The other day, a fellow forum member started a thread where he asked "Why are atheists so disrespectful?". This, of course, started quite an uproar on the forum, which is to be expected, of course. An ignorant statement such as that is pretty inflammatory.
But the thread was also coincidental for me. It reminded me of a an old saying that Mr. Marilyn Manson pointed out: "The devil is the church's best friend because he's kept them in business". That is, Christians and other sectarian churches always need someone to hate. Psychologist Darrell Ray writes in the God Virus:
A great deal of religious literature is a response to heresy. Most religions claim their literature was handed down by a god, but the god seems to be very concerned with all the heresies of the particular day and time when the scriptures were written. Reading the religious literature of any period in history is a study in the religious protection strategy of the day.
This is precisely why the author of the other day's thread is attacking atheists for being "disrespectful": atheists pose a threat to his rigid ideology of "you're with theists or against them". It also explains why many people have to get baptized in their girlfriend's or boyfriend's church in order for their fiance's parents to welcome them into the family. I have even had discussions with theists who say "atheists are the enemy to god" and they do not closely associate with them for this reason alone. They all want to partition themselves off into a little group where everyone outside of that group is bad and everyone inside that little group is good. Fundamentalist theists have a vested interest in dissenters in the same way the military industrial complex has a vested interest in war and doctors have a vested interest in you getting sick.
This polarizing, nationalistic mindset can have drastic consequences. Look at all the right-wing mega churches who are always protesting against and bombing abortion clinics. Look at the sociopaths in the Dominionist movement like Pat Robertson and others who want the Christians to run all welfare institutions, including the public schools and the military. Nationalistic thinking is precisely why Slobodan Milosevic murdered all the Muslims in Serbia.
So here is why atheists are so "disrespectful": We're defending ourselves from dogma.
But the thread was also coincidental for me. It reminded me of a an old saying that Mr. Marilyn Manson pointed out: "The devil is the church's best friend because he's kept them in business". That is, Christians and other sectarian churches always need someone to hate. Psychologist Darrell Ray writes in the God Virus:
A great deal of religious literature is a response to heresy. Most religions claim their literature was handed down by a god, but the god seems to be very concerned with all the heresies of the particular day and time when the scriptures were written. Reading the religious literature of any period in history is a study in the religious protection strategy of the day.
This is precisely why the author of the other day's thread is attacking atheists for being "disrespectful": atheists pose a threat to his rigid ideology of "you're with theists or against them". It also explains why many people have to get baptized in their girlfriend's or boyfriend's church in order for their fiance's parents to welcome them into the family. I have even had discussions with theists who say "atheists are the enemy to god" and they do not closely associate with them for this reason alone. They all want to partition themselves off into a little group where everyone outside of that group is bad and everyone inside that little group is good. Fundamentalist theists have a vested interest in dissenters in the same way the military industrial complex has a vested interest in war and doctors have a vested interest in you getting sick.
This polarizing, nationalistic mindset can have drastic consequences. Look at all the right-wing mega churches who are always protesting against and bombing abortion clinics. Look at the sociopaths in the Dominionist movement like Pat Robertson and others who want the Christians to run all welfare institutions, including the public schools and the military. Nationalistic thinking is precisely why Slobodan Milosevic murdered all the Muslims in Serbia.
So here is why atheists are so "disrespectful": We're defending ourselves from dogma.
