The Antichristian Phenomenon

When we talk about religion, we always see it as something cultural, even as a cultural phonomenon perhaps. Religion is however quite far from it, especially when we actually talk about religion and not so much about its practices (although we will get there too). Religion is first of all a political tool. Religion is used as a banner to divide or unite people, and it has been excused as a justification in warfare many times. Religion is also secondly a socio-political identity.

However, to understand what this means, we must first understand that religion in a political context is not always as much as believing or having faith in god(s), but merely faith in something, whether it be a divine being or not. The definition of religion is:

1. A belief or faith in something
2. Rituals
3. Rules

Suddenly the word religion gains a very broad meaning, and can span more than the world religions which be invoked in our thinking when the word religion is mentioned. As such, many of our current cultural phenomena can be seen as a religion. One of those can be the animal right activist groups. To be an animal rights activist, you should first of all share a belief that animals are equal to or better than humans, rituals might involve to not eat meat or consume any product taken from dead/living animals and lastly, rules that forbid you to say, eat meat. This is all put into an overarching system and also gives the animal right activist an identity with other animal right activists by following this agenda. Thus, to truly be an animal right activist means that you actually follow a religion of sorts, in a purely political context. The only reason why you or anyone else would declare yourself an animal right activist is only to politically prove you share the idea of these typical ethics and morals mentioned (animals are of equal or above equal worth compared to humans, you follow a vegetarian diet, you do not consider any form of research conducted on animals ethically correct etc), thus, declaring yourself an animal rights activist outside a political context is useless. Obviously, the idea also unites other animal rights activists under certain organizations such as WWF but also creates a we vs them mentality, let’s say, the evil factories that pollute the rivers and seas so fish will die.

It is also very evident that religion is also more strongly envoked upon when a political identity is needed. I saw a short three-part documentary called We Are All Neighbours today, conducted by anthropologist Tone Bringa in a small village in Bosnia. 1/3 of the population was Catholic, the remaining 2/3 Muslim. It is recorded during the early 90s, (1993) and the conflict between Croatians and Muslims over Bosnia has just begun. At first, the conflict can be heard because of gunshots and shelling, but it is only in a distance and remains so for quite a while. While the villagers are worried the war will break out and soldiers will invade their village, they still don’t understand much of the basic idea of the conflict, that different ethnical groups (Croats, Serbs, Muslims) struggle to gain politcal control over a country (Bosnia). Croats, Serbs and Muslims have lived peacefully in this village for quite some time, and they don’t understand why the fuss. Sure, some of them have different faiths (Catholics vs Muslims) but they still believe in the same god. They also openly declares they don’t understand how you can attack your own neighbour for belonging to a different ethnical group. However, as the violence draws closer it eventually escalates in a bloodbath, where neighbour stands against neighbour, and eventually the Catholics kill their Muslim neighbours when the Croatian soldiers arrive (Croatia is more strongly associated with Catholicism). We can clearly see as the violence draws closer the villagers also keep more and more to themselves; Muslims to Muslims and Catholics to Catholics, despite many of them being good friends before the war begun. They often excused their own newly gained animosity with that “they might consider me a spy” or equally farfetched reasonings. In a world of paranoia however, it doesn’t seem as impossible as it would have before the war.

Here, we can clearly see how one’s religious identity becomes more important to strengthen one’s national identity (Catholics associate themselves with Croatia and support the Croatian army, Muslims the Bosnians and Serbs). Thus, religion is merely a political construct, and when you openly declare you are this or that, you also openly declare a political stance. It might not sound very rational to claim, especially if we look at something such as Atheism.

However, Atheism maybe more than anything is a political construct and many ideas in Atheism support this. First of all, there is a “belief” in science, that at least science is more superior to any other way to view the world. Science is associated with a secular society, and in turn associated with freedom of thought. Here, we can slowly see how Atheism is taking upon more and more political leanings, since freedom of thought often reconciles with freedom of speech. Atheism also often stands for many other common ideas in secular societies, such as a more social welfare model as well as Liberalism (which has partly been mentioned with freedom of speech). Religion on the other hand, is often associated with Conservatism (in a political sense but also culturally) and then that religion’s internal structure (ie rules and rituals) will decide how a Conservative society will look like.

Of course, I am not going so far as saying it is always this way, this is merely shown to point out an example how many Atheists might actually consider themselves, and that at least in a political context, their lack of belief in a god will actually create such as strong socio-political identity that it can be considered a religion, and how the word religion in turn is merely there to express one’s raher ethical, moral and political views than actually your ideas of faith.

