click here to tweet this post
click here to share with your friends
subscribe to this feed
click here to format for printing
Atheists fed up? Believe it!
by StuartJuly 2nd, 2011
3 Comments
Don’t often come across an article of this nature and so thought I’d post it here to see what you think:
Posted by Stuart JamesMany of the millions of Americans who do not believe in the supernatural have had enough of being targeted by unremitting discrimination. I know this because of the telling reaction to a Washington Post opinion article I wrote last month.
After the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” it occurred to me that gays were making greater strides than atheists and agnostics in popular acceptance. Support for gay marriage is now at majority level. Houston, of all places, has a lesbian mayor. No one considers sexual orientation of guests entering the White House, yet it remains an event worthy of comment when the president remembers to note Americans of non-faith along with those of faith, The subtle bigotry begins in childhood, when atheist kids are asked to recite “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance or are unable to join Boy Scouts. If Jews or blacks were being excluded in the same ways, there would be indignation.
The bum deal American atheists have constantly received is extensively documented in “Atheists as Other” published in the journal American Sociological Review. American anti-atheism that sees the nonreligious as a dangerous foreign element dates to the early years of the republic, with Christians being the main perpetrators. Never mind that a number of founders, including crafters of the Declaration of Independence, were deists, or that the writers of the Constitution were careful to state that the power of the government derives from “We the people,” not “We the people under God.” And the Cold War did not help matters, causing many Americans to conclude that being ungodly meant somehow being in league with the atheistic commie Reds, while true-blue Americans (before blue meant liberal Democrat) were faith-based churchgoers.
But the history of the matter is moot. The “crime” that the nonpious are committing is nothing more than declining to believe in supernatural beings and forces that lack sufficient verification of their reality. There is no excuse for discrimination that is as under the radar as it is persistent. So I wrote an op-ed that, in the tradition of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter From Birmingham Jail, would put the nation on notice by calling for the societal civil rights of Ameroatheists.
3 Comments
Thought-provoking. It seems the meaning of the word “discriminate” has lost all meaning. I don’t know. I try to see these things from the other person’s point of view, but it seems the turmoil is internal and someone is trying to resolve it externally.
The article simply requests that we, at least Christians, not judge atheists, which is an attribute imputed on Christians, by Jesus Himself; a non-judmental personality. However, I find that copying the homosexual, shockingly successful, campaign of seizing a place as a victimized minority, delusional. Christians are persecuted just the same. We all reap from our decisions. I’m just sayin’.
Jonathon,
Jesus said we are not to judge hypocritically. Read all of Mathew 7:1-5, not just the first verse.
Jesus did say in John 7:24 that we are to judge with righteous judgment. So, what does it mean to ‘judge’ an atheist? Certainly not to treat them with less respect than any other person, but certainly as a Christian I will ‘judge’ his or her need for salvation and interact with him or her in a way that will bring an opportunity that that one may be saved.
If we are to be ‘non-judgmental’ as you say Jesus wants us to be, evangelism, the reflection of righteousness in laws of the land, even spiritual growth would come to a standstill.
Stacy is right. This person’s turmoil is internal, and it’s because they live in the kingdom of darkness.