Theocrat hornet's nets

Holy shit. That's about the best way to start a post about today's letter from Robert K. Stock of El Reno. When you see the headline "No unicorns, no God" you just know the Oklahoman is stirring up a hornet's nest to rile up its theocratic base.

The letter isn't worth repeating here because it makes some pretty basic atheist arguments about the existence of god, even invoking the classic pink unicorn (technically he's supposed to be invisible, but that might have been too much). One might critique the tone of the letter, as the way it's written the author falls into the stereotype of bring the obnoxious, I'm-smarter-than-you atheist. But otherwise, the letter doesn't add much new to the discussion (for anyone who is familiar with it) and its relationship to a topical event (the much-discussed "black mass" to be held on Sept 21 (that's tomorrow)).

One might ask: if you aren't going to comment on it, why mention it at all? The answer to that is because we know exactly why this letter ran, as the Oklahoman does this all the time. The readership of the paper is slanted far to the right (thanks, in part, to the paper itself!), and the percentage of letters it gets from atheists decrying the ever-growing creep of Christianity into government, etc., is vanishingly small. In fact, the paper even says, "Sometimes letters will heavily favor one side of an issue over another. Those who hold opposing views might not submit letters in the same quantity," implying that you don't see more progressive views printed because they don't get that many letters expressing progressive views.

Thus, the real question is this: why run this letter? And the answer is clear. The paper loves to rile up its theocratic base. When everything is going well, and everyone agrees with you, you get complacent. So to stop people from being complacent, the paper periodically runs letters saying things like "evolution is real" or, in this case, "there is no god." Then, the editors can sit back and wait for the flood of pro-Christian letters to flood in from tons of old white people who get really afraid that someone might be different from them.

So this is just a trap and we can expect a huge flood of letters (especially in conjunction with tomorrow's "black mass") in the coming days coming to the defense of Christianity.