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The Aristotelian causa efficiens for this article were two recent news articles about two epidemics. A mumps outbreak in Chilliwack, Canada was traced back to a single case in a religious group that was opposed to vaccination. This outbreak has lead to mengingitis, deafness and concerns about sterility in a number of people.^[I]). The same infectious disease broke out in the Netherlands this year, which was the first in twenty years. Even though vaccination coverage for this and other diseases is 90-95% in the Netherlands overall, this outbreak took place in a geographic region with a high percentage of residents who are Christian reformed conservatives.^[II]).

Most reformed conservatives in the Netherlands live in a geographic location aptly called the Bible belt. It has a grim history concerning infectious disease outbreaks and epidemics. In events since the 1957 Dutch vaccination program took off there have been multiple cases of outbreaks in the bible belt, owing to the refusal to vaccinate of these Christian reformed conservatives. Especially in the last 15 years this group of Christians has been drawing attention and deserved criticism to itself. In 1992-1993 there was an outbreak of Polio in this region. In 1999-2000 there was a measles epidemic, which caused the death of three children. In the 2300 cases (of which 20% lead to serious medical complications)^[III]) almost all (97%) affected were not vaccinated because of their religious convictions - or in the case of children, because of their parents’ religious convictions. In 2004-2005, there was an outbreak of rubella. None of the affected were vaccinated, of which 90% because of religious reasons.

The religious reasons are rooted in the idea of “God’s providence” - The idea that every event is intended by God. In this line of reasoning, God will prevent you from getting infectious diseases if it fits his plan. If you do get affected, it must somehow be a necessary evil in God’s grand orchestration of ultimate benevolence. And so you have to ask yourself: Should parents have the freedom to put their child at risk when this is completely unnecessary? To me, this religious practice is no different than medical neglect. In the Netherlands, parents are free to choose not to vaccinate their children on the grounds of religious freedom. I always wonder what happened to the medical rights of the children. Should children’s rights make place for parents’ choices? I think not. It is not a matter of religious freedom because it’s possible harmful consequences are being imposed on others, on the weak and vulnerable - on exactly those who the government should protect.

And there is more to it. There are cases of medical neglect on much higher scales and in much higher political and religious spheres. I think the best known case is the Pope’s rejection of the use of condoms for Africa to stop the spread of HIV and Aids.^[IV]). Think about it: the most influential spiritual leader is opposed to an easy, comparatively cheap and proven method to prevent the human immunodeficiency virus spread in favour of methods that are unrealistic and plainly ineffective (i.e. “abstinence and fidelity”). This is no less than a condemnation to a horrific disease through authoritarian, religious blackmail.

Leaving the global scale, there are other cases of medical neglect. One of which is not so much because of religious opposition, but because of religious substitution. Instead of going to see a doctor, people are being subjected to a cross-carrying quack to undergo “faith healing” (I will only go into the religious forms of this, and not those of homeopathy and its likes). The worst and most despicable forms occur with televangelists. (e.g. Benny Hinn and Peter Popoff). Not only do these people claim to be able to heal the sick, they often earn ridiculous amounts of money through their work as charlatans. Another bad case of medical neglect through religious substitution presents itself as institutionalised to “Christian Science“. Christian Science adherents (”Christian Scientists”, not to be confused with “Christian scientists”!) will rely on the healing power of prayer as a first remedy in the case of illness. Like the case with creationism, they reduce the issue of medical care to a choice in a false dichotomy of modern healthcare versus their spiritual “treatment”. In the Christian Science frequently asked questions section, they justify the endangerment of their children because parents should have the right to choose for the spiritual treatment they themselves have found to be effective.^[V].

In the conclusion of this article I’d like to emphasize on the importance of this problem. Children are medically neglected (thus practically abused) by their religious parents because the law has allowed them to. do so under the moniker of religious freedom. We should not allow this to happen. Therefore,  as a first step, I am in favour of mandatory (government-funded) vaccination programs for children, regardless of parents’ religious beliefs. I encourage people to comment with ways to counteract the religious substitution of healthcare for children.

