Correspondent in New York. Szigethy has degrees in fire protection and practice fire safety plan writing and consulting in NYC. He is licensed by the state of NY to carry concealed and is a trained NRA safety instructor in Home Firearm Safety. He believes that a small federal government and individual freedom along with personal responsibility make for a more productive society. Contact Skuyler.
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