Atheism Rethorical Analysis

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Pacifying Atheism Allusion and Logic in Groth and Daceys' “Atheism is Not a Civil Rights Issue” At the time of DJ Grothe's and Austin Dacey's article: “Atheism is Not a Civil Rights Issue”, the case of Newdow Vs. US Congress had caught the attention of the American public. Atheists were standing up and crying oppression. They felt the government was being over-run by religion to the point that they were being oppressed. This article was published in the Free Inquiry, a secular humanist magazine; therefore, the article's audience were atheist readers (ones who highly respect morals and logical thinking). The purpose of the article is to convince these atheists that their civil rights are in no way being attacked. Throughout the article, Grothe and Dacey use historical allusions, logistical appeals and hypothetical narrative, to effectively convince their audience that atheism is not a civil rights issue. Grothe and Dacey begin the article with a hypothetical narrative. They describe a scene of passionate atheists protesting at city hall yelling things like “we shall oversleep Sunday!” (68). To the audience this scene is ridiculous, any sensible person would understand that this king of situation never occurs. And that is precisely what the authors want to show; atheism being a civil rights issue is a ridiculous claim. Some atheists in the audience may be turned away by the ridicule the authors seem to be giving them for thinking its a civil rights issue, but their attention should be kept after reading the thesis: “Atheists need a public awareness campaign, not a liberation movement” (68). Grothe and Dacey (being atheists themselves) understand that atheists are misunderstood and misrepresented by society, but they are not being oppressed. Next, the authors list off some minority groups throughout history who actually faced discrimination. These groups, such as

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