For some reason, it is incomprehensible to some atheists that I find the "debunking" of religion to be a waste of time and energy. Many of those same atheists have accused me of protecting churches and a few have even accused me of being christian. I've heard that sort of rhetoric before...primarily from Fox "News" and it's viewers. It's a dangerous rhetoric and one we should avoid, but that's another post.
Trying to debunk religion is an exercise in futility. Atheists already know god doesn't exist, so there's no audience there. Christians are going to be nothing but offended when you tell them that believing in an imaginary friend at their age is a sign of mental illness, and you lose that potential audience as well. I realize that there are christians out there who cannot have an informed, intelligent discussion about religion. It's my experience that there are also atheists who are incapable of that very same thing. If you come to my Facebook page and the first thing you say in your comment is "you're an idiot," I'm going to ban you because I don't argue with anyone who has the maturity level of a toddler.
Atheists aren't convincing christians not to be christian any more than christians are converting atheists to christianity. Either you believe or you don't and most people come to those conclusions on their own. I'm absolutely aware of the atrocities that are carried out in the name of religion. But I also understand that religion is just a tool with which human beings carry out atrocities on each other. I was lucky enough to be raised with a christianity that was all about social justice, acceptance, and loving my neighbors. I was also encouraged to think for myself and question the things I was told. I never heard the world "hell" in church once in my whole life. I'm not a christian because I don't believe in god, but that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate what I was taught in church. I wasn't taught about some old dude on a throne throwing people into hell. My idea of god was akin to my idea of Santa Claus: "Santa" was the spirit of Christmas (not spirit as in physical spirit, but in the feeling, the desire to give gifts and be with family). God was an abstract idea and it was easy for me to dismiss. I'm not protecting the church in any way. I just understand religion differently than a lot of people do.
The only thing I'm interested in protecting is my own right not to believe. In the US, every citizen has the right to worship as they please. Period. The minute we try to interfere with a religious groups' belief (and I've seen at least one semi-prominent atheist call for the eradication of fundamentalist religion), we start to dismantle the right we have not to believe. I don't give two shits what anyone else believes. It's none of my business. It's also not anyone else's business what I don't believe. And that's exactly how it should be. Yes, there are people who want the US to be a theocracy. It is our duty as secularists and followers of the Constitution to make sure that doesn't happen any more than it already has.
Education is our greatest weapon. Keep putting up the billboards. Fight to keep intelligent design and creationism out of schools. Fight to keep prayers out of school functions. Keep fighting to make our government secular, but stop attacking religion and the people who believe in it. You aren't helping.
Consider the LGBT movement. The one thing that has helped that movement more than anything in the past few years is the humanizing of that community. The more that the LGBT community is shown to be just like the straight community in terms of how they live, the more that those outside the LGBT community relate to them. Atheists need to take a page from that book. As long as we act like assholes, we'll be seen as assholes. Period.
All I'm saying is that I'd rather the burden of acceptance be on those who hate us than on us.
Trying to debunk religion is an exercise in futility. Atheists already know god doesn't exist, so there's no audience there. Christians are going to be nothing but offended when you tell them that believing in an imaginary friend at their age is a sign of mental illness, and you lose that potential audience as well. I realize that there are christians out there who cannot have an informed, intelligent discussion about religion. It's my experience that there are also atheists who are incapable of that very same thing. If you come to my Facebook page and the first thing you say in your comment is "you're an idiot," I'm going to ban you because I don't argue with anyone who has the maturity level of a toddler.
Atheists aren't convincing christians not to be christian any more than christians are converting atheists to christianity. Either you believe or you don't and most people come to those conclusions on their own. I'm absolutely aware of the atrocities that are carried out in the name of religion. But I also understand that religion is just a tool with which human beings carry out atrocities on each other. I was lucky enough to be raised with a christianity that was all about social justice, acceptance, and loving my neighbors. I was also encouraged to think for myself and question the things I was told. I never heard the world "hell" in church once in my whole life. I'm not a christian because I don't believe in god, but that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate what I was taught in church. I wasn't taught about some old dude on a throne throwing people into hell. My idea of god was akin to my idea of Santa Claus: "Santa" was the spirit of Christmas (not spirit as in physical spirit, but in the feeling, the desire to give gifts and be with family). God was an abstract idea and it was easy for me to dismiss. I'm not protecting the church in any way. I just understand religion differently than a lot of people do.
The only thing I'm interested in protecting is my own right not to believe. In the US, every citizen has the right to worship as they please. Period. The minute we try to interfere with a religious groups' belief (and I've seen at least one semi-prominent atheist call for the eradication of fundamentalist religion), we start to dismantle the right we have not to believe. I don't give two shits what anyone else believes. It's none of my business. It's also not anyone else's business what I don't believe. And that's exactly how it should be. Yes, there are people who want the US to be a theocracy. It is our duty as secularists and followers of the Constitution to make sure that doesn't happen any more than it already has.
Education is our greatest weapon. Keep putting up the billboards. Fight to keep intelligent design and creationism out of schools. Fight to keep prayers out of school functions. Keep fighting to make our government secular, but stop attacking religion and the people who believe in it. You aren't helping.
Consider the LGBT movement. The one thing that has helped that movement more than anything in the past few years is the humanizing of that community. The more that the LGBT community is shown to be just like the straight community in terms of how they live, the more that those outside the LGBT community relate to them. Atheists need to take a page from that book. As long as we act like assholes, we'll be seen as assholes. Period.
All I'm saying is that I'd rather the burden of acceptance be on those who hate us than on us.
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