Footnotes

1. The Province, “Mumps outbreak traced to anti-vaccination religious group”, August 27, 2008 (link [↩]
2. Dutch vaccination institution, “Increased mumps incidence in the Netherlands”, July 3, 2008 (link [↩]
3. National Health Services, MMR The Facts - The Netherlands, (link [↩]
4. BBC News, “Pope rejects condoms for Africa”, June 10, 2005 (link [↩]
5. Propaganda video from Christian Science (link) [↩]

This is in response to all of the chatter going on recently related to PZ Myers, that kid who took a Catholic cracker, and general hostility by the atheist community towards Christians. Here’s my opinion.

And it’s a difficult one to figure out. What good is being skeptical and intelligent if we stay silent because we don’t want to offend someone? But will our speaking out help anyone if it is hostile to the point that it drives religious people who are doubting their religion away?

As someone who recently wrote on how damaging hostility can be to someone who is new to a (especially outcast) idealogy or lifestyle, I can certainly attest who how a Christian would feel in a similar case.

Imagine a Christian in a similar position to mine, only worse! They’ve been lied to their entire lives, they are starting to realize, slowly but surely, what a scam religion is…they are seeing how hypocritical it all is and starting to venture, afraid, into the world of atheism. Poking around in blogs. Lurking around some forums. Reading about atheist activity and groups. All the while, looking over their shoulder and terrified, wondering if they might go to hell for doubting God, what their families will think, what their loved ones and friends will think, whether or not they are still moral, what’s wrong with them, do they need help…it can be terrifying.

And then they see some things that only reaffirm their fear: atheists committing acts that, to them, are atrocities, atheists being shockingly rude and cruel to them and other Christians, etc. It will do nothing but drive them back to the “safety” of their religion, unless they really have had their eyes opened and know that the actions of others do not change what is true and what is not true (like I did).

But then…on the other hand, being silent hasn’t exactly helped atheists throughout history. If anything, it has made us weak and easy to prosecute and weed out. Silence will kill us. If we do not speak out, if we are not active, if we do not loudly declare our defiance, we will be quickly forgotten. We must always be considered, by politicians and by the general populace. We must show ourselves as an example that we are Americans and we are not religious, and (not but) we are good people–we are the better people because we choose to act as good people through personal choice and not through fear and indoctrination.

And why do Christians deserve special rights not to be offended? Across the decades they have burned us alive, they have torn away our “God-given” rights, they have screamed for us to get out of “their” country, they have forced their religion down our throats and refused to respect us. Should we give them anything better than they gave us? Is our right to free speech worth any less than theirs? No. If anything, it is worth more because we aren’t insane, but that’s beside the point because regardless, everyone has the same rights to free speech.

So in the end, I think its very important to be loud and proud, and exercise our rights as humans to speak freely. We have every right to “desecrate” their symbols and criticize their leaders, just as they have every right to do the same to us.

The trick is to be respectful. Make fun of their words, their beliefs, their symbols, their leaders, but be careful if you make fun of them. Hold your arms open for doubters and show genuine kindness and honesty, not hatred. Was PZ Meyers justified in his desecration of a “sacred” little cracker? Yea, he was. It’s just a fucking cracker, and he was making a point, which is his right. He wasn’t personally attacking anyone, it was just as ridiculous that anyone got angry over him or the cracker incident as it was that Muslims got angry over the comics. People are deserving of respect, not beliefs. Maybe somewhere, somehow, a Christian is seeing that. And maybe there’s another who was starting to see the light of atheism, but is so easily swayed that such an incident changed their mind.

Either way, respect towards others is necessary. Respect towards symbols of an abusive, racist, sexist, hateful, insane idealogy is not.

Culture’s definition is loosely connected to real life and elusive at best. People who have been assigned to watch over what some people think is culture are being criticized by thousands. I’m part of a culture. You are part of a culture. This website is part of a culture. What culture? Cultures are being added to the big soup of multicultural madness faster than you can decide whether you want to be a part of them or not. Politicians speak out about “our” culture. Things like subcultures arise from the masses of people resisting the very concept of culture. Culture nowadays is a broad term used to define everything two people and their dog take part in. The attention we give to culture is a cultural phenomenon. To quote the mighty wisdom of Wikipedia here: “Cultures can be understood as systems of symbols and meanings that even their creators contest, that lack fixed boundaries, that are constantly in flux, and that interact and compete with one another“. There, a definition. What good does this do? A definition can’t get much more tolerating than this.

