Humanists, leave us alone

"Believers, please keep on believing, as long as your belief motivates you to peace and kindness and not to hatred and closed-mindedness. Nonbelievers, can we please stop with the in-your-face, “nyaa-nyaa” mentality?"

It's saddening to hear some atheists bashing religion as delusion and bashing believers as stupid. I've even had atheists call me wishy-washy for acknowledging the possibility that gods exist.

Having said that, such behavior is not even remotely comparable to that of believers who claim that others deserve to suffer for eternity in hell. No one deserves to suffer, particularly that level of suffering, and the worst thing one can say or believe about anyone is that he or she deserves to suffer.

I propose a compromise - atheists stop believing that theists are stupid, and theists do away with the doctrine of eternal damnation.

Jews shouldn't simply shut up when some Christians claim that Jews are doomed to hell from birth. And Christians shouldn't keep quiet when some Muslims claim that Christians are doomed to hell? So why should non-religious people simply shut up when the hell doctrine is flung at them by some Christians and some Muslims?

I drive past multiple church marquees daily , encounter Christian ads on the radio, television, bus placards, billboards; all denominations. I see Jesus fish emblems and faith bumper stickers everywhere, every day. When I sneeze, I am blessed by God; my money preaches God to me; and when I am in some stores, I listen to Christian music. Christianity is being advertised to me all the time, every day, even in my own home as I am encouraged to go to some or other church or invite evangelists to my house to tell me about their brand of belief. This goes on all year long.

Why should it be all right for Christian churches and organizations to advertise their beliefs and post ads encouraging others to come to their faith events and accept their theology but it's not all right for Humanists and other non-theists to do the same?

At this time of year especially, for almost two months we are constantly reminded by Christians to consider the “reason for the season (Jesus),” we are pressed to remember Jewish traditions (Hanukkah), the United States Postal Service sells stamps commemorating Eid ul-Fitr and Kwanzaa, and even theists give the winter solstice a tolerant nod. Why, then, is it so offensive for non-theists to promote their beliefs at this time?

As long as theists keep their beliefs in the public square, they should be ready to encounter the beliefs of other traditions, including non-theistic ones. We don’t need more name-calling and bigotry; we need awareness and public dialogue. Extremism, whether religious or not, does not promote understanding, tolerance, and the knowledge necessary to work out conflicts peacefully.

Believers, please keep on believing, as long as your belief motivates you to peace and kindness and not to hatred and closed-mindedness. Nonbelievers, can we please stop with the in-your-face, “nyaa-nyaa” mentality? There must be a less antagonizing way to get our message across that non-theists can be moral and good, honest and compassionate, without divine intervention.

This argument from a theist can be found on Greta Christina's excellent "Shut Up, That's Why" list of theistic methods for ending the discussion. It really helped me to see theistic responses for what they often are - nothing by attempts to make atheists shut up and go away.

http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2009/02/shut-up-thats-why.html

Yeah. Stop playing 'victim,' Reverend. You defend the 'right' of others to act all sour and 'oppressed' if I won't invite their apocalypse and condemnation into my own home any morning they feel like it.

Dry up.

This has been coming a long time. And it's not a big deal, except that it defies what plenty of people waving a Cross have been blaming on everyone else for decades.

My. Gods. Silliness.

Pull your *own* year-round ads if you feel even *one* mention of humanists as good people is some terrible oppression.

If you want others to be constrained by that standard even in the face of constant defamation of themselves...

You first.

Susan, I'm sure at Yale Divinity School they didn't teach you that Jesus was born on December 25th. I'm positive you learned that Dec 25 was an already established pagan holiday celebrating the return of the Sun after the winter solstice. It was also already the birthday of the Persian God, Mithras, who coincidentally was born of a virgin.

I definitely see a trend here for Susan Smith to pay attention to. Even if all atheists shouted it from the rooftops, it would be lost in the roar of religion. When you have known nothing but religious entitlement your entire life, even the faintest dissent is pretty shocking.

Taking out an advertisement is such a minor imposition that it hardly amounts to not leaving you alone. I see billboard advertising for Christianity all the time, is there a problem with trying to achieve 1% of a balance.

And I've never been visited by a door-to-door atheist proselyte.

Your nose is out of joint by one trifling little ad campaign? That's amazingly thin-skinned. Particularly as the Christmas ads began in, what? August? Sure seems that way. And who could miss the Easter candy push? The television programming devoted to theism?

So, I wish deists would just go on and believe like they want ... and leave those of us who do not believe in God alone. Or at least turn down the volume. After all, if you have to keep shouting about how wonderful your god and your fellow believers really are, it doesn't ring true.