The Antichristian Phenomenon

“NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 6, 2010, as a National Day of Prayer.  I call upon the citizens of our Nation to pray, or otherwise give thanks, in accordance with their own faiths and consciences, for our many freedoms and blessings, and I invite all people of faith to join me in asking for God’s continued guidance, grace, and protection as we meet the challenges before us.”

But Mr. President, my (lack of) faith does not have any equivalent to prayer, I don’t have any God to give thanks to, or ask for guidance or protection. You “call upon” me to do what, then?

Even if we put aside the fact that prayer has not been proven to provide a result more consistent than the randomness that would occur naturally, even if we grant that some people “enrich” their lives with it (without questioning exactly how talking to themselves enriches their lives, of course), and even if we acknowledge the role in the history of the United states played by Christianity… I’m sorry, I mean, “a generic concept of religion without referring to any specific denomination or faith but slightly alluding to Christianity, so as not to blatantly exclude or offend anyone except atheists and agnostics”, then it still begs the question, what about those of us who DON’T pray, for whatever personal reason? Effectively, you’ve just told us to participate in a religious exercise, and no matter how much of a “universal” spin you try to place on it, the fact remains that it is not universal. The fact that it is fundamentally unique to specific spiritual worldviews indicates that the government should keep its hands out, or violate the freedoms of those who do not hold the worldview that includes the exercise.

This fact makes these words incredibly hollow:


Let us rejoice for the blessing of freedom both to believe and to live our beliefs, and for the many other freedoms and opportunities that bring us together as one Nation.

Yes, the blessing of freedom to live our beliefs. That implies that no government official ever tells you what you should be doing in your personal, private, spiritual life. EVER. Well, Mr. President, by issuing your Proclaimation “calling the citizens… to pray”, you are doing just that.

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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.

It is a common theme, especially in regards to the Antichristian Phenomenon, that someone will take offense at our existence, the things we say, or the behaviour of some of our members. Many times have people left shouts at our shoutbox on how we’re burning in hell or some such. At some point we even had a troll join the group, sprout some nonsense and leave it again, which meant that we couldn’t ban him (Which was eventually the reason to turn the group into member-approved entry). That’s christian integrity for you.

It’s also been a while since I posted in the “Jesus Rocks” group where they implemented a rule to stop arguments between christians and non-christians. I only joined that christian group to reply to that thread. Thanks then to Last.fm’s reply tracker, I was notified that I had a new response today.

Since I am no longer a member of that group and nor do I wish to join to discuss that there, I was getting ready to reply in IM when I thought it would be better to reply through the ACP and perhaps have some actual dialogue in the process.

What follows is the reply I received and interjected are my responses to porkchop1234′s points:

db0 the problem isnt always from us as you seem to believe.

I suggest you check my profile and look into my forum posts and you will see for yourself a member of your group namely ISos has in the past trolled past threads when it came to debate over God and religeon. Of coarse when I went to the anti christian phenomenom forum the first thing I see is a posting in the main forum heading page saying this group takes no responsibility for the actions of its members. How quaint. Then in the shoutbox of your forum i see the comment from one of your members and i quote ‘ENOUGH TALK LETS GO BURN SOME CHURCHES’

First of all, I don’t see how Isos has trolled and I find it hard to believe that he has. Please provide evidence.

Secondly. Yes we cannot be held responsible for the members of our group. We are not an organization ffs and nor are we going to be stalking our members to see who behaves (even if we wanted to). If you have a problem with someone, take it out with himself, not with his groups. Do you hold his other groups responsible for his actions as well or is the ACP just a suitable target?

Furthermore, I find it strange that you mark a loosely knit group by the actions of its members. Does that mean that I should judge Christianity by the actions of pedophile priests, wife-beating husbands and born-agains? This is Great! I didn’t realize that discrediting Christianity would be so easy.

But of course it isn’t and you know it. Just as I cannot judge christianity solely on the actions of their few bad apples, other than say that christianity does not automatically make you a better person, so it is mistaken to judge the ACP by a few members that misbehave. Especially when we have a history or attacking idiotic behavior and reliefs, even within our ranks.

With stuff like that CAN YOU REALLY BLAME US for being suspicious of you and your members? I have just joined this forum and I dont approve of this rule AT ALL. I also point out that your forum shares part of the blame. There has been ATTACKS on christian forums by some of your members Ive seen it.

