No fear of stoning here
Nations built on Christian ideals promote freedom, even for critics
Last Updated: December 18, 2010 2:00am
It's Christmas time, and that can only mean one thing. A group of atheists and secular humanists are trying once again to place ads on the sides of city buses explaining that God is a myth, religion is pointless, and UFOs and Jesus have equal credibility.
Personally, I prefer my money to go to charities for hungry children and homeless families, but that's probably because I'm one of those silly Christians.
If, however, people want to make the sides of large vehicles slightly less boring they have a perfect right to do so. Unlike, for example, pro-life groups and organizations opposed to same-sex marriage which have repeatedly been told that their money isn't good enough for all sorts of public and private venues, and denied the right to purchase billboards.
Still, hypocrisy and double standard aside, as long as nobody is calling for violence or being horribly obscene an ad is an ad.
But do these jolly God-haters appreciate the irony of their actions? I very much doubt it.
You see, the only countries willing to allow them this freedom and prepared to protect them in their zeal are the very societies founded on the Christian principles the God-haters appear to despise.
That they occasionally mention Yahweh or Allah is little more than window-dressing; it is Christ, Christianity and the Christian God they are opposed to. Of course they are; Christianity is what mummy and daddy believed, and so it must be wrong and it must be cool to be nasty about it.
In non-Christian societies and in non-religious cultures — such as Stalinist Russia, the various Soviet satellites, Maoist China, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Hitler's Germany and his fascist empire — these freedoms simply did not exist. And spare me the Internet mythology about Hitler being a Catholic or Stalin not being a militant atheist, because no genuine scholar of the Reich or the Gulag would support this nonsense.
Thus it's more than inconsistency and more like fundamental confusion. Nations built on Christian ideals promote freedom even for critics of Christian society, but nations built on other religions or on no religion at all suppress freedom and allow very little criticism. Which should lead even hysterical atheists to support Christian-based cultures out of a support for freedom if not a regard for Christianity.
What we see, though, is the opposite. Because it would be dangerous to mock Muhammad in Egypt or Saudi Arabia, or argue for God in North Korea, and it's so much easier and safer to avoid the genuine issues and play armchair warrior.
Religion can cause horror, such as women being stoned for blasphemy in Pakistan or homosexuals hanged in Iran. But there are no attempts to put ads on buses in Karachi or Tehran.
The state giving people some time off at Christmas or mentioning God in the national anthem doesn't seem all that bad compared to being locked up for 30 years in Marxist Cuba for being a Christian, but perhaps I don't appreciate just how awful it must be as an atheist in contemporary Canada.
That's probably why they tend to look so unhappy and angry. Merry Christmas you poor things, Merry Christmas.
If, however, people want to make the sides of large vehicles slightly less boring they have a perfect right to do so. Unlike, for example, pro-life groups and organizations opposed to same-sex marriage which have repeatedly been told that their money isn't good enough for all sorts of public and private venues, and denied the right to purchase billboards.
Still, hypocrisy and double standard aside, as long as nobody is calling for violence or being horribly obscene an ad is an ad.
But do these jolly God-haters appreciate the irony of their actions? I very much doubt it.
You see, the only countries willing to allow them this freedom and prepared to protect them in their zeal are the very societies founded on the Christian principles the God-haters appear to despise.
That they occasionally mention Yahweh or Allah is little more than window-dressing; it is Christ, Christianity and the Christian God they are opposed to. Of course they are; Christianity is what mummy and daddy believed, and so it must be wrong and it must be cool to be nasty about it.
In non-Christian societies and in non-religious cultures — such as Stalinist Russia, the various Soviet satellites, Maoist China, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Hitler's Germany and his fascist empire — these freedoms simply did not exist. And spare me the Internet mythology about Hitler being a Catholic or Stalin not being a militant atheist, because no genuine scholar of the Reich or the Gulag would support this nonsense.
Thus it's more than inconsistency and more like fundamental confusion. Nations built on Christian ideals promote freedom even for critics of Christian society, but nations built on other religions or on no religion at all suppress freedom and allow very little criticism. Which should lead even hysterical atheists to support Christian-based cultures out of a support for freedom if not a regard for Christianity.
What we see, though, is the opposite. Because it would be dangerous to mock Muhammad in Egypt or Saudi Arabia, or argue for God in North Korea, and it's so much easier and safer to avoid the genuine issues and play armchair warrior.
Religion can cause horror, such as women being stoned for blasphemy in Pakistan or homosexuals hanged in Iran. But there are no attempts to put ads on buses in Karachi or Tehran.
The state giving people some time off at Christmas or mentioning God in the national anthem doesn't seem all that bad compared to being locked up for 30 years in Marxist Cuba for being a Christian, but perhaps I don't appreciate just how awful it must be as an atheist in contemporary Canada.
That's probably why they tend to look so unhappy and angry. Merry Christmas you poor things, Merry Christmas.