It's a problem that I used to find myself engaged in meaningful conversations and debates when I would tell someone I'm an Atheist. Now I just get impatient sighs and rolls of the eyes. I get Democrats telling me to keep quiet because they cling to some delusional fantasy that they're going to win over the "church crowd" and I might alienate them. Religious Republicans tell me to get out of "their" country. Capitalist Republicans tell me I'm an irrelevant socioeconomic group. Sometimes my friends tell me I'm too serious and I need to lighten up.
I think there is a balance between people who want to end the world and people who want to save it. We like to think of the Muslim Fundamentalists as the bad guys, the menacing evildoers who want to blow up the earth. That image is actually comforting for us because it's never going to happen. Even if Al Qaeda got its hands on a nuclear bomb it's still a far cry from bringing about the apocalypse. But consider that American Evangelicals, who also happily portend the end of the world, have made it their mission to infiltrate the United States Air Force.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Not the Army. Not the Marines. Not the Navy. The Air Force. The branch of the military with the most ready access to nuclear weapons. It's a problem that one day one of these people is going to be flying a Stealth Bomber or a B-52 with a nuclear payload and arbitrarily decide to take out New York or Los Angeles because he's been told since childhood that they are modern day Sodom and Gomorra.
It strikes me that we are in denial in America. Perhaps most people do see what I see, they just have not yet come to terms with it. There seems to be some underlying belief that Americans are, in the end, a sensible and well meaning bunch. I've been on Kos for almost two years now. I've been politically active and involved all my life. And yet only during the last few years have I really started to understand the conflict in this country. As liberals we like to form intelligent and generally accurate arguments. We pride ourselves on being "reality based". But the other side is not looking for ways to counter our arguments. Fundamentalist Christians are living out a fantasy that is some 2,000 years old. These quaint notions like "democracy" and the U.S. Constitution are merely nuisances to them. They're using the system right now because it's working for them. The moment it stops working for them they'll just go for the next available tool: force. I know my history and, yes, it can happen here. Nazi Germany. Stalinist Russia. Christian America. Why does George Bush want absolute power? Why does almost 40% of the electorate want to give it to him? Maybe I'm just crazy.
Ever since 9/11, and even before, the question being asked in the media is "what's wrong with Islam?". You know, why are all these people dying to attack us? Why do they hate us? Why do they persecute their women? Why do they violently oppose progress even if it means living in barbaric squalor? Well, I think the same questions need to be asked about the Christian faith, particularly in America. What's wrong with Christianity? Why are so many American Christians persecuting women? Why do they violently oppose progress even if it means living in barbaric squalor? And I think it's a valid question to ask why many Christians violently attack the rest of us. For every Al Zarqawi there's a David Koresh. For every Mohammed Atta there's a Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph. For every Bin Laden there is a Pat Robertson. What is the problem with Christians? Why are they like this?
And then there are all of you "reasonable" people out there who abide by the Christian faith but lash out at me every time I criticize it. I know you're there. I know you're everywhere. My entire family is Christian. Only one of them, a born-again, is a complete raving End Times nut. The rest of my family is very reasonable. Very rational. Very educated. But they're not doing anything other than sitting around being reasonable. Meanwhile, my born-again aunt is out making leaflets to distribute to school kids in her neighborhood about the rapture and the end of the world. She spends five nights a week at a local church group finding ways to spread their message of heathens being burned alive in eternal hell fires. She even told my preteen cousins that I was going to be thrown into a lake of fire for moving to Los Angeles and working in the movie business. My own aunt said this about me.
And speaking of the movie business, does anyone else find it disturbing how far this "liberal" town of Hollywood will go to cater to the religious right? We're beyond The Passion and Narnia now, folks. Check this story out from the latest Newsweek.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
Great. Let's further whet the appetites of people already itching to kill non-Christians. When an Evangelical goes ape shit and kills a gay man or a Muslim and tells the police he got the idea from Left Behind, you think anyone is going to sue Tim LaHaye or Jerry Jenkins? You think anyone is going to cry about media violence? You think we'll see cover stories about the violent rhetoric of the Evangelical church? Nope.
What is it going to take for moderate, reasonable Christians to do more than just blog about how Jerry Falwell doesn't represent them? A mushroom cloud over Chicago? A Ricin attack on New York? More doctors and judges being threatened and shot at by rifle-toting fanatics looking to get into heaven? These people are not looking for debate or understanding. You have to do something more than just be reasonable. Your religion has been hijacked and you don't own it anymore. Like it or not, James Dobson and George Bush DO represent you because they're louder than you are. The problem with Islam is all the "reasonable" Muslims who quietly tolerate what goes on in the name of their religion. The problem with Christianity is identical in nature.
Roughly 40% of the American electorate believes Jesus Christ will return during their lifetimes. These people aren't just sitting around talking about it either. Like my born-again aunt they're out there getting ready for it. And if it doesn't look like the end of the world is going to come of its own accord, well, it certainly looks to me like they're ready to help the process along. We invaded Iraq not for oil, not for terror but to fulfill a Biblical prophecy. With all the countries in the world right now who are a threat to America's security is it any surprise we are occupying ancient Babylon?
http://www.cbsnews.com/...
Our President, the man with his finger on the nuclear button, already believes that Armageddon is a foregone conclusion. He freely admits to talking to God, and doing what Billy Graham has convinced him is God's will. Do you think George Bush will leave office in two years having passed up the opportunity to bring about the Second Coming? From talking to other Atheist friends of mine I get the sense that I am not alone in being an Apocalyptic Atheist. Oh yes, the end of the world is coming. Or at least some attempt at bringing it about is on the horizon. I feel like I see what's coming and it's dark and awful and nobody wants to talk about it. At the end of the day we all go to sleep knowing we have superior arguments. And yet I have this chilling image in my head of a radioactive Los Angeles and tanks with Bible verses written on them rolling through the streets.
And all we'll have to defend ourselves with will be our superior arguments.