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.
Because Christians are less likely to hunt them down and kill them than...others.
If heretics get their feelings hurt in the process, does that make US wrong?
Galatians 4:16
Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?
And then we die.
Either ALL religions are wrong; or one of them is right.
Ah, the same reason that homos seek to have the government criminalize Christian beliefs -
it’s that internal voice, the law written on their hearts (Rom 2:14-15) that is constantly nagging at them,
and if ONLY there were no Christians, they believe, that voice would stop.
Indeed.
This is one thing that anti-Christians never seem to grasp when they ridicule Christians as “hypocrites”.
Yes, we understand that the standard of Christ is unachievable, and that no one is going to be able to live up to the standard that He set. That’s why He had to do what He did for us.
Conversely, non-Christians will define a “good person” at a very slightly lower standard than they are able to achieve, thus assuring their own self esteem as such a “good person”.
One thing is for sure, logically, they can’t ALL be right.
I suspect the reason is that they realize they are really trying to defend a position that they themselves take on faith: that the ground-of-being, the reason there is something, rather than nothing, is not enough like a person that we ought relate to It personally.
There is no actually rational basis for that belief, despite all their appeals to reason and science. So they must argue against the contrary belief — that the ground-of-being is sufficiently person-like that the old Scriptural verse “come let us make man in our image and likeness” makes sense, that we ought to relate to It (traditionally Him) personally (e.g. pray), and naturally that we ought be in awe of Him, He being the basis for existence, particularly in its radical form, that the the ground-of-being’s decisive self-revelation is a person, Jesus Christ, not a book of rules — by irrational means.
First among these irrational means is the reduction of God from the ground-of-being, transcendent in nature, properly incomparable with anything in our ordinary experience, to a grouchy, magical old man in the sky. (What I characterize as mistaking monotheism for “one god paganism”.) If one is really talking about the “straw god” the atheists set up to knock down, I dare say, all of the Fathers of the Church disbelieve in the existence of such a being.
What is most curious, is that the very intelligibility of the world, without which science, which atheists invariably assert they revere, would be impossible, is potent evidence for a likeness between the human mind and the ground-of-being.
Evolution is just a theory.
Because we don’t cut their heads off when they offend us?
Neither can two or more...
Thanks.
I wonder how atheists would confront a man who displays unearthly power and will command all men to worship him and take HIS mark?
A man will not fight to the death over what he knows to be true, only what he fears may not be true.
Exactly.
The Subtitle of this article is the Hitchen's statement:
“RELIGION SHOULD BE TREATED WITH RIDICULE, HATRED AND CONTEMPT”
Notice the "should". Atheism is necessarily foundationless. So any time an atheist utters words such as "should" or "ought" he is appealing to a transcendent moral standard, which is an implicit affirmation of the very thing that he purportedly refuses to believe: the reality of the transcendent.
Atheism as a theory is incoherent and groundless.
Cordially,
What...like the kinetic military action in Libya?
Sorry, but I support the troops and not the war.
How does a snowflake grow out of random water molecules?
Order in parts of a natural system can arise out of chaos.
How do bacterial populations develop into those more resistant to antibiotics? How do bacteria develop the ability to obtain nutrition from synthetic chemicals that were never present in the environment before?
save
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