Posted on 12/21/2012 2:24:54 PM PST by NYer
I was asked by the Young Adult group in my parish to address some ads on our local buses and subway trains here in Washington. The members of the Young adult group found the ads offensive and troubling, especially since they were aimed at kids. The ads are posted by the American “Humanist” Association (AHA) and are indeed aimed at kids and teenagers. The focus of the message is “Kids without God: You’re not the only one.” I have altered the ad at the upper right of this post to avoid listing its website but as you can see God is represented by a seeming angry and/or accusing finger and a bemused teenager who says “I’m getting a bit old for imaginary friends.”
OK, so lets start with the necessary disclaimer. This is America and an folks are free to post billboards and promote ideas, even unpleasant or obnoxious ones. That said, I wonder if Christians would get away with the kind of demeaning and dismissive tone evident in these bill boards by the AHA.
Consider, first of all the timing of these ads, Christmas. Just about every year, the AHA runs its ads right during the Holy Season of Christmas and Chanukah. I would argue that this amounts to an intentional form of rudeness that the secular media would never accept in return from Christians.
Think, for example if, on “Earth day” (usually happens in April) Christians were to announce that, as far as we were concerned this had become an annoying celebration of the secularists, druids and others. And therefore we sought to ridicule their holiday by burning leaves, throwing trash around in public, or on our property, or turning all our lights on in protest. Perhaps too we might engage in personal ridicule on earth day, scoffing at them, calling them “tree huggers” and erecting posters encouraging people to kick a tree instead. It is unlikely we would be ignored by the media if we acted thus, on their special day, and ridiculed “Earth Day” and those who celebrate it. Rather we would be excoriated by the press and others for this.
And yet, many secularists and atheists rudely ridicule, mock and seek to put an end to our observance of Christmas. I am willing to engage secularists and atheists on matters of my faith, and I have done so on this blog. But acting, as many of them do, at the times of our sacred feasts is just plain rude, it is shameful behavior.
Next, note the ridiculing nature of the poster at the above right. The slogan equates faith in God with being childish and immature, as if faith in God were no different than “believing” in Santa Claus or some other imaginary friend, as little children do, who don’t know any better.
This dismissal of the belief in God as childish is insulting to the billions of people on this planet who DO believe in God. Belief in God is not childish, and God is not an “imaginary friend” for those of us who believe. I did have imaginary friends as a child, and I know the difference between what they where, and who God actually is. I am not stupid, and others who believe are not stupid, or childish, or immature.
I and others who believe, do so by the gift of faith and also because of the manifold evidence of God’s works and presence in our lives. I live in a world, that to my observation has obviously been designed and thus presents strong evidence of having a designer, that obviously has existence and thus has a source of that existence. Further, when I pray I am heard. I talk to the Lord every day, and I hear from him every day. I know and experience his presence in the depths of my soul, in deep contemplative experience, and in my daily life. And the Lord Jesus Christ is changing my life. His word and plan for my make sense to me, and have summoned me to a magnificent and joyful life. His gospel is a prophetic interpretation of reality that has have ordered my life and given meaning and explanations that comport with my lived experience. I have tested God’s promises and teachings in the laboratory of my own life and found them to be true.
Now an atheist or secularist is free to question me on any of this, and I understand that they doubt my experience or would what to explain it away. But the disrespectful nature of this AHA ad is rude and insulting. It presumes that I and others who believe are merely to be regarded as simpletons, clinging to childish notions and fairy tales. I am doing nothing of the sort. I am no fool, I am not a child, and God is not “an imaginary friend” to me. My life of faith is rooted in real experience and the manifold evidence of having tested God’s word, having found it true and wise, and seeing my life changed by God. I also have the lived experience of thousands of other acquaintances who believe, who know and encounter the Lord in their lives and experience his powerful presence.
There is also the lived experiences of billions of others, currently on this planet and those who have gone before who testify to the existence, presence and power of God in their lives.
Ridiculing all of us as simpletons, and implying that the ancient Catholic, Christian and Jewish faith amounts to no more than have “an imaginary friend is not only insulting and rude, it is uninformed. The intellectual, spiritual, liturgical, Scriptural and artistic legacy of the Judeo-Christian faith is both rich, and rooted in careful thought and balance. I would also add to this the many other great religious traditions on this planet. And while I do not agree with many of their fundamental tenants, the great contribution of these faith traditions to civilization and culture cannot be denied and should be respected.
Dismissing this great and rich tradition of faith and more than implying it is childish comes across as boorish, bigoted and unschooled.
Further the “pointed finger” supposedly representing God is also cartoonish, unbalanced and disrespectful to the great religious tradition. It is true that God does confront injustice, wrong-doing and sin in the Holy Scriptures I revere. But it is also true that those same scriptures teach and reveal that God creates everything in Love and provides for his children and creation. He is merciful and forgiving. He respects human freedom and summons us to follow him freely, not under compulsion. In his love he entered our world and joined his sufferings to ours, and repaired the ancient breach, reaching out a saving hand (not just a pointed finger) to all who take hold of it. The God I know and have personally met, loves immensely, and when he does seek to correct me, I experience it as an act of love just as the Scriptures assert (e.g. Hebrews 12). God has a passion to set things right in and for those whom he loves. Here too, the cartoonish simplification of God by the AHA is inaccurate and unschooled.
