Posted on 05/04/2011 10:09:17 PM PDT by TheConservativeCitizen
“RELIGION SHOULD BE TREATED WITH RIDICULE, HATRED AND CONTEMPT”
Atheism, or “antitheism,” which was once considered taboo in America, has gone somewhat mainstream in today’s society. Books like Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great, Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion, and Sam Harris’s The End of Faith were New York Times bestsellers. Faith-bashing films like Bill Maher’s documentary Religulous and Ricky Gervais’s The Invention of Lying have done reasonably well at the box office. The left never seems to miss an opportunity to point out the latest goofy statements or antics by groups purporting to speak or act in the name of Christianity, while being quick to (often angrily) point out that Islamic Extremists don’t represent Islam as a whole.
As is the case with the author’s brother-in-law, many of those who lack the courage to attack Christianity outright often look for examples of “Christian” silliness to hide behind. None of this surprises me, mind you.
My faith teaches me not to judge others; God will handle that. (Don’t misconstrue this to mean that I don’t criticize and “pass judgement” on the political beliefs of others, which I do with gusto.) However, there are two aspects of atheism that have always puzzled me: the need to ridicule, deride, or even fear Christians and their faith, and the anger and hatred that many atheists display; the Bill Mahers of the world.
Well-known atheist Christopher Hitchens, for example, says that religion “should be treated with ridicule, hatred, and contempt.” Hitchens is quick to point out of course that Christians themselves should not be treated this way; it’s Christianity, which is somewhat akin to supporting the troops but not war. (Although most anti-war folks I know don’t ridicule, deride or show disgust for the troops.)
“It is entirely appropriate to ridicule absurd ideas rather than to treat them as serious and give them respect. Only serious ideas based on reason and evidence are worthy of intellectual respect. The ideas that we critique and ridicule have historically led to or facilitated war, genocide, and ethnic cleansing. They have enslaved millions, impeded medical and scientific research and are now draining vast sums of taxpayer dollars to propagate more of these ridiculous ideas. These ideas have resulted in untold amounts of violence, death, torture, and suffering as well as the profound intimidation and physical molestation of our young. Ridicule and even sneering condescension are about the mildest critical reactions that we can have for the enormity of the mind-boggling injustices perpetrated in their name. I can readily empathize with those of us who consider the behaviors prompted by these dogma to be illegal and criminal.”
Greg Epstein, “Humanist chaplain” at Harvard University and author of Good Without God: What a Million Nonreligious People Do Believe, has a different view of the role atheism and its believers should play in society. He has described the “New Atheists,” (Hitchens, Dawkins & Co.) as “atheist fundamentalists,” imparting a bit of mindlessness and hypocrisy to those who approach Christianity with ridicule and derision. Epstein believes that atheists have allowed themselves to become defined by what they don’t believe. “Humanists,” as he refers to atheists, would be better served by respectful coexistence with believers. Mutual acceptance of the beliefs and conviction of others –or the lack thereof — allows for common ground on issues of shared concern according to Epstein.
Epstein has hedged a bit lately in an apparent concession to the New Atheists: “What I’m more concerned about,” he says, “are religious people who’d be fine with ‘Humanism,’ and are interested in working as equals with me. We’re not here to erase you — we’re here to embrace you.”
************************************************************ Call me crazy, but when I attempt to conger up a list of influential atheists who embrace Christianity, I draw a blank. The Bill Mahers and Christopher Hitchenses of the world are much more vocal.
Hitchens and Maher are certainly ones to display contempt for all things religious.
Hitchens has said some really vile things about Mother Teresa.
Closer to home, our own S.E. Cupp is a professed atheist, though one of the more benign ones.
Atheism is so widespread now, if you don’t believe in the Big Bang (yes, I said “believe in”), you are ridiculed in the scientific community.
The public schools won’t allow consideration of alternate theories (creationism) either.
Of course atheism is required for the supremacy of the state, that is, the implementation of Marxism.
Well, the fact is that the atheist does have a god, which is to say he must believe in something that is supremely good. Everyday we have to choose between gods. To believe in one god is to believe that behind the many there is in fact one, who subsumes all others. Whcih is more or less how Plato looked at the matter.