But, some really interesting aspects of culture can be derived from the definition. Culture is progressive, liberal even, in nature. It’s never static, not for a second. Culture is constantly evolving into something new. Visit deviantART and watch culture evolve in real-time. Culture is not a static definable object, it’s an everlasting process of creation fueled by creativity and man’s hunger for something new to identify himself by. As long as people are communicating with each other, this cultural process will thrive. There’s no need for anything else, just communication between people. If a person stands out by doing something different, and is successful in his attempts, people will mimic the abnormality until it becomes normal. When the numbers grow you can start defining certain branches of cultural development, each of them going it’s own way evolving further into something completely new. Even if you take a closer look into one of these branches you’ll discover a finer grain of subcultures. The branches will collide and interweave over time, split up again or merge with other branches. They don’t know about physical borders, the influences between branches are only limited by the amount of communication between them. The process of cultural development is a complex and highly dynamic one. There’s no way of telling what will change tomorrow.

And now, all of a sudden, cultural preservation pops up. People start defining culture as something static, as an object, instead of the process it really is. They see the process as a threat to the object they’ve defined. This cultural snapshot is usually the culture these people are comfortable with, and most likely the culture that provides them with great power. They take an aggressive conservative stance against culture and provide people with their static, crippled substitute for culture. They’ll do anything to preserve their position in culture, even if it takes culture itself down in the process. Culturally different people are looked down upon and oppressed. The cultural placebo is force-fed into the mouths of the innocent at gunpoint. The non-conformists are beaten into obedient good citizen. Cultural developments are set aside as evil, it’s practitioners as terrorists. Even the last cultural strongholds are raped by abusing tentatively free media to spread the conformist’s message into the homes of millions.

Sounds familiar? It’s the Christian way of doing things. Hijacking culture to stop it from evolving, to stop it from being what it actually is - an everlasting process. They have been quite successful at it too. The American elections are the latest prime example of the immense success of the Christian anti-cultural influence. Many of the hot topics during these elections are Christian ones, topics that aren’t even that important in the grand scheme of things. I see the effects in my own country, the Netherlands, too. Politicians on the conservative right of the political spectrum are talking about conserving our identity and culture. Opposers, among whom our crown princess Maxima, are mocked because of their criticism. The reduction of tolerance comes at a price. Two anti-culturalists have been killed and terrorist threats have never been so real. Politicians can’t walk across the street without fully armed bodyguards at their sides to protect them from the very thing they preach - forceful preservation of culture.

You see, cultural preservation isn’t just about the five hundred year old church around the corner that has to make way for a new mall. It’s a tool used by the powerful for preserving their power in a virtual substitute culture. The cultural preservation most people are familiar with, that of property ownership, is actually basically the same thing. Churches, especially Christian churches, often don’t have to pay taxes. Christian initiatives are subsidized and tax money is spent on preserving their places of worship, just because it’s of cultural significance. I do wonder though, why every church is treated like it’s historical influence is great enough to save it from demolition. Even in these times of heavily reduced church attendance. It seems the Christian influence upon the western culture has made it’s dominance stick, which is worrying, to say the least.

So what about it? What can we, the youth, do to save culture? The answer is quite simple, we should keep on doing what we do best. Non-conformance is the only way to save culture, pubescent behavior keeps it from dying altogether. So if you’ve got kids, and they’re rebellious, be proud of them. They are the real preservers of culture.

There’s been some talk of atheist movements and how they might work or be organized. I think this is a great idea, and the more push there is for the atheist agenda, the more sane our world will be. I wanted to write a small essay of sorts on how an atheist movement might be accomplished as well as ask for feedback from other writers and readers here at Anti-Christian Phenomenon. Serious change should be the on the minds of every active atheist or anti-theist, because the religious institutions of the world will never stop until everyone else is under their control. Beware, it’s a long albeit badly written, and very much thought out, at least I hope it is. Again, I’m looking for feedback and serious discussion.

Let’s address some serious questions. (more…)

I debated whether or not to put this under the DC series but decided against it. This is less a “debunking” or awareness article and more of a ramble. As you may or may or not know, I work a part time customer service oriented job during the summer. This is something I discovered, much to my displeasure.

(more…)

Debunking Christianity III — Of War and Manipulation

I deliberated quite a bit about whether or not to include this article under the Debunking Christianity series. I finally decided to include this with DC because it fits into my overall goal statement, which I will type up in the very near future, and should have posted before I even began the series. This is not your typical “Religion = war!1!! War iz teh evul! Stop relijuns = no more warz!111!!!” article that you might see elsewhere on this topic. It is less of a “debunking” and more of an awareness article, but it still fits.

