Atheists are hated. This is a fact. The 10-16% of America’s population who identify themselves as godless are some of the most educated, successful, well-to-do, least violent, least criminal multi-ethnic minority in the nation. Yet it is one of the last minorities that is not only okay to discriminate against, but is the last minority against which discrimination is actively encouraged in mainstream media.
In a recent Gallup poll (2006), when asked if Americans would vote for an atheist candidate for president, 48% said no. So forgive me, dear reader, when I read our very own news rag and was confronted with the headline, “Leave Christians alone already!”
This headline, while in of itself stupid, isn’t really what I take issue with. It is, actually, something I have expected for a long while. Christianity is dying. Period, end of factual statement. You need proof? Fine. Check the national census data of America, and seek out likewise within those countries with the resources to fund their own census. Beyond the borders of what is largely known as Western Civilization, Christianity has been and is being swallowed up by Islam.
Within Western Civilization Christianity is dying the death of lost generations. With almost gleeful (for me) regularity, the ranks of the godless and self-professed “spiritual but not religious” are growing every 10 years, swallowing up the Christian majority like a writhing sheet of maggots spreading across a corpse. As unsavory as that mental image is, between the maggots and the corpse only one element has life, and it’s Christianity that is rotting. Evidence is in the numbers. So a headline as vapid and shallow as “leave us alone, you guys!” was hardly unexpected.
Still, were I editor I would not have put this particular article into The Prospector, and not because of my own personal philosophy. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that religion is a cancerous lesion upon humanity’s progress. A lazy, easy cop-out in the face of an uncaring universe where it’s just too much work to actually make things better. And yet as it stands, my philosophy actually precludes me from being overly emotional about it, and demands I take a step back when necessary. I can, or so I might sometimes delude myself, be objective about things I don’t like. No, what made this unfortunately titled article truly offensive and downright unpublishable was the fact that it was just plain dumb. There was a fundamental disconnect between the meat of the article, the title, and the meat of the article. I did not repeat myself there, and I will explain why.
The title of the article leads us to believe that it is a shallow, selfish call for isolationism in an institution defined by challenging presupposed views and notions. Who honestly comes to college expecting to learn nothing new? Who expects to learn something new by never being questioned? Logan Howe, apparently. Which is all well and good; an idiot is entitled to be an idiot, after all, but the article never really builds up that position into something intellectually viable. Instead it merely repeats the same position over and over, and then leaves it aborted. All the while using chimp-ish appeals to emotion and authority, dragging out mindless aphorisms, proudly displays outright calls for discrimination, and smirks with thinly veiled hate.
Again, this is an article that never should have been published, and it’s one I don’t think anyone should have the misfortune to read. So I’ll read it for you. In order of paragraphs, I am about to paraphrase so you don’t have to read it. I encourage you to switch out your current mental voice for one that is both nasal and whiny.
I’m a Christian, I’m special, and I shouldn’t have my beliefs questioned in college.
A college is a place where facts should just be thrown at me. I’m a Christian, I already know the context into which I should slot these facts, and critical thinking shouldn’t be taught at me.
This is America, and in America I shouldn’t be told what to believe by a public institution.
I’m a Christian, so I believe that homosexuals aren’t entitled to equality. I don’t like that my teachers and professors might have different views, so they should shut up about it. It makes me uncomfortable, because I’m a Christian.
Christians are expected to have their views challenged in college and I don’t think that should happen! They’re expected to be presented with the idea that gays are human beings, too. Would this happen to a Muslim student? Would a Muslim student have his or her version of Creationism challenged in college? No, of course they wouldn’t, because they’re special. Unlike me, who is just a Christian, even though the Islam version is just the same as mine! The Christian version!
I’m going to assume that the teacher or professor assumes that they think there are no Christians in their class. Because they bring up Genesis and then question whether or not it’s true. In class! And I was right there! Can you believe that? I’m going to call this a “controlled setting” because it made me uncomfortable!
I’m not saying that Christians are already right about everything (even though they are, and I just did in this parenthetical), but they should be be respected. Which they aren’t, because they’re being questioned in class. That makes me, a Christian, uncomfortable.
