I think it's fair to say that religions generally request, often demand, respect from us all as if they believe we should believe their views are in some way the equal of those that accept science as the focus of discovery and explanation.
So let's put that to the test shall we ... how about Christianity? This, based on 12 years of Catholic Church & schooling, seems a fair summation of the basic Christian belief system:
And that, in a nutshell, is it.
Now I respect the right of people to believe as they wish, why shouldn't I? I'm also an ex-Christian and, at least in a simplified version of the above, I could once look at the above and more or less accept it ... it really didn't seem that big a deal. Granted I was somewhat less than 13 at the time.
But here's the thing ... if I apply (if anyone applies) a bit of logic, a bit of reason and reviews it, it is (and let's be brutally honest here) absolutely, prime time, 100% insane. I mean it's not just an innocent little fairy tale that it is cute or sweet to believe in (a la Father Christmas for kids), it's wrong, it's childish, it's totally whacko ... it's the kind of thing that gets people locked up! And that's before you even get into the fact (by which I mean clearly, based on biblical scripture) that the Christian God is (arguably)...
When it comes down to it the Christian claim for respect, not of their right to hold such an infantile belief but to spread it and act upon it; to defend their "right" to be homophobic, to force their views down the throats of others, to refuse to grant all others the same rights as they have irrespective of their sex, sexuality, culture, creed or philosophy I can only assume them to be deluded, hypocritical or just plain pranksters. I doubt they'd admit to the last two so, considering themselves to be correct (yet out of step with modern enlightened society), I can only conclude delusion. Such a claim, therefore, deserves no more real respect than the claim that there is a man in the moon, that there are faeries at the bottom of the garden, that Father Christmas is real (for adults), that leprechauns are short & green or that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Indeed, given that their belief also enshrines a god whose ideas of justice vary from immoral through to pure evil, any rational person should not only be denying the Christian claim to respect but actually unwelcome in today's more enlightened social climes.
As previously stated I respect anyone's right to hold whatever belief they wish, it makes no difference to me or to our supposedly enlightened society but when that belief is brought into the public domain (any place where it can be objectively assessed by others or impacts on those who our society has a duty to protect) it deserves to be treated critically ... to be properly assessed as to whether it is (as claimed) as good as Christians say or, as secularists like me believe, something far worse. We as a society are quite used to cynical comment on the claims of politicians, of actors, of the media and more besides; we will almost sneer at the primitive beliefs such as those of the Romans, Egyptians, Africans, Aztecs, American Indians, Eskimos, Vikings, UFO nuts, astrologists and many more beliefs besides and that is considered (possibly harsh but) entirely fair. Yet we are expected to respect the essentially similar beliefs of Christians based on the technologically (and arguably morally) primitive beliefs of cultures of up to 2000 years old.
Whilst I know there are those who believe without a great deal of thought or scriptural awareness I think I can conclude that Christianity is a belief system that is simultaneously both infantile and vindictive ... yet they (Christians) want us to treat their cherished belief with respect.
All I can really ask is why?
James, surprise, I approved your blog post! Albeit at the same time I must apologize for the delay. The problem is Think Atheist is in a kind of hibernating state due to the the fact that no one could afford to pay to keep it going, officially.
Meanwhile, many of us moved over to Atheist Zone, as it costs much, much less to keep running. Please consider joining us there. We can keep hoping that one day the two will merge and maybe we can feel like we're in heaven again. :)
Thanks :)
I've joined AtheistZone (atheistzone@ukatheist.org.uk) but I'm not getting the email to allow me to confirm. I've checked my spam and all that, nothing. Does it take a while?
James
Ah! I figured it ... my email address should be atheistzone@ukatheist.org (no UK).
Not sure how to change that.
Contacted AtheistZone support.
Hey James, we moderators don't have control over personally registering someone, and the owner (Rebel) is in a different longitude of the planet so we don't always communicate quickly.
So I tried registering with an email that doesn't work, and I see no solution... I don't see a way to tell what happens to the status of an invalid email address, or if/when the request expires. And unfortunately it doesn't let me attempt to re-register with the same attempted username as before.
If you really want to apply with the same name and Rebel doesn't have a solution, email me at z0c@juicybits.com (that's a zero between the z and c) and I'll see if I can find a solution as a WordPress issue, which this probably is. (Btw my shorthand in the temporary address I just created has a zero to denote this year 2020, and this month December (hex character c for 12). I also name my temporary files similarly. Mr. Geek here, since high school, which was over 50 years ago.
Btw, are you making a unique email address for every registration? That's what I do!! You'd be only the second other person I know who does that, too. It adds to overall email security if one address gets breached at only one website, plus breaches are easier to detect. It takes me less than a minute to create each new email address. And then I have the list of hundreds of addresses that I've registered, immediately at hand.
In fact if you respond to this post, I will delete this post just to keep our secret savvy safe from prying eyes.
Replied by mail :)
J.
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