Without further ado, here is the Debunking Christianity view of war and its ties with religion. (more…)

[Disclaimer, as is most likely necessary for some readers]
Those who know me would agree that I would be the last person to play the “sexism” card. I dislike the behavior and views of anti-male feminists as much as I can’t stand misogynists. I have no desire to change “History” to “Herstory” or demand pronoun awareness where his or her/himself or herself/He or She, etc, replaces every gender-neutral “he”. While I would like to see gender gaps lessen in terms of pay rate and promotional opportunities in many fields, but I understand that we’re living in the midst an age of change. Theoretically. For an independent, driven woman, I’m not really much of a feminist, as I have trouble seeing where the alleged misgivings feminists generally cry about are. Men and women do generally have different strengths and weaknesses and trends and interests… I’m perhaps what you could call a gender moderate. I actually resent being drawn into discussions about gender because I find the entire topic completely inconsequential and inane, similar to discussions about race. However, sometimes…

I will be focusing on the female end of this issue as that is the side I identify with. Hopefully comments will provide us with a male perspective. Additionally, my experience is based strictly in America, as that is where I was born and raised, and perspective on both genders from other countries may be a bit different. I can not say definitively. Keep in mind also that the religious portion is only one part of this problem. I am not saying it is the only contributer, just a major one.[/disclaimer]

Despite the fact that most of us living in the developed world are adapted to living in a post- feminist society, used to seeing women working in positions previously dominated by men, actual gender roles are still a hurdle. There is no front I see this promoted more on than on the religious front. However, here I will not be discussing the horrors of female circumcision or the outrage of Muslim law, but rather two cute little Christian children’s books I found on the shelf of K-mart last week.

Its a sad and quite inaccurate misconception that all little girls love pink, frilly Disney princesses, Barbies/Bratz/etc., jewelery and makeup, waiting for their princes on white steeds to slay the dragon, and all little boys love sports and Tonka trucks, Transformers, video games and Legos, slaying dragons for the (weak) little girls. I’m sure many readers here broke the stereotype in one way or another. Personally, I never fit the little-girl stereotype. Not once.

I was more interested in classifying Dinosaurs, illustrating stories, and reading fantasy novels than anything else, and had more fantasies about slaying (or taming) the dragon myself (while wearing bloody, blackened armor, usually with powerful magic or in league with some dire wolf companions) than having a knight in shining armor do it. STILL I am repulsed by the color pink and the cliche “feminine” niche I was expected to fill through middle school and high school, and even to a small degree in college (though honestly at an art school, gender lines basically do not exist). I, and many like me, do not want to grow into the cliche female gender niche, our primary purpose being the bearing and raising of children, taco night, shopping for fun, and enjoying what luxuries our husbands bestow on us. And honestly, in this age, the pressure to grow into that niche is significantly less, especially as the SYF (single young female) lifestyle grows more prevalent. So why is it that girls growing up today DO feel pressure to conform into this lifestyle, and are impressed upon to enjoy the pink and frills and wait for their knights in shining armor? Similarly, why are boys impressed upon grow into protectors and providers for the weak and needy (read: females), fixing things around the house, disarming the robbers, bringing in the majority of income, and so on?

Here, we’re forced to look back into the child’s upbringing. It’s a simple fact that childhood affects adulthood, as is easy to see in the indoctrinated, and the propagation of religion and belief systems within family structures. Tradition maintains subtle but important aspects of interaction such as gender roles. Again, it is arguable that these roles have become obsolete and more of an illusion in society today, between gay rights movements, women’s move into the workplace, and similar movements in conjunction with acceptance of previously unusual or “dysfunctional” family structures. In these previously unusual structures we can see men and women switching roles, as stay-at-home dads come into existence–males doing housework and fixing dinner while women bring home the bacon, or there are two men/two women in the house instead of a traditional heterosexual relationship, single moms or dads, or even the woman holding a higher paying job than the man.

However, it is on religious fronts, not the social, that we see the obsolete concept of the stereotypical, concrete, gender role persisting. I’m not going to take time to go into Islam here, we already know and agree that they are medieval in their beliefs, honor-killing women for showing skin in public or falling in love with the wrong person. No one except the Muslims themselves would agree that this is acceptable behavior. Just as many of us will deny that moderate Christian beliefs are a destructive force in society. They’re not the crazy fundamentalists teaching their kids that the world is 6000 years old, or sending them to Jesus Camp, etc. They’reкомпютри just good, average citizens, promoting good strong values in their children. They’re probably also buying their kids books like this: God’s Little Princess Devotional Bible and God’s Mighty Warrior Devotional Bible.

