Lincoln, Lenin, Satan, and Facial Hair

Generally speaking, I love Sundays. They tend to be fairly quiet and kinda lazy. The Sunday morning ritual at our house has become sitting on the sofa with my two year old daughter, sharing a bowl of oatmeal, and watching Scooby Doo. So this morning, I turned on the television and some yowling, fire-and-brimstone zealot was on the screen, and what I heard nearly made me collapse to the floor. (I'm paraphrasing here since I, thankfully, don't have the exact verbiage committed to memory.) This is what this gentleman said:

We are a nation built on "in God we trust." That's why we produce Abraham Lincolns and not Lenins. It is the atheists who are the cause of our problems.

There were a number of things with this statement that left me feeling rather nonplussed. First, I assume he was referring to Vladimir Lenin, and not John Lennon. I assume this based solely on context, since Lenin was indeed an atheist and Lennon, while rejecting organized religion, had more of a vague spiritualist perspective. Setting that aside, let's look at what I presume was the intended point of this statement.

The statement is clearly intended to establish that Lincoln was a Christian and therefore good, and Lenin was an atheist and therefore evil. Was Lincoln a Christian? A de facto Christian, as were most Americans at the time. He was, however, more of the deist variety. Consider the following quote from Lincoln:

The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.

Or how about this one?

My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them.

In addition, Lincoln was referred to as an "infidel." So was he a Christian of the variety that the speaker no doubt was alluding to? Certainly not. So was Lenin an atheist? Yes. Plain and simple. So at face value, the hate mongering comment from this zealot falls apart under its own weight. But, like any good boxing fan, I prefer the knockout rather than having to go to the judges for the decision, so let's dig a little deeper.

Am I defending Lenin as an exemplary figure? Certainly not. Personally (especially since I grew up in Springfield, Illinois, one of Lincoln's home towns), I prefer Lincoln. He was a brave man making difficult decisions under circumstances that most of us are incapable of ever fully understanding. Even if I were willing to stipulate that Lenin was evil and Lincoln was good (which I'm not), the argument made by today's zealot really only carries any weight if one were able to say that Lenin was evil because he was atheist and Lincoln was good because he was Christian. This, clearly, is not the case, and even casual research successfully torpedoes that argument. To even attempt to make the argument is as absurd as saying that Lenin was evil because he was bald and Lincoln was good because he had a full head of hair. Or maybe because Lincoln had facial hair? No, wait a minute. Lenin had a goatee, so that won't work. How about this? Maybe beard = good and goatee = bad? Hey, maybe we're onto something here. Satan is frequently depicted with a goatee. Or is it a Muskateer? Or maybe a Van Dyke? So Satan is depicted with a goatee, Lenin wore a goatee, Satan is evil, so Lenin is evil. Q.E.D. So what does this mean for those of us who are clean shaven? I used to wear a goatee (or was it a Van Dyke?). Does that mean I was more evil then than I am now?

It is my sincere hope that such absurdities as those spewed by this morning's zealot, which have all the validity and legitimacy of such gems of rational thought as Phrenology, will go the way of balancing one's humours. Next Sunday, when I turn on the tv for the Sunday dose of Scooby Doo, first order of business is to make sure it is tuned to a channel that won't piss me off while I'm waiting for the DVD player to spin up.