 Spreading the Word... in defiance of the Christian Right
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Mar. 17th, 2013 @ 08:34 am 
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I had a very satisfying experience recently: bringing enlightenment to the unenlightened.
I came across a post on a gay news site, discussing the recent decriminalisation of sodomy in Virginia.
Now, one of the things that kind of infuriates me in general is people cherrypicking Bible quotations to support an ideological point of view, while blatantly disregarding the rest. (For a particularly high-profile example of this general approach to Christianity, see the Catholic Church criticising a group of American nuns for paying too much attention to helping the poor, and not enough time to hating on gays and single mothers. What would Jesus do about the Vatican? Well, there's a story involving some money-changers in a temple that establishes a precedent.)
Setting aside the flagrant hypocrisy of most sodomy laws - the majority render oral and anal sex between married, heterosexual, consenting adults a criminal offence, but they only tend to use them against same-sex couples - we come across my own personal bugbear about it: "sodomy" totally should refer to something wrong, but it does not mean what they think it means.
The word sodomy, after all, derives directly from the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah. The people of Sodom sinned so deeply, so offensively before God that He obliterated the city entirely.
This is clearly something which is immoral. In general, legislating morality is problematic, mind you, but that's a whole other topic. What's important for the purposes of my argument is exactly what sin the Sodomites committed.
The Bible is, in fact, pretty unambiguous on this subject.
Ezekiel 16:49 (NIV):
Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.
Arrogance. Being wealthy, yet failing to help the poor.
Had the Lord not entered a new covenant with humanity in the interim, Mitt Romney's speech about the "47%" who "feel entitled" to food, shelter and health care would have copped him a meteor strike to the face.
(I read, a while back, that there was evidence suggestion a reasonably substantial meteor strike that could possibly-arguably equate to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. One of the things that puzzled me at the time was certain evangelical atheists declaring that this was proof of the non-existence of God; that even if there had been ancient cities where Sodom and Gomorrah were thought to have been, then their destruction had a totally natural explanation. It puzzled me because: Assuming God wants to annihilate a city, why exactly couldn't He do it with a rock? Is there a specific way that smiting has to be done in order to qualify for divine wrath? As any GM or roleplayer can tell you, "Rocks fall. Everyone dies," is about as thorough as divine vengeance gets.)
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Question: what's an "evangelical atheist"?
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| From: | ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) sami |
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March 17th, 2013 10:17 am (UTC) |
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Atheists who not only don't believe there is a God, but don't believe that other people should be allowed to believe that, either. The sort of people who behave as if any public acknowledgement or celebration of faith is somehow offending them, and will look for any possible hint of an opportunity to be offended.
Richard Dawkins is one of the most high-profile examples, although the reason he offends me *quite* as much as he does is also to do with his being a very, very bad scientist who nonetheless acts like a smug dick about his scientific rational perfection.
In general, though, it applies to anyone who complains about/tries to stop public or publically-viewable ceremonies or displays that have any affiliation with religion, even if it's hurting exactly no-one/bringing joy or comfort to others, and anyone who can't see or hear someone acknowledging, even in passing, that they are religious at all without immediately attacking them over it.
Because evangelising your atheism inappropriately is pretty much exactly as offensive, imo, as evangelising your religion inappropriately.
My basic rule of thumb for deciding someone is an evangelical atheist douche amounts to something like: "If this person were a Christian, would I, right now, be wishing that they weren't?"
Alongside a firm belief that since I have never set out to convert an atheist (or anyone of another faith) to Christianity, they have no right at all to try and convert me to atheism; likewise, since I have never insulted someone for being an atheist (or of another faith), they have no right to insult me for being a Christian. So anyone who ridicules the idea of God, or ridicules *me* for believing in God, kind of loses an awful lot of points from my Good Opinion tally.
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| From: | sami |
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March 17th, 2013 10:19 am (UTC) |
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Where, at the end there, by "ridicules the idea of God", I mostly mean in a way meant to try and persuade me/others to abandon their faith. I find the "imaginary friend"-type comments kind of offensive, but how much I count that against someone depends on context.
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