Jane Gilvary: It's Denigrating when Atheists Voice their Opinions

Just a quick copy paste about the blatant hypocrisy of the xtians in this country. For too long have they had their way, and now they are starting to realize that their brand of con-artistry can't stand up to the scrutiny of those who haven't been duped. I guess the first amendment only applies to them. From:

It's simultaneously depressing and amusing to see Christians blow a fuse over atheists doing little more than expressing an opinion and/or being public about what they think. One might get the impression that some Christians regard the public square -- and indeed the entire public realm -- as their own exclusive property. They certainly don't seem able to handle any sort of direct competition, disagreement, dissent, or criticism.

Case in point this time around is Jane Gilvary, a student at St. Joseph's University who is throwing a fit over the existence of a "Tree of Knowledge" erected in West Chester, PA, by the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia. As an alternative to traditional holiday displays, this "tree" is designed to promote the values of literacy, learning, and skepticism -- none of which seem to be accepted or appreciated by the complaining Christians. Jane Gilvary in particular regards it as little more than "denigrating" for Christians to have to deal with something other than a religious display this time of year. Jane Gilvary asks why the Tree of Knowledge is there and instead of asking the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia, or citing any of their literature on the subject, quotes someone who just makes up nonsense out of thin air:

Colin Hanna, Founder of Let Freedom Ring and former Chester County Commissioner summates their motives quite nicely, "It's an agenda of hate and denigration, not a reverential celebration of any religious tradition. The Freethought Society is about attacking respectful Judeo-Christian traditions and nothing else."

Hanna sponsors the crèche each year on behalf of the Pennsylvania Pastors Network--a project of Let Freedom Ring, a nonpartisan public policy membership organization promoting Constitutional government, economic freedom, and traditional family values.

As a sponsor of the creche, Colin Hanna is hardly an impartial observer -- and as someone who is not now and has never been a member of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia, he's hardly in any position to speak about their motives, goals, or values. Maybe that's why he was picked to comment on exactly that topic rather than on something that he would know about. After all, why interview the people who have relevant knowledge and information if there is a risk that actual facts might undermine a good rant?

I don't think it's a coincidence that attacking people not only without the use of fact, but while deliberately avoiding the gathering of actual fact, is far more characteristic of hate-mongering and having an agenda of hate than anything which the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia has done. In effect, then, Jane Gilvary is more guilty of the things she is complaining about than any of the people she is trying to attack. But that's what happens when a person stops relying on facts, isn't it?

As a further indication that Jane Gilvary is more interested in ideology than sober, objective facts, just witness her own speculations about the atheists' motivations:

Indeed, the Freethought Society and their founder Margaret Downey are agents of the Enemy in every regard and their garish tree replete with "ornaments" in the shape of laminated book covers by prominent atheists is in poor taste. Of the hundreds of book titles hanging on the tree some include A Devil's Chaplain and The God Delusion by avowed doubter Richard Dawkins, Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman, and The End of Faith by Sam Harris.

Did you notice the phrasing in the first sentence? Not content with quoting Colin Hanna's baseless, fact-free accusations, Jane Gilvary decided to up the stakes by accusing the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia of being "agents of the Enemy." That means they are agents of Satan, if you misplaced your Fundy-to-English dictionary. It's not enough to get people to believe that atheists are the one's with an agenda of hate, but here Gilvary wants readers to regard the atheists as literally acting on behalf of a satanic agenda -- an evil agenda lacking any sort of redeeming, mitigating qualities. If that's not hate mongering, I don't know what is.

What's amusing, though, is that Jane Gilvary thinks she can base such an absurd claim on the fact that out of hundreds and hundreds of book titles referenced in the Tree of Knowledge, there are a couple of books that were actually written by atheists. How horrible! Why, it must be satantic for anyone to promote any sort of book written by atheists for the purpose of critiquing religion, theism, or Christianity. No one but an Agent of the Enemy would ever do such a dastardly, vile thing!

And this is the level of reasoning, evidence, and discourse we can expect from Christians trying to "defend" Christmas, right?

Atheist Bilboard: Predict xtian reaction!

And to think, I live south of these folks, and I bet that the locals in this area would get even more irate! And is so fucking predictable! I love the way the author of this particular blog starts off with a parody of the situation. Anyway, here is the write up. Oh, the amusement and irony!

Atheist Billboard Outrages Alabama Christians

Once again, loving Christians are demonstrating just how much more tolerant and respectful they than the militant atheists in their midst. Atheists in Alabama have erected a billboard declaring religion to be the cause for all evils and demanding that it be stamped out while religious believers, despite disagreeing with and objecting to the message, are firmly defending the rights of atheists to express their views just like all other citizens.

No, I'm just kidding — atheists merely put out the mild idea of imagining the absence of religion and Christians are howling with outrage. One company refused to rent them billboard space and, after finding a place for their sign, the atheists are receiving lots of complaints. This is pretty much how it always goes: atheists express something fairly mild and innocuous and Christians throw a fit.

Freethought association member Pat Cleveland of Talladega said she’s gotten about 50 irate calls about the billboard, but that the group’s intentions aren’t hostile. The Talladega Daily Home reported that a petition drive has been started to take it down.

Cleveland, 63, said the calls she’s received are “ugly” and “hateful.”

“They said I ought to be where John Lennon is, burning in hell. I’m sorry if anybody is offended, but I’ve seen billboards that offend me, like ones that say ‘Jesus is Lord’ over Talladega.”