I was in K-mart when I walked by these. Read the product descriptions. Remember my ramble earlier about “stereotypical” boy and girl interests? Don’t these seem a bit familiar? Click around on a few of the recommended girls books, too. “Gigi - God’s Little Princess” and “Will - God’s Mighty Warrior”, all receiving four or more stars, all promoting the stereotypes I outlined earlier.

Will: heroically rescuing his sister, adventuring through the jungle, doing anything with God’s protection! He goes on a creepy-cave adventure and pretends to be a pirate with his friend
Gigi: Learning to dance beautifully to make God proud of her! Confidence because she is a daughter of the King! She has a tea party and becomes cheerleader of a soccer team!

Why?

Anyway, of course, I must have just found flukes, right? I’m sure these were the exceptions because we, as moderate Christians, clearly do not espouse such outdated values in this day and age. We’re enlightened and progressive!

Gigi, God’s Princess, also has an animated show, a doll, a pop up purse, a sticker book, and is recommended right alongside Veggie Tales and an Aslan necklace on Family Christian Stores, as well as BooksforChristians.com and countless other sites that I just don’t have the time or interest to explore. Her books all have 4+ stars and reviews gushing with praise. The author, Shiela Walsh, also writes devotional bible studies for women (as opposed to men or everyone?) and inspirational books on prayer, as well as Christian-friendly romance novels. If these books had been printed in the late 80’s/early 90’s, they would have been presents from relatives. My brother would definitely have had a Will Warrior book (that I would have read jealously). This is not a fundamentalist publication by a crazy extremist author, and the stereotype divide is not alien to Christian children’s publications and movies, even today, in this “progressive” age.

Ok, so what? These are great kid’s stories, have wholesome messages at heart, and promote the Faith in a family friendly, non-violent, safe way! Getting worked up over something so innocent seems a bit reactionary and unnecessary, right?

Maybe it IS just a personal issue, the fact that I personally can never relate to Gigi, religion totally aside for sake of this argument. Maybe it is my personal belief that a human should be self defining, not defined by who their father, mother, or spouse is. Gigi is told to be proud that her FATHER is a King, not that SHE is a princess. Its technicality of language here, but the two mindsets are totally different. One mindset promotes the idea that you should value yourself based on your relationships with others, and the other promotes the idea that you should value what you are. It just so happens that women in the past have been defined based on who their father or husband was rather than on their own terms. This is an outdated mindset that no self respecting person should take on in the 21st century, and these “wholesome” Children’s books are encouraging it!

The other problem that might be considered more of a “personal” problem is that I can not relate to any of the activities Gigi does. I am more interested to read about Will’s pirate adventure or the creepy cave than Gigi’s tea party or dance class. But I am not the target audience of the Will books. I struggled with this sort of thing as a kid — to come to terms with interests outside your gender can be very difficult, and creates unnecessary tension throughout adolescence. I’m not just referring to crying about getting the wrong toy in a Happy Meal, but deep-seated issues such as sexuality and morality. When it is imprinted beginning in childhood that is “wrong” for a boy to like pink and flowers and “wrong” for a girl to enjoy questing and dragon-slaying, what will a boy or girl think when they find themselves drawn to the forbidden interest? What about the boy who would rather have a tea party, or the girl who would rather explore the creepy cave? Are they “wrong”? Obviously, looking at this from a mature perspective, the answer is a resounding “NO”, but from the child’s perspective, it is not so clear. Children should not be worried about fitting into traditional gender roles anymore! There is absolutely no need for the anxiety or alienation from peers that sometimes results, nor the guilty soul-searching that results through adolescence, when the family and culturally impressed perception of “wrong” conflicts with reality and the child becomes old enough to understand the nature of the conflict and its potential moral consequences. Am I wrong in other ways? Am I evil? Am I a monster? Why don’t I fit? Am I gay (sometimes yes, sometimes no)? Am I sick? I’ll never find another like me. I’ll never be accepted. Etc… etc… All based on the inability to conform to the illusion of gender roles.

Unfortunately, the ideal where these questions need not be asked is not the reality yet. I was not the only girl who slew dragons as a child, and those who did have similar stories of alienation and the feeling of “wrongness” throughout adolescence and at the age of reason. While good Christian publishing houses release family friendly children’s publications promoting a clear stereotypical gender line will fly under the radar and help keep this illusion in place.