I don’t blame you for being suspicious. I just couldn’t care less. However If you judge someone from what you believe his affiliations mean instead of what they really stand for, then you are plainly ignorant.

As for attacks on christian forums, once again, provide evidence and we can discuss it. This being a forum, such a task should not be difficult.

If you really want open debate I suggest you learn to control some of your membership and kick out the trolls. You have a responsibility for the actions of your members just like the owners here have when it comes to their members.

Next….these are not my words people so dont get mad at me. Im sick and tired of seeing users from the anti christian phenomenom putting up posts where at the bottom they have crap like F God F Christ etc. You want to debate us STOP insulting our God and acting stupidly and maybe we will take you seriously.

I don’t care about people’s signatures insulting your senses. I don’t generally care on anyone’s feelings being insulted as you can see on the “On Respect:” series of mine. If you are so thin skinned that a signature makes you stop talking then you’re obviously not meant for dialogue and you’re better off having another hobby. I can guarantee you that some of our member arguments can make a two-line signature look like praise to God in comparison.

Furthermore, if you want to censor anti-religious signatures, are you for censoring anti-muslim, anti-hindu and andi-nordic ones as well (Fuck Odin!)? Should we censor, say, cartoons? How about books? Is this sinking in already or should I make it more clear?

As for holding our members responsible, see my reply above.

And finally dbo I have no reservations in defending my faith whatsoever. I have done so many times since Ive joined LastFm. In one of your past posts dbo you said we dont want people to think and know the truth. One thing I will tell you right now though is that GOD IS TRUTH. You want to reject that belief then the problem is yours not mine.

There see people me and dbo are debating God. And I have no complaints about it and I CAN hold my own against him. We all can. There is nothing to fear from these people.

Right then. I’m waiting for you to take on some of the articles in here.

Once again I return to my recurrent theme about respect to religion. This time my ire was drawn out by the discovery that Alcohol inhalers have been banned in 22 (soon to be 23) states of the USA.

This is yet another example of how organized religion, even though “eternally persecuted” as all them like to whine, always, somehow, manages to amass enough leverage to take away the freedoms of people who do not have the same opinion.

These alcohol inhalers were not banned because of health concerns, nor because they might endanger public safety (at least, not any more than normal alcohol consumption). They were banned because they take away the punishment for the sin of drinking.

Let me restate that in case you missed it:

They forced a ban on a perfectly safe device because it took away the punishment for the sin.

How can they justify that in a court of law, I cannot fathom.

Judge: You’ve been found guilty of the crime of inhaling alcohol

Defendant : And why is that exactly a crime again?

Judge: Well, since you tried to avoid the divine punishment for being a drunkard, we will have to make up for it…

Then again, if the story of Marijuana criminalization is any example, I don’t think they will actually care to explain it.

This little example, which initiated this post, is just the top of the top of the iceberg. However it perfectly exemplifies how utterly ridiculous reasons can end up taking away your right to lead your own life as you see fit. When they cannot ban things based on bogus ideals (ex. a collection of cells is a live being) they do it plainly based on their own twisted morality.

This, of course, leads to the great silliness we see today where nudity is more taboo than violence, where pain is something you have to endure (for it’s a punishment from God dontcha know?) and escapism is frowned upon.

To tell you the truth, I’m surprised these bans passed. Being in a democratic country does not mean that the majority can do whatever the hell they wish. If they do not want to use the alcohol inhalers, they’re welcome to but why the fuck does a person who does not accept their idiotic dogma have to suffer their rules? What if they would vote to ban black metal next? Should they have the right to ban anything the majority does not like? Is this not about personal choices? Where is the limit?

And of course, they then have the audacity to whine when we don’t respect their idiotic delusions, when they don’t even have the common sense to respect our personal freedom.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you’re a christian, you have no right to complain when I make fun of titty-fuckin-Jeezus, unless you’re out on the street, protesting for the limiting of my freedom ,even when it would go against your own morality…

I’m guessing this might become a semi-regular series of post since there does not seem to be any shortage of articles that provoke me to write.

My latest “provocation” comes in the form of the reaction of Muslim extremists to the knighting of author Salman Rushdie.