This is a free country, and I’m a Christian. I shouldn’t ever be uncomfortable being a Christian, but I’ll sure as heck make other people uncomfortable for not being a Christian whenever I’m questioned about my beliefs! And it’s my right in America, because I’m a Crusader! Bring ‘em on!
Christians aren’t the only True Believers (TM) on campus. Look at me being multicultural as I rattle them off. I don’t really have an issue with them (even though I think they’re wrong when I talk about them in parenthesis), but at least they’re not a stupid, smelly, atheist. God, I wish I could just pick up a sword and hack them to pieces. Just kidding! But not really, I have sword, and am a Christian Crusader.
All kidding-that-isn’t-really-a-joke aside, Christianity is an old, established world religion. Because it’s been around for so long, I want you to think that it’s special enough to not be questioned in a college.
As a Christian, I like Kelly Slattery because she’s willing to bully her students out of questioning my beliefs because it makes me uncomfortable. I wish more teachers were like her.
Religion has been around a long time, and it’s shaped and is shaping the thought of billions of people around the world. So it shouldn’t be questioned, because questioning my religion is blatantly religious persecution. Which is illegal, so they should just stop making me uncomfortable and back off! Christians exist here, okay? And they’re special, and shouldn’t have their beliefs questioned.
May God Bless you all.
David Wildman is described by many as “big, loud, obnoxious, opinionated, ill tempered, and arrogant.” A few (David Wildman included) have come to call him, “handsome, clever, and more humble than you’ll ever be.” Truly, this paragon of godless virtue is the most talented, least productive voice of our age.
Going to your summary, isn’t there a difference between “bullying” and saying that there will be no Christian “bashing”? Sounds like she isn’t bullying, rather trying to protect students from bashing. Not saying the questioning of Christianity will not be allowed. Sounds fair to me.
Then what is to stop an overly sensitive Xian from claiming that questioning their faith is bashing it? You forget the deep, personal, and scarily unthinking nature of religious feeling. Questions, no matter how benign can cause knee-jerk backlash and cognitive dissonance in the faithful. One being the natural reaction to the other in human brains.
Regardless, that a teacher would announce to a class that certain topics of discussion are off-limits, when those topics don’t even cross into the realms of bad taste or disinterest is troubling to say the least.
And you sir seem to be of the opinion that one Christian speaks for us all. But that is an illogical fallacy. Many Christians that are actually practicing Christians, are open-minded to the questioning of Christianity because it is an oppurtunity for growth.
First I’d like to say, “..repeats the same position over and over, and then leaves it aborted,”
just about had me dying. maybe missionaries weren’t as close to god as they thought… ;)
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“From the atheist point of view, the world’s religions utterly trivialize the real beauty and immensity of the universe. One doesn’t have to accept anything on insufficient evidence to make such an observation.”
10 myths –and 10 truths– about atheism:
“SEVERAL POLLS indicate that the term “atheism” has acquired such an extraordinary stigma in the United States that being an atheist is now a perfect impediment to a career in politics (in a way that being black, Muslim or homosexual is not). According to a recent Newsweek poll, only 37% of Americans would vote for an otherwise qualified atheist for president.”
“10)myth- Atheism provides no basis for morality.
If a person doesn’t already understand that cruelty is wrong, he won’t discover this by reading the Bible or the Koran — as these books are bursting with celebrations of cruelty, both human and divine. We do not get our morality from religion. We decide what is good in our good books by recourse to moral intuitions that are (at some level) hard-wired in us and that have been refined by thousands of years of thinking about the causes and possibilities of human happiness.
We have made considerable moral progress over the years, and we didn’t make this progress by reading the Bible or the Koran more closely. Both books condone the practice of slavery — and yet every civilized human being now recognizes that slavery is an abomination. Whatever is good in scripture — like the golden rule — can be valued for its ethical wisdom without our believing that it was handed down to us by the creator of the universe.
When scientists don’t know something — like why the universe came into being or how the first self-replicating molecules formed — they admit it. Pretending to know things one doesn’t know is a profound liability in science. And yet it is the life-blood of faith-based religion. One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be found in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while claiming to know facts about cosmology, chemistry and biology that no scientist knows. When considering questions about the nature of the cosmos and our place within it, atheists tend to draw their opinions from science. This isn’t arrogance; it is intellectual honesty.”
– Los Angeles Times – {Sam Harris}
lovely headline :)