Sunday, May 23, 2010

I Must Always Remind Myself

I must always remind myself that the majority of those who post at Ray Comforts blog and others like it are not Christians. At least they are not like any Christians I have met in the real world. I need to remind myself of this to avoid becoming bigoted against Christians. I know that there are those who despite their belief in gods are rational, intelligent and moral people. I know this because I know them. I may not understand why they believe what they do but I can respect them as good friends and good neighbors.

The folks at Comforts swamp, Rapture Ready, Debunking Atheism and other such places give an entirely different impression. They are hateful, lying, degenerates. I say degenerates because by their own admission without belief in their mythology they would be robbing, and raping children and committing murder all of the time. They even describe themselves as evil and wicked. They claim that Atheists must be degenerates because we do not follow the dictates of Christian mythology so we must be raping and murdering and doing all of the things they would want to do if they weren't afraid of hellfire.

I say lying because that is what they do. They lie, they distort and misrepresent peoples statements. They continue to do so after repeatedly being shown exactly how they have taken statements out of context or repeated a lie someone else has told. Ray Comfort, for those who don't know, is a smarmy televangelist and cult leader who is the chief liar of the bunch. Nothing he says is truth and when called on his lies he dodges or changes the subject or simply deletes responses that make him look bad.

I say hateful because they are. They throw around mockery and false accusations. They make generalisations about Atheists and non Christians. They engage in the most atrocious bigotry that if it were directed at blacks or Jews it would be reviled by every decent person on the planet. Yet they get away with it because they do it in the name of their religion and the more sensible and decent Christians are either unaware or look the other way. Not that Christians outside the cult all approve, to the contrary, many Christian denominations widely decry Comfort as a heretic, but not because of his bigotry, it is his doctrine that draws their ire. His works based salvation and slavish literalism is what gets him shunned. This is fine and probably appropriate, but I would also like to see him called out for his lies and bigotry.

That is why, as I have said, I must always remain aware that these creatures are not representative of Christianity in general. Rather they are more akin to other cultists of any faith. They are the fringe loonies. The ignorant wingnuts. The mad bombers that the mainstream members of all faiths be it Islam, Hindu, Buddhism, or Christianity, would very much like to see go away.

11 comments:

BeamStalk said...

It is good to step away from the swamp from time to time.

Ryk said...

As nice as it would be to say fuck em all sometimes I have to remember that is exactly how Ray treats atheists. Branding us all as one entity. Even if the rational and honest Christians are hard to find they are worth engaging as individuals.

Also in real life they are easier to find than on the internet. Of course Raytardo probably considers them false converts.

Tracy said...
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Tracy said...
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Ryk said...

Actually Tracy you are one of the people that convince me that it would be wrong to put Christians in general on such a list.

Tracy said...
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Fiat Lex said...

I've got a few Christians on my blogroll who are the opposite of the Rapture Ready nut. For the express purpose of reminding myself that there are people out there using the Christian ethos for the things it says it's for. My favorites at the moment are:

slacktivist
barkingreed

A symbol system is a tool, like a scalpel or a hammer. You can use it to heal or build; equally you can use it to mutilate or destroy. Took me a long time to be able to emotionally, not just intellectually, stop blaming the hammer.

Anette Acker said...

Thank you for not judging all Christians by the behavior of a few, Ryk.

On a different note, you recently said to me on Atheist Central that there is no scientific or logical reason to suppose that a Creator exists, and I just did a blog post on that subject. I would welcome your thoughts if you have time to read it.

Anonymous said...

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Tracy said...
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Tracy said...
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