“This is an occasion for the 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision,” Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, religious affairs minister, told the Pakistani parliament in Islamabad. “The west is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the ‘sir’ title.”

I do not think the irony in the above sentence has been lost on anyone. It is like saying something akin to: “If you call me violent again I’m going to kick your ass“.

Setting that aside for the moment though, the biggest problem lies in the fact that these people are allowed to say these hate-filled inflammatory things. They are “allowed”, not in the sense that someone should silence them (as that would be a violation of freedom of speech), but in the sense that their fellow 1.5 billion Muslims do not raise their voices to condemn such a reaction. There is not a public Muslim outcry, nor do they speak up to distance themselves from these religious fanatics that would rather silence controversial speech than listen and improve.

But no, not only are the Muslims of the world not appalled by these statements but they grant their silent consent and give leeway to fanatics that will attempt to gain a priority ticket to jannah. The only objections that were raised on this? That he deserves judgment before being killed and that maybe the sentence only counts if he is in an Islamic country.

Unfortunately, it is in the name of “Respect” that people don’t judge this horrid religion as befits it. Just because there exists a minority of peaceful Muslims who cry wolf every time their precious beliefs are insulted.

And then they have the gall to go out in the street and burn the book!
I wonder how these people would take it a few thousand people gathered, burned Qur’ans and shat on the drawings of Mohammad?
They expect us to respect their ridiculous delusions, but for them that also entails allowing them to step on freedom of speech ( I remind that the book was banned on almost all Islamic countries while they also tried to ban it in the UK. See the Timeline of Hate here), trying to force whole nations from exercising their traditions, accept their seething hatred for a single man etc.

Dawkins indeed had the right of it. Who is hiding all those people that bombed Bookshops – for fuck’s sake, Bookshops! – but the same “peaceful” Muslims living in the first world countries? They leave their oppressive countries to come to us and then they try to make this society afraid in the same way they were.

For them, the Knighting of a person who has granted so much to literature is an attack on Islam! For them it can only be respect if we act according to sharia and nothing else. Why then should I “respect” the rights of them to wear the clothes their religion requires, when they are not appropriate? Why should I respect their wish to keep their own religious holidays or anything else they wish to claim? Why should we respect anything?

I say Fuck ‘Em! Fuck their Mohammad and fuck their imams and fuck their worthless, piece-of-shit, excuse for a holy book. If they want my respect, they’d better earn it for it does not come cheap and it certainly does not come under threat of violence. The more they force me to “respect” them (ergo, shut my mouth) the more I will spit in their eye, piss on their religious symbols and laugh at their ridiculous and horribly outdated traditions.

And that goes for all Monotheists as well.

I am especially annoyed when people think they should “respect” a persons religious beliefs. I will not go into much depth because people like Richard Dawkins have already elaborated enough on this issue. However I recently saw another example that shows why doing that is so wrong.

Iran has passed a bill that invokes the death penalty for porn stars

Let me make this a bit more clear: People have taken it in their hands to murder other people for something that they did to themselves (In this case, the horrible crime is to have sex in front of a camera or be in any part an accomplish to it).

How is that for respect for you then? I wonder if there were more islamists in the first world, would they require we respect their right to kill porn producers because they “Corrupt the world”?

It is especially worrying that they will kill people with whom they do not agree in moral issues. They will kill people because living their life, without hurting anyone, is not the way that some guys, hundreads or thousands of years ago, heard some voices in their head say it should be.

No, I will not respect a religion who decrees such things. Do not even try to tell me that they are misguided and that is ” not what that religion of love is about”.

And I’m certain that the little fucks who pass these laws, don’t waste any time breaking them when no one is looking. Same way that the Brothel industry was booming in the Victorian age (yes, another great example of good solid Christian morality). In fascistic environments, like all monotheistic religion and theocratic nations are, the rules are only for the common people. Not for the rulers.

If you want respect for your religion of choice, I want to see you right now, on the fucking street, protesting against the things, people who claim to represent you are doing to the rest of us. If you want me to respect your “Religion of love”, you’d better be the biggest activist against all that and not sit at your home, ignoring it and let the rest do the dirty work.

If you want respect, I want you to be fighting ti preserve the rights your religion is trying to take away from everyone else.