After all, didn’t Susan, the queen of Narnia (who filled the niche of a strong, independent girl), get dramatically rescued by Prince Caspian anyway, while her brother, Peter the High King, fought the Big Bad Guy to protect the land?

I decided to start this post because of the comments I see in my previous post. I really don’t like to divert the comments of articles so much from the main subject so I think that a new post related to the issue is the best choice.

Like many other times before, a classic Christian argument against atheism has cropped up, that is, that Communism is atheistic. Included there are a few quotes from Marx like so:

“…criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism”

” Once the essence of man and of nature, man as a natural being and nature as a human reality, has become evident in practical life, in sense experience, the quest for an ALIEN being, a being above man and nature (a quest which is an avowal of the unreality of man and nature) becomes impossible in practice. ATHEISM, as a denial of this unreality, is no longer meaningful, for atheism is a NEGATION OF GOD and seeks to assert by this negation the EXISTENCE OF MAN. Socialism no longer requires such a roundabout method; it begins from the THEORETICAL and PRACTICAL SENSE PERCEPTION of man and nature as essential beings. It is positive human SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, no longer a self-consciousness attained through the negation of religion.”

” The abolition of religion as the ILLUSORY HAPPINESS OF MEN, is a demand for their REAL HAPPINESS. The call to abandon their lllusions about their condition is a CALL TO ABANDON A CONDITION WHICH REQUIRES ILLUSIONS.”

Now, I am no expert in Communism. I’ve read the manifesto and a few other articles on it but my experience is nevertheless quite limited. However the quotes above do not seem to me to read as if Communism requires the forced applciation of atheism. If nothing else, he seems to be saying that Atheism is unnecessary as socialism goes over it and grants self-consiousness through the placing of the man. It is worded in a strange way but nowhere there is the urging of violent abolition that some Cristians would like to claim.

The rest of the quotes, as pretty normal for an atheist and I happen to share a lot of that sentiment. Still, the communist manifesto is an idea. It is not set in stone and, very much like religion, open to interpretation. Sometimes that interpretation will be bad and sometimes better (Granted, there has not been a good interpretation yet but in general I don’t believe that Communism is ready to be introduced to the world currently anyway; but that is the point for another discussion, outside the scope of this site) but just because Marx was an atheist, does not make Communism an atheist ideology and nor is it correct to attribute the deaths caused by the self-called Communist regimes to atheism.

If nothing else, Communism, as being mostly a socioeconomic system, does not care about personal beliefs. It knows they will fail in the coming age and treats them as irrelevant. The anti-religious actions of some of the Communist regimes cannot and should not be attibuted to the whole concept. The same way that the actions of Jehova’s Witnesses or Later Day Saints, cannot be attributed to the whole of Christianity. Not only that but what is said to be the original teaching of Christ, resemble Communist ideals much more than they do Capitalistic ones, which is understandable of course when you think where he got his ideology.

There is also the fact that not all Atheist are Communists, as exemplified by the Objectivists and the Libertarian movements. This should be obvious as Atheism does not have -by itelf- any political or philosophical connotation but for some reason it is lost on some Christian critics.

It is common for Christians to lump all aspects of Communism together, as it is common for many atheists (or other religions) to lump all aspects (denominations, intra-denomination) of Christianity together. Both of them are open to interpretation and even then, applying them to the real world may wield different results. The difference here is that Communism can be improved. It can be changed so that the wrong aspects of it are taken out. There is no “right” version but rather the better version will make itself known when a society achieves it. It is only an idea and it is not set in stone.

Christianity on the other hand, very literally, is. While you may interpret the Bible in a thousand different ways (or even just make some stuff up, say it’s the word of God and start your own version) it is impossible to improve it beyond a certain point. Why? Because it requires the belief in an unprovable and self-contradicting entity. No matter how many “good” values you add to your particular denomination (i.e. Environmentalism) it will still keep this illogical belief. Not only that, but you will also have to keep various other aspects of Christianity in order to keep a certain coherence, or Groupthink. Some of those, as exemplified by our new frequent visitor, Deep Thought, are quite controversial, especially the ones that go against personal liberty in order to satisfy some religious mandate from a nomadic lifestyle that goes back a few thousand years.

The comments then moved on to my previous article where Deep Thought decided to comment after my urging.

