Disclaimer: I'm not Christian
I was dismayed to see a diary on the rec list mocking the concept of the virgin birth of Jesus. The central "joke" in the diarywas that Mary was really just having extra-marital sex. 90% of the commenters were yukking it up. . . . essentially saying how foolish people who believe in this story are. The author kept insisting that he wasn't really trying to offend anyone -- and that his wife and some of his kids are Christian.
I will try to give a few reasons why, in my view, the author of this diary, and his supporters made a mistake.
I am sorry for the length, but this whole episode made me very mad, and I want to explain why.
1. Mocking the minority opinion.
Think of some idea that is really important to you (e.g. concept of Democracy, your spouse, America, or your religion). Let's say you go hang out with a bunch of your friends who don't share the same level of enthusiasm about that idea. . . .not only that, while you are hanging out at this place and enjoying yourself, they start mocking the fact that you fee this "idea" is important to you.
A story example: You, an American are out with a bunch of European friends at a trendy restaurant in France. All of a sudden they all start making fun of America . . how we talk, how gullible we can be, how loud we are . . .etc
I guarantee you, you will NOT like it.
In our example, DailyKos is the hangout place, and nearly everyone here from Kos down to a large majority of commenters (notice I said commenters) are pretty vociferous atheists -- and these are the friends in my example.
Mocking the few of us who have different beliefs, does nothing for our joint causes -- it just makes YOU feel better, and us (non-atheists) feel bad.
The argument that America is mostly Christian, so it is OK to mock them, or Christians shouldn't feel offended is meaningless & stupid. In our context, in our community, Christians (and other non-atheists) are a minority.
2. Matters of belief & logic
We are human beings. Even the most logical, reality based among us disagree on basic facts about everything.
You remember the battles on who was the best presidential candidate? The JRE, HRC, and BHO folks were at each others throats nearly the entire time. We couldn't never agree on the basic facts. All of us felt the other guy/girl's candidate was a total fake . . .we doubted the basic sincerity of the other candidate.
Well, in a similar vein, we will never agree on the religious/belief questions. A Jewish person may think it is illogical to conceive of a "Virgin birth" but yet, at the very same time, think it is very logical for Adam to have been born without a mother or father or for Noah to have lived 950 years.
A non-atheist like me thinks it is extremely illogical to conceive of a world/universe that just spontaneously came into existence out of nothingness for no reason.
Is it really constructive to call someone stupid or moron, or make fun of them because you disagree on a basic fact . . .a matter of belief?
It was wrong to call someone a moron for thinking HRC is a sincere do-gooder, in the same way, it is wrong to call someone stupid because they think God created the Universe.
3. Growth of our community
Now, the belief in a supernatural being that created us (God) is shared by 4+ billion people, and 80% of Americans
The concept of the virgin birth of Jesus is shared by nearly all Christians(not sure about Unitarians) and 100% of Muslims. By themselves, that is more than half of humanity, and probably 70% of Americans
Do we really want to cut our "available pool" of receptive listeners by that much? If I wasn't used to this kind of writing on DKOS, and it was my first visit, I am sure I would have probably thought a lot less of this place.
Finally, I think we need to look at ourselves. Are we being progressive/liberals when we spend so much time mocking a belief set? Are we not becoming shortsighted like the conservative bigots we love to criticize?
To me a big part of liberalism is having an open mind, and not being so certain of our own views that we look down on others, considering the possibility-however remote-that we may be wrong.