“I’m proud to be an American,” Cleveland said. “I refrain from any religion. I’m a good person. I pay taxes, abide by the law and I’m good to my family. I help people. I believe hands that help are better than hands that pray.”

Source: Tuscaloosa News (via: Friendly Atheist)

So it's disrespectful and intolerant for atheists to suggest that people imagine the absence of religion, but it's perfectly respectable and respectful for Christians to tell atheists that they belong in hell — that they deserve to suffer infinite torment for an infinite length of time simply for daring to believe differently. This is hardly a surprising double-standard since hell is an orthodox Christian doctrine which Christians seem unable to recognize as evil.

The attitude seems to be that since God is responsible for it existing, then it can't be regarded as problematic. If anyone ends up there, it's entirely their own fault and there's nothing morally problematic about telling people that they belong there. Since religion generally and Christianity in particular are the source for all that's good in the world, however, even suggesting that one should imagine their absence might be regarded as an unmitigated evil itself.

The original billboard was supposed to be put up by Lamar Advertising, but they refused:

“It was offensive to me,” said Tom Traylor, general manager of Lamar Advertising in Birmingham. “We have the autonomy to decide what’s in the best interests of our company and what’s offensive. I don’t think it was the kind of message we wanted to stand behind.

“You have to know what area of the country you’re in,” he said. “A heavy percent of our population is Christian. That’s who we cater to.”

Gee, I didn't realize that advertising companies "stand behind" every ad that they place on a billboard. If that's the case, then Lamar Advertising can and must be held legally and morally responsible for ever advertisement they place on every one of their billboards. Tom Traylor has, it seems to me, made his company beholden to whatever ads they run. If some ad turns out to be false, then, doesn't that mean that Lamar Advertising can be held just as legally at fault as the company paying for it?

Tom Traylor's reference to how many Christians are in the local population is interesting. Since the ad says nothing more than "imagine no religion," Traylor is effectively saying that a heavy percentage of the people who would see the sign — and hold his company responsible for renting it — are irrational, unreasonable, and bigoted. What's more, he's identifying those irrational, unreasonable, and bigoted people as being Christian. What does that say about the nature of Christianity in Alabama?

Totalitarianism in Religion (Impediment to tolerance)

Why are so many religions often associated with totalitarian impulses - a tendency to force themselves on non-adherents as if no other beliefs were legitimate? It's arguable that such a tendency is inherent, at least in some religions, which means that religion itself needs to be reformed on a basic level.

In God’s Defenders: What They Believe and Why They Are Wrong, S. T. Joshi writes:

[A]ll religions that claim exclusive knowledge of the truth — and that includes the “big three” of the West: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam — are inherently totalitarian. If you believe you are right and everyone else is wrong (as all Christians, Jews, and Muslims are commanded by their respective scriptures to believe), then you have no option but to force your beliefs upon others.

I disagree that simply believing that one is right and others are wrong necessitates that one therefore force that truth on others — it’s a common progression from one to the other, but it’s not automatic and necessary in every possible case. Other elements are always needed and, at least when it comes to religion, such elements include the idea that being wrong is immoral or puts a person in grave danger.

Joshi proceeds to discusses these factors:

Indeed, such coercion will, on this hypothesis, be for their benefit: one does not, after all, wish more people to go to hell than is absolutely necessary. Punishment of heretics is sanctioned by nearly every sacred text in existence. It is, in fact, precisely because the believers of the Middle Ages and Renaissance were adhering rigidly and faithfully to their scriptures that they produced the “horrors” we now decry.

The only reason these horrors have ceased is because the decline of religious belief caused more and more people to question whether the scriptures were in truth the words of a god, and therefore whether the appalling acts of cruelty and viciousness committed for centuries on end could be theologically or morally justified. The real reason most Christians, Jews, and Muslims do not kill heretics is not because of some fancied movement toward “toleration” [but] because they lack the courage of their convictions.

Christians and Jews no longer really believe it when the Psalmist pleads: “Thou therefore, O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, awake to visit all the heathen: be not merciful to any wicked transgressors” (Ps. 59:5), or when Paul commands Christians to have nothing to do with unbelievers (2 Cor. 6: 14) — a command echoed in the Koran (5:56), which instructs Muslims not to have Jews or Christians as friends.

Religious believers have never given perfectly equal weight to every passage in scriptures or to every tradition. The fact that most religious believers no longer accept the authority of scriptures which command them to treat non-believers violently doesn’t mean that they have completely lost the courage of all their religious convictions or that they no longer take any of their religious beliefs seriously.

Instead, it means that they are approaching their religious traditions and scriptures with cultural filters on — culture affects religion to a significant degree, just as religion affects culture. Unfortunately, most religious believers simply don’t realize this. When Christians owned slaves, they justified it with religion and didn’t recognize that their slave-owning culture was influencing them. Now that Christians don’t own slaves, they justify it with the same religion without admitting that the opposite is equally valid and that their salve-opposing culture is influencing them.

We can repeat the same process with just about every ethical, social, and political change in any religion we care to use. People don’t lose the courage of their convictions, the change what their convictions are. Today, “toleration” is numbered among those convictions — it’s a conviction acquired through modern culture, but of course believers typically justify and rationalize their acceptance of it through their religion, just as their ancestors justified and rationalized intolerance through the same religion.

At the same time, though, exclusive claims to knowledge of the truth are an impediment to values like tolerance of others — not to mention negotiation and compromise with others, important factors in liberal democracies today. Exclusive claims to knowledge and absolute truth can lead to serious problems and should be treated very critically.