“Even if you compare Stalin’s and Mao’s to religious leaders like (this time correctly) Hitler, Mussolini, King Justinian and even Bush, you will see that, were the first did what they did for the benefit of their country (albeit at a high cost of human lives within the same country they were benefiting) with tangible results (USSR become a superpower and China is on the same track right now), the later did their atrocities for no other specific reason than to follow demented (religious) ideals and/or satisfy their own (or, as in the case of Bush, the people that move their strings) lust for power.”

And to compare Stalin favorably to Bush!!!!! Sweet heavens to Betsy, man! Stalin purposefully starved no less than 2 million of his own citizens to death to make a freakin’ POINT was not doing so “for the benefit of their country” as you claim, but in a naked rush for power. Yeah, Bush is *mush* worse than Stalin.

Stalin was a demented power hungry megalomaniac, I agree but he still did everything he did for the nation and not for personal power (he was as high as he could be what the heck). I believe my point still stands.
I did not say that he was a good leader, just state the results of his regime. While under Stalin the USSR become a world power, under Bush the USA has become one of the most hated countries in the world, not to mention the debt they are in.

Communism is not about nationalism however. Even if Communism was an atheist ideology, it would still not align the original idea with Stalinism. Nor Maoism nor anything else. If people were to blame all the evils of communism on atheism, should we then place the blame for 1500 years of intellectual darkness on Christianity? After all, the leaders of those times happened to be Christians. Hitler was religious as well, should we place the WW2 blame on theism? It’s just not how it works.

There is just no connection between atheism and “the evils of communism”. And the same goes for secularism.

“The more theocratic the community, the more ridiculous the morals seem to be.”

Let me make a few counter-examples, if I may. Hussein’s Iraq (secular nation); Khmer Rouge Cambodia (explicitly atheist); Mao’s China (also explicitly atheist); Republican Spain (also explicitly atheist). We can cut out Hussain’s Iraq and Republican Spain entirely and just focus on the two explicitly, vocally atheistic nations of Khmer Rouge Cambodia and China while Mao was alive. Their total death toll (internal only)? No less than *no less than* THIRTY MILLION. 30 million people dead under explicitly non-theistic governments, of their own citizens only, in single generation. It works out to about 1 million people a year, or more than 2,700 people every day for three decades.

To put that in perspective, you would have to slaughter ever man, woman, and child in modern day Israel 4.2 times to reach this (minimum) number of deaths.

In contrast the First and Second Intifadas have killed less than 10,000 people over 20 years, or about 4 days worth of deaths under the atheistic China of Mao.

Isreal is a secular nation with religious citizens. So is Syria. So is Jordan. So is Egypt. So is Lebanon. America has one of the highest rates of weekly church attendance (a great proxy for ‘level of devoutness’, a term I despise) - how ‘ridiculous’ are the morals of America? How about compared to the morals of the oh-so-anti-theistic Cambodia of the Killing Fields?

Perhaps I should not have used the word “morals”. Nevertheless, all these examples do not show morality, nevermind the fact that the examples are all the worst cases that you can present for secularism. But even then, secularism, like atheism, does not promote any philosophy. It just means that laws are not made on religious grounds and nation’s religion does not affect people who do not share the same belief.

If you are to just take religion out of the picture and replace it with nationalism however the same if not worse environment will appear. When you make decisions based on abstract terms like “The good of the nation” or “the will of God” then human lives stop meaning much in front of the greater picture. That was the problem of Stalin, Pol Pot and all the rest bad apples.

However when I mention morality, I of course, compare it with the generically accepted western morality. I understand that it is not the best comparison but it’s one who is similar enough to mine to talk about.
Theocratic nations have laws that are based on morals taken from ancient books from shepherds and illiterates. These are laws preventing the existence of gays, divorce, abortion and other personal choices.

In the end. It is not that a secular nation cannot have bad laws, but at least it will not have bad laws because of religion. It is not that atheism will make a person good but at least it will not make him to bad things because of religion. It’s that simple. The more religion takes power and the more secularism is eroded, so do you get more ridiculous laws, based on ridiculous morality.

(PS: Sorry for any grammatical errors but I do not have time to proof-read it)

This is perhaps a perfect example of outright lies used to further a theological position.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2007450000,00.html

From the article…

A CATHOLIC leader has claimed condoms are infected with HIV deliberately.

Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio, the head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique, claimed some anti-retroviral drugs were also infected “in order to finish quickly the African people”. (more…)