To summarize, the bill board, ad campaign of the American Humanist Association comes off as rude, boorish and bigoted. It steeps its message in a ridiculing notion and implication that billions of believers throughout this world and many more stretch back into time are nothing more than children who believe in an “imaginary friend.” The utter lack of respect for the rich cultural tapestry, careful intellectual tradition, and lived experience of billions of believers in this ad shows the AHA is little more than uniformed an unschooled in the traditions and faith they try to criticize. The timing, tactics and content of this bill board by the AHA show them to be far from the humanitarian principles they claim to promote.
There is nothing humanist or humanitarian in their ad at all. It is plain and simple, “Rude,” just plain rude.
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And considering your "divine" deity acts exactly like an Arab patriarch: jealous, autocratic, mercurial, exacting, and violent, it's clear that in creating a god, man has always looked only within his self for explanations of attributes and motivations.
2. IIRC, your God told a man to sacrifice his son. This is exactly the sort of thing you'd see out of the Middle East, and a perfect precursor to the Jesus story. You see, in the Middle East, a sacrifice of a son is the ultimate, because men are worth so much more than women, and the father makes the sacrifice because he CAN. He's the father. That's how that culture is. The Bible is an absolutely accurate reflection of that culture. What I am saying (for about the fourth time now) is that no American need bow to that culture. Whether you're bowing to Mecca or Jerusalem, you're bowing to the Middle East.
3. I didn't dodge any questions about the universe, I told you (or whoever) to check out Dr. Lawrence Krauss's youtube talk "A Universe From Nothing." I am not an astrophysicist and I cannot put his lecture in bumper-sticker form for you. If I had a question about the Bible, would I be better off asking you, or looking for myself? Well, the same goes for you. If you have a question about how the universe could theoretically have come from nothing, go right to the person who has the theory and is willing to explain it to you.
To the rest of the people I was arguing with: I have been notified that this is the Religious Forum and you must be allowed to opine about atheists, and atheists are prohibited from answering in anyway, therefore I must withdraw from the field. I ask you not to ping me back to this thread.
My parents and my drivers ed teacher taught me to drive on the right side of the road and to stop at stop signs and red lights. They told me I'd most likely suffer some pretty negative consequences if I didn't. I don't think I was brainwashed or terrorized; I just saw the wisdom in their teachings.
Murder is murder, matters not what the murderer believes or doesn’t believe. Again, this in a human problem, not a “god” problem. I would think both beleivers and non-believers whould be able to agree on this.
If I’m going to be treated as though I am “not on equal footing” (and thank you for being honest about your attitude) then I’ll pass.
1.) No, I certainly don’t feel like I lost anything. Muslims follow a Bible of their own, called the Koran (I thought you knew this, sorry) and they do pretty much what Christians do. Pick what they like and explain away what they don’t. That is why all religions have so many conflicting (sometimes even warring) factions. And every side has “proof” they are right.
The Koran is a derivative of the Bible, and in significant cases, it differs from the Bible. It would be hard to argue that Muslim culture and Christian culture are similar. Christians may interpret particular sections of Bible differently, but they all agree that there is a God. It doesn’t take too much digging to find that there exists atheist infighting with your common belief that there is no God. Hmmm....
2. IIRC, your God told a man to sacrifice his son. This is exactly the sort of thing you’d see out of the Middle East, and a perfect precursor to the Jesus story. You see, in the Middle East, a sacrifice of a son is the ultimate, because men are worth so much more than women, and the father makes the sacrifice because he CAN. He’s the father. That’s how that culture is. The Bible is an absolutely accurate reflection of that culture. What I am saying (for about the fourth time now) is that no American need bow to that culture. Whether you’re bowing to Mecca or Jerusalem, you’re bowing to the Middle East.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
Any American that “bows” to a culture does it out of faith not because of some “religious law”. They do it of their own free will. You seem to be intolerant toward people of faith... almost afraid. It’s interesting.
3. I didn’t dodge any questions about the universe, I told you (or whoever) to check out Dr. Lawrence Krauss’s youtube talk “A Universe From Nothing.” I am not an astrophysicist and I cannot put his lecture in bumper-sticker form for you. If I had a question about the Bible, would I be better off asking you, or looking for myself? Well, the same goes for you. If you have a question about how the universe could theoretically have come from nothing, go right to the person who has the theory and is willing to explain it to you.
Regrettably for atheists no man knows what happened at the exact “moment” of creation of our known universe. In fact, they are still trying to figure out the creation of life on this planet.
Just to let you know it wasn’t me that went to the mod. It’s too bad you’re leaving. I won’t get to read your reply with regard to my comment about atheist infighting.
Oh well.
Merry Christmas!
I see nothing wrong with the author acknowledging that he has met God. We all have. The atheists don’t want to admit it, but He has entered every heart and we can meet Him there if we will bend our stiff necks. Mocking a believer and calling him a sociopath is getting dangerously close to mocking God.
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