The Expression of Christianity, not its Perversion.

[Anymouse]

I posted this to a medical and emotional support forum yesterday, in response to a complaint about the preaching on that support forum. It shot up the upvote column there so fast, that I thought "gee, maybe I ought post it here, too."

That other forum is not about atheism, but does have a large contingent of Christians which, like this and many other fora, come forth not to seek answers to questions, but to preach.

* * * * *

This preaching [Christian preaching] does not just happen here, of course. It happens on every forum for atheism I have seen. It happens on Muslim fora, on Jewish fora, on Witchvox, on neo-pagan fora, on certain cable channels that call themselves "news," and on political fora. It is a wavefront of propaganda.

You are probably aware I came to these fora as a Wiccan, but was already in the process of learning to own what I already knew, that is, without proof, the only intellectual stance one can take is atheism. Atheism is not active hatred, it is not repression of opinion, it is merely disbelief without proof.

Give an atheist incontrovertible empirical proof of a deity or its effects, and an atheist will have to acknowledge it. But when you do that, Christian apologist, realise that you have destroyed faith, for you have made your religious belief science.

And when you attempt to interject the tenets of your religious faith in the fields of science, they will be subjected to the same scrutiny as any other claim. And a disingenuous claim that seeks to distort a theory or misquote a scientist, to draw a rebuttal, and then claim there is a "controversy" to teach is a lie. It is bearing false witness. It is a sin by your faith's reckoning, and by your own faith the truth ne'er need be defended by a lie. How about that, the Bible does have something in common with science.

That said, I do not hold with the opinion that the "meek, mild mannered" Christian is not a threat. One who supports an organisation or ideal which is fundamentally corrupt, which seeks to shackle minds and freedom, is a Fifth Columnist at best.

I would point out that the Inquisition was NOT a perversion of Christianity. It was an expression of Christianity.What is the matter of a little earthly pain when the tortures of Hell await the unbeliever? It was for the good of the tortured they were subjected to the love of fellow Christians in that worldview.

The Puritans (as so often told in folklore) did not come to the American colonies to "seek freedom to practice their religion" as is often told in schools. They didn't sit down with the natives for a First Thanksgiving for God's mercy in conveying them to this land.

They slaughtered the natives in Massachusetts, and set about establishing a theocratic province. Oliver Cromwell, First Citizen of the UK at the time, was a Puritan as well. They were here with his blessing, not to escape some imagined persecution.

Salem was not a perversion of Christianity any more than the Inquisition was. Salem, and Cotton Mather, Governor of Massachusetts, were expressions of Christianity. Neither was the trial of the Witch of Pungo. (Pungo is now part of Virginia Beach.) There is a road in Virginia Beach today that traces the route the Witch of Pungo took after her trial, from Pungo to Lynnhaven Roads: Witchduck Road.

The Scopes Monkey Trial, and the Dover Intelligent Design lawsuit were not perversions of Christianity. They were expressions of Christianity which were only turned aside because the majority of the people still uphold the Secular State and its First Amendment against the predations of either the State, or of Religious Righteousness.

When Christian pickets came to my home, and threatened the lives of my (then) wife and baby son because in Virginia Beach I dared put up a Wiccan computer bulletin board, this was not perversion of Christianity, it was expression of Christianity. The Bible backs the idea of killing infidels. It would have taken one nut case out of that crowd to have deprived my family of their lives. The Navy transferred me early to a new command to protect our family. But the whole crowd supported the religious book under which those pickets and threats were issued.

And those that seek to lead us boldly backward to a new Dark Age, backed with technological terror, are enemies. Their supporters are Fifth Columnists, not "meek and mild mannered Christians." Those who do not oppose evil are part of it, and the enslavement of mankind to a Bronze Age book backed by the Power of the State is evil.

It was until recently being pushed in the Kansas Statehouse the idea that murder (in the case of an abortion doctor, in response to the conviction of Edward Tiller's murderer for gunning him down in a church), could be excused as a matter of conscious.

The Secular State is not a threat to Christianity; it is the best defence of all religious views, including Christianity. The Secular State is not opposed to religion, it is disinterested in religion. It allows all religious ideas to be presented, to be cherished or discarded in the marketplace of ideas. It does not shackle Christianity, it protects it, and all other religious views.

And when the Bill of Rights are torn asunder, and they lay in tatters at our feet, and the new theocracy orders destruction of such works as Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" and sets the Earth at the centre of the universe again, as God's footstool, those protections will be gone for those meek and mild mannered Christians as well. And if one of them dare speak against a theocratic state, they too will be guilty of heresy.

If the Christian apologist does not believe that could happen, he only need to read history to realise that democracy and liberty are fragile, easily broken when some other ideal take the minds of the people. While a fiction novella, I recommend reading Sinclair Lewis's book "It Can't Happen Here," (frequently on the ALA's list of banned books). It is a novel about how a country preacher in Vermont turns the nation into a dictatorial theocracy, using the power of democracy, the blind followers of churches that "only want to make this a Christian land again" (it never was), and the power of the State to create a theocratic terror. And Lewis was a Christian.

Atheists are the lowest percentage of any "religious" group in terms of divorce in the United States, of incarcerated prisoners, of teen pregnancy. But our Christian neighbours will tell their children to stay away from our children; they demonise us in public; they call us evil; they put us to the religious tests which the Government cannot by Constitutional law to exclude us from Government service, even my Commander-in-Chief when I was in the US Navy stated publicly that atheists and Wiccans ought have their citizenship revoked. We are required to make a pledge to support and defend "the flag, and to the Republic for which it stands" not under the Constitution, but under God, a religious test prohibited by that very Constitution, a propaganda stunt only put in that Pledge as an anticommunism stunt in the 1950's.

And ripping off Orson Scott Card's presentation "Secular Humanist Revival" - (Card was a Mormon who gave up two years of his life in missionary work, and a science-fiction writer): and to all those parents out there [who only wish to teach their child about God, and then turn to the Intelligent Design movement and its "textbooks" for guidance] what will you say when your child comes home from school and says: Today I learned what evolution really is. And you lied to me. And if you lied to me about that, did you lie to me about Jesus? Did you lie to me about sin, and repentance, and forgiving, and loving thy neighbour? Was it all lies? Why should I ever believe you again? The best and the brightest of your children will not follow you. You are the last generation.

I do not seek here to "deconvert" the Christian, or to dissuade him from his religious views. I only seek to convince the need of the Christian to represent the views of scientist, and the views of an atheist neighbour fairly. I only seek that you treat your atheist neighbour with the same Golden Rule you wish applied to yourself "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," or perhaps the Wiccan Rede "If you harm none, do as you wish."

The best line in Lewis's book is: "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the Flag and carrying the Cross."

It seems rather strange: the best defence of atheism is to read the Bible, and read history; and the best defence of Christianity is the Secular State. That seems counterintuitive, but so am I.

James, from the Left side of Nebraska.