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4.24.2004
Boy, will I get it now... Kristoff A poll this month found that three-quarters of evangelicals believe "the mass media is hostile," and nearly half agreed that "evangelical Christians are looked down upon by most Americans." Begat Atrios: No one finds it particularly troubling when it's pointed out that an "out" atheist couldn't get elected dog catcher in most of this country, let alone to Congress. I'm actually not complaining really - I'm not trying to establish some sort of new victim group here. But, nonetheless, I'm a bit sick and tired of White Christian Males pretending that they're the persecuted ones. Who begat Backslider: What is the deal with them in power whining how powerless they are? I had an acquaintance in a bar pissing and moaning about how "normal Americans" were low man on the totem pole these days. Intrigued, I pressed him as to what he meant by "normal Americans". He said, "You know, guys like you and me." And then there was me... First let me state that religion is not the problem, the problem is screwy thinking (or no thinking at all). Religion is just the right flower for that kind of bee. The hallmarks of fundamentalism just so happen to be the same ones that advocate the complete and total shutdown of the critical thinking zones of your brain. When those little neurons get shut off there's no end to the amount of stupidity that can issue from the mouth. Why should we be tolerant of stupid people? Well, because we will always have them. I advocate letting them play with nerf toys while the rest of us run things. Sadly, they sometimes form into fundamentalist churches led by a smart person that hits upon the truly novel idea of tricking the dumb people out of all their money. And since even dumb people need work, they have money to give to their church. The smart guy then decides that the more dumb people he can get to join him the richer he'll be. One morning he asks himself, "How can I tell the dumb people from the smart people, and how can I distill my congregation to include only the most gullible people possible?" Its an interesting process by which you keep ratcheting up the levels of absurdity in your preaching. So that by the time you get to 700 Club levels of absurdity you have refined your followers to the most gullible of the dumb. You see, not all dumb people are gullible too, its a sub-section of dumbness. Am I saying that only dumb people go to church, not at all. There are lots of good reasons to go to church. The difference is that smart people go to church to: meet members of the opposite sex, network with people in the community, learn about their own spirituality without becoming a brain dead zombie, and play bingo. Also.. it can be a part of your traditional family life. Church is part of who your are in some cases. But that doesn't mean you have to be one of the fundamentalist gay hating bigots that pollute the intellectual air in your community. Are Christians persecuted? Yes and no. Yes, because the basic fundamentalism of some religious ideologies is dying in the light of reason. Like one astute commenter on Eschaton pointed out, they lose people every time they try to tell people how to live their lives. Modern people have come to appreciate the freedom to drink liquor, have kinky sex with another consenting person and speak their mind. As well they should. Hug a liberal. And no, because Christianity is alive and well in the United States. Its doing well because it has adapted to the new reality. Most Christians have embraced freedom and incorporated it into their spiritual lives. How far have we come when modern day Christians defend democracy by invoking God's name when a few hundred years ago religion and God were the primary opponents to freedom as we know it today. The clergy really liked the King and they gave us assurance that God liked the Kings as well. God has changed his mind on the monarchy thing and we no longer hear any modern Christians lamenting the loss of the Divine Right (with the possible exception of Pat Robertson who wishes Bush would be King). Most modern societies have moved the role of religion to one of cultural institution, like Hockey for Canadians. I just wish most liberal Christians would treat the fundamentalists like the throwbacks they are. Tell them to run along and play with their Nerf crosses. But nevermind me, let's ask Douglas Adams what he thinks: I don't accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and opposite view. My view is that the moon is made of rock. If someone says to me "Well, you haven't been there, have you" You haven't seen it for yourself, so my view that it is made of Norwegian Beaver Cheese is equally valid? - then I can't even be bothered to argue. There is such a thing as the burden of proof, and in the case of god, as in the case of the composition of the moon, this has shifted radically. God used to be the best explanation we'd got, and we?ve now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. So I don't think that being convinced that there is no god is as irrational or arrogant a point of view as belief that there is. I don't think the matter calls for even-handedness at all. What would James Michener think? | |
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