We Are Not Insidious Villians!
In several posts this past week or so, one of my Christian critics has been bashing me. And he informs me he's got more stuff he's going to post about me. Well, in the first place, this stuff he's posting is mostly ad hominem and doesn't say much of anything by way of answering this Blog. In the second place, I have thick skin. You can call me what you like, even if I don't like it. I've been called worse things. In the third place, I thank him for thinking my Blog is deserving of such treatment, for it means he views me, my forthcoming book, and this Blog as having some importance.
This treatment he's doling out comes from the fact that he has demonized me. I no longer matter to him. I'm an evil doer. This is the exact same attitude Christians in the past had toward heretics, but unlike today they had the political power and could beat and torture and burn them alive. I'm just glad he is somewhat more civil and/or doesn't have that kind of political power.
This treatment he's doling out comes from the fact that he has demonized me. I no longer matter to him. I'm an evil doer. This is the exact same attitude Christians in the past had toward heretics, but unlike today they had the political power and could beat and torture and burn them alive. I'm just glad he is somewhat more civil and/or doesn't have that kind of political power.
This antagonism of his toward me only inspires me to argue more forcefully against Christianity...do you see why? I'm a nice person and I don't deserve this treatment, so the more he does this the more resolved I am to debunk Christianity, the very faith that motivates him to demonize me. The irony is that he'll only have himself to thank as my efforts to lead more people into the truth and away from his ignorance become more intense! Because this is exactly the effect that personal attacks by him and other Christians like him have had, and are having on me. The level of my activism and militancy has grown immensely this last year in direct proportion to how I have been treated by Christians. I am certain that if Christians would've treated me with respect, even if they disagreed vehemently with my arguments, I would not have written this book that will soon be out, and I would not have this Blog right now. When I am personally attacked, it only intensifies my desire to go for the jugular vein--the very faith that allows someone to feel they can personally attack me with ethical impunity.
An anonymous poster has asked me this: What I don't understand is, if the christian religion isn't true as athiests believe, then why don't they just leave it at that? Why do they spend their time trying to prove us wrong? We don't try to prove the existense of our god we simply know he is there.
Team members on this Blog have different motivations for being here, and I'm trying to construct something we can mostly agree on as to why: Our Policy Here.
In the first place, some Christians do in fact shove it down our throats. They personally attack us, call us names, and they would want to marginalize us if they could. My antagonist above said to me that I'm a "low life," and he treats me like one. So I argue back that I am the exact same person he would've previously admired as a minister, minus the specific set of Christian beliefs he still accepts.
In the second place, I'm still testing my beliefs...maybe I'm wrong? But I no more think I'm wrong than Christians do. Still, I'm testing.
I'm an educator. I'm a teacher and I like to teach. So here on this Blog I'm teaching what I have come to believe. I'm against ignorance (in the sense of "not knowing"), because I believe ignorance leads to harmful behavior in varying degrees.
Some ex-Christians feel like they were duped and that they wasted a number of years of their lives on Christianity, and so they argue against it. What's wrong with this motivation, anyway? Although, this is not me.
Other ex-Christians feel they were abused by Christians and/or the Christian faith for various reasons. Although this is not me.
There are other reasons, and I'd like to hear them from others. In the previous post, Matthew posted his reasons.
Listen to Robert W. Funk and Robert M. Price's motivations:
An anonymous poster has asked me this: What I don't understand is, if the christian religion isn't true as athiests believe, then why don't they just leave it at that? Why do they spend their time trying to prove us wrong? We don't try to prove the existense of our god we simply know he is there.
Team members on this Blog have different motivations for being here, and I'm trying to construct something we can mostly agree on as to why: Our Policy Here.
In the first place, some Christians do in fact shove it down our throats. They personally attack us, call us names, and they would want to marginalize us if they could. My antagonist above said to me that I'm a "low life," and he treats me like one. So I argue back that I am the exact same person he would've previously admired as a minister, minus the specific set of Christian beliefs he still accepts.
In the second place, I'm still testing my beliefs...maybe I'm wrong? But I no more think I'm wrong than Christians do. Still, I'm testing.
I'm an educator. I'm a teacher and I like to teach. So here on this Blog I'm teaching what I have come to believe. I'm against ignorance (in the sense of "not knowing"), because I believe ignorance leads to harmful behavior in varying degrees.
Some ex-Christians feel like they were duped and that they wasted a number of years of their lives on Christianity, and so they argue against it. What's wrong with this motivation, anyway? Although, this is not me.
Other ex-Christians feel they were abused by Christians and/or the Christian faith for various reasons. Although this is not me.
There are other reasons, and I'd like to hear them from others. In the previous post, Matthew posted his reasons.
Listen to Robert W. Funk and Robert M. Price's motivations:
Robert W. Funk in his book, Honest to Jesus (p. 19) wrote: “As I look around me, I am distressed by those who are enslaved by a Christ imposed upon them by a narrow and rigid legacy. There are millions of Americans who are the victims of a mythical Jesus conjured up by modern evangelists to whip their followers into a frenzy of guilt and remorse—and cash contributions. I agonize over their slavery in contrast to my freedom. I have a residual hankering to free my fellow human beings from this bondage. Liberation from fear and ignorance is always a worthy cause. In the last analysis, however, it is because I occasionally glimpse an unknown Jesus lurking in and behind Christian legend and piety that I persist in my efforts to find my way through the mythical and legendary debris of the Christian tradition. And it is the lure of this glimpse that I detect in other questers and that I share with them.”
Robert M. Price: “We are viewed as insidious villains seeking to undermine the belief of the faithful, trying to push them off the heavenly path and into Satan’s arms. But this is not how we view ourselves at all. We find ourselves entering the field as the champions and zealots for a straightforward and accurate understanding of the Bible as an ancient text. In our opinion, it is the fundamentalist, the apologist for Christian supernaturalism, who is propagating false and misleading views of the Bible among the general populace. We are not content to know better and to shake our heads at the foolishness of the untutored masses. We want the Bible to be appreciated for what it is, not for what it is not. And it is not a supernatural oracle book filled with infallible dogmas and wild tales that must be believed at the risk of eternal peril.” [The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave (Prometheus, 2005), p. 15].