I first ran into this kerfuffle on Reddit, but I had to wait until the crush passed for the FFRF site to recover. I suppose that was inevitable, given how reddit is the home of atheist dudebros. It can get a little shrill and intolerant, from my ignostic perspective. Atheists are as fond as anyone of having their confirmation biases tickled and the smug can get deep.

I know this because I read /r/atheism - ahem - religiously. I'm certainly anti-theist. I happen to think that Christ would be too, just as Lau Tsu was, riding off on his ox in disgust.

Consider who's idea it was for Christ to be crucified, should that whole narrative be historical - it would seem likely that he'd be against more of that sort of thing. Anyway, I do know what gets them all hot and bothered - and it often affects me in a similar way, in case you were thinking there was some claim of moral superiority implied here.

I mention all of that because it set me up for disappointment and confusion. I had my popcorn all buttered. Wagner's "Shaudenfreude" was playing in the background as I pressed play. And in thirty seconds, I felt terribly cheated.

I am not directly familiar with the FFRF, but I've run across the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. "Mikey" Weinstein is no shrinking violet. I think I conflated the two in my mind, and I was braced for fireworks. After all - an ad runs just once. An ad that is on YouTube and makes the news for being turned down by NBC - that goes viral. I was honestly expecting something done with slightly more devilish intent.

And... well. I can see how some people could decide to be offended. I don't see how it could be ruled offensive in a way you could defend in front of an FCC panel. It's simply a statement of a lack of faith; at most a cheeky push-back against the current fashion of calling upon god to sanctify nakedly political choices on both sides of the political divide. Disbelief in a literal hell isn't especially controversial, even within Christian circles.

I found some rather tortured arguments in direct counterpoint to the ad's position as to whether the founders truly intended a "secular state." They could be right in a technical sense; some founders, such as Jefferson, surely seemed to be on the side of secular values but others would have strongly disagreed. But that was then and this is now.

Jefferson also thought that the constitution should be reconsidered once every generation.

For myself, I think the idea that "congress shall establish no religion" is clear enough. It doesn't say you can't be religious, it doesn't say you should be - it's silent upon the issue. What it does say is that the government may not establish a state religion, a stand that profoundly undermines any attempt to make laws based on any particular scripture.

Of course, they did anyway, and a number of such laws have been struck down and repealed over my lifetime. It's tempting to think that it's about that profound social change. But It was difficult to find a reputable site on the Right that could explain the bizarre allergy toward running this ad on the part of the major networks. I found reputable sites that were reporting on it - but I found no insight. There was a curious lack of support for the failure to run the ad.

There were the usual histrionics from the fringes - but you can always find someone to fling quotable spittle. It's the Internet. Any idiot can, and they do.

But sometimes when the Right goes ballistic about something in a way that seems to make no sense, it means that it's about something they would prefer to not directly state aloud. I was beginning to suspect this was the case. But that didn't help me much. Then my wife pointed out the obvious. Ron Regan. Ronald Regan JUNIOR. Could it be that simple?

It may have less to do with what the ad says than who is saying it. Here's a quote from The Christian Examiner in reaction to the ad.

Meanwhile, Reagan's advocacy of disbelief is a major departure from the Christian character expressed by his father.

The 40th president of the United States was particularly vocal about his faith and his views on church and state.

During a 1982 radio address, he dismissed objections to prayers being said in Congress by calling the criticism "just plain wrong. The Constitution was never meant to prevent people from praying; its declared purpose was to protect their freedom to pray."

Likewise, in 1984 he condemned efforts to prevent student-led prayers in schools, remove "under God" from the pledge of allegiance and delete "in God we trust" from official documents and currency.

"Without God there is no virtue because there is no prompting of the conscience... . [W]ithout God there is a coarsening of the society; without God democracy will not and cannot long endure... If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under," President Reagan said.

Newsmax included a reference to the conscience quote in an otherwise commendably straight-news treatment of the subject.

Former President Reagan did not share his son's views on religion, once noting, "without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience."

Apparently God had no objections regarding Iran-Contra.

The Gospel Herald's treatment mentions the same thing:

But as for Ron Reagan, the 56-year-old son of the late iconic Republican president has never been shy about his stance on religion, even when it directly opposed that of his father's. The former president once said, "Without God, there is no virtue, because there's no prompting of the conscience."

The younger Reagan has spoken out many times against Christianity, telling the L.A. Times during an interview last year that he is often surprised at the reaction he gets. "I think when you hold an opinion that you find entirely reasonable, you are surprised when you discover that other people don't also consider it reasonable, and kind of get up in arms," he said.

But his father was actually very well-versed in expressing his belief in God and may be best known for one of his most famous lines that is still often quoted today, which states: "If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under."

Perhaps it's not so much a reaction to the denial of Christ as it is a reaction to the perceived betrayal of Ronald Regan. Now that the true legacy of Regan's policies are playing out in the headlines, it's seemingly very tempting to fall back on scriptural authority to defend his foreign policy and voodoo economics.

Or maybe I'm still missing the point.