I think aetheists who do this are acting out underlying emotional issues via the atheist label of religion. you can extrapolate this very general thought to politics and religion in general.
I say this because I have been functionally atheist for many many years, but
1) I don’t opine on private religious matters of anyone. When one riots, threatens death, kills, maims, etc. over events in foreign countries regarding ones’ religion, I consider this silence removed. Otherwise it is none of my business and I don’t care. I am always polite when someone wishes to benignly pursue this (usually protestant christians, but who cares, they are polite).
2) the activist aetheists only go after christianity because a) most of them came from christian backgrounds and are reacting to childhood issues and b) the world religion actually overtly going about killing repressing and otherwise inconveniencing people isn’t one as pacific a target. It fights back.
At this point the west is nearly secular, christianity is almost invisible in politics, and the major rising theological threat to any rational brain is islam. I know where I stand in this fight, and that is most clearly with the interests of the christian deep south.
I have no use fir zelots of either stripe.
How does a random universe wind up creating a brain?
how did intelligence first evolve, and where? These are interesting questions. The galaxy and universe are large. I don’t think the answers need to be earth-centric.
How does a random universe wind up creating a brain?
Because they haven't the GUTS to ridicule Islam.
All things were finalized on the cross.
The love of God is slow to wrath........but wrath it must, for darkness will be put away forever.
They don't merely emote against believers, they howl against the very God whose judgment is final.
Insecurity indeed.
Yeah, we've got a few of them who hand out broadsides of insult by the boatload, going from thread to thread like they were privateers executing marques of reprisal.
Then there are the self motivated ones, sailing under the flag and power of their own religious pride --- having no formal note or marque issued by those whom they look upon as their own governing authority ----
Them be pirates.
I’m sure if you ask Satan he can claim to be a christian, which isn’t the same as verbally declaring “Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior”.
There is the walk....and then there are those who need a descriptive title.
God makes no apologies for them......for he knows them not.
ridiculing Christians is not the same as ridiculing Christianity or ridiculing Christ.
if they were truly atheists, they wouldn’t care... they’d think you were being odd, but otherwise would not effect them in the least.
those that ridicule and attack obviously do care, and care very much. Christianity seems to go against everything they believe.
then what they believe must be counter to Christianity in some way.
could it be... satan(ism) ?
atheists typically view the Christian god in the same manner as Zeus, Thor, Ra, Krishna, Set..they all come from the same pot. There is no turmoil or fear of being wrong. Of course, there are atheists that become religious and the religious that become atheist. Those types may qualify under your statement, but generally speaking, no.
You're on to something. Atheists spare no effort trying to convince others that God is evil: like in this thread for example. They also feel that they are great enough to sit in judgement over God. Imagine that. Their self-image and their self-righteousness are so cosmically inflated that they think they are better than God, morally. You can see this attitude in the linked thread too. Both of these behaviours and attitudes are characteristics usually ascribed to Satanists.
Exactly.
I hope your not confusing Agnosticism with Atheism.
Atheist, that I've met do care, Agnostics don't.
Agnostics see the proving or disproving of any deity as a waste of time.
You don't see Agnostics yodeling about God in any form.
Atheists, have a long history of publications in speaking out against God, or the idea thereof.
To say they don't care is ludicrous. What is printed tells another story.
Agnostics are simply focused on knowledge, to there own exclusion from the truth.
2Ti 3:7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Condemned of themselves.
Atheists? Many will repent.
The human mind can very easily make up idols and call them “God”. Sometimes a great thing to clear the cobwebbs while praying is to address God as “THE GOD WHO KNOWS THAT HE IS INDEED GOD” or “God is that God is” or “YOU are that YOU ARE”(the adressing form of I AM THAT I AM, the name of God revealed to Moses).
On the one hand by using that form it can have an effect of making one realize just how little we know God unless he reveals himself to our hearts....(which is good because we can cry out “Oh God how much we really want to know you as your truly are!”). On the otherhand the competing voices, thoughts,injected demonic suggestions, impressions, idealized thought icons tend to vanish when praying to God(in the name of his son Jesus Christ) in the ways I have suggested.
For this process has a silencing effect on ones soul causing it to “be still” so that one can know the God that is God...or the “is’y God”!
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