The difference between being Christian, and being Christlike
The following represents the opinions of single member of the SSU, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the SSU as a whole.
Being an atheist with many like-minded friends, I often detect great amounts of animosity toward the modern form of Christianity, and Evangelical sects in particular. Sometimes, this is directed at the Dominionists, as they attempt to override our laws in order to enforce Biblical law upon the rest of us. Other times, it stems from the frustration of being pre-judged as immoral, degenerate, foolish, or ignorant.
Today, however, I saw this animosity coming from the clear hypocrisy of purported “Christians,” swirling around a recent news story:
Churchgoers more likely to back torture, survey finds
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new analysis.
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than 6 in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only 4 in 10 of them did.
http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/30/churchgoers-more-likely-to-back-torture-survey-finds/
These Christians claim to follow the man who has long been lauded for his pacifist philosophies which have affected Western thought for centuries.
I speak out of the frustration felt by many whom see these abhorrent policies sanctioned so, when I ask:
How is torture…
- Turning the other cheek (Matthew 5:38-42)?
- Loving thy neighbor (Leviticus 19:18)?
- Loving thine enemies (Matthew 5:44)?
To any who continue to sanction such acts, I quote your Christ (John 8:7), and say:
Let he who is without sin…
- Administer the first lethal injection
- Tie the first hanging rope
- Flip the first electric chair switch
- Waterboard the first suspect
The god of the Old Testament slaughtered mercilessly those who opposed him or his people. However, Jesus commands his followers to turn the other cheek, and leave the stone throwing to god himself.
To the self-proclaimed Christians that support and sanction torture, I ask:
Why do you disobey the god you claim to worship so? Why are you not the first to stand up against those who commit these atrocities in your names?
How dare you condemn the non-religious as amoral, when we reject torture in greater numbers, and even without divine commandments. Take the beam out of thine own eye before condemning the mote in ours (Matthew 7:3).
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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 30th, 2009 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 30th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Wonderful post!
I’d just like to point out, not to you, but to what is a large strain of atheism, that atheists are hardly innocent of demonizing a group with unjust blanket statements.
I don’t think this difference really has to do with being Christian per se, I think it’s more about being white and conservative and never having really gotten out of your small bubble of people like you, not really having a broad world-view, never having had the chance to learn to have compassion for people who are different.
That said, there are Christians who inexplicably espouse views that are horrifically anti-Christian/anti-morality-in-any-way-known-to-humans:
“God hates you… God can’t even look at us because he is so disgusted… You have been told that God is loving, gracious, merciful, kind, compassionate, wonderful, and good… That is a lie… God looks down and says ‘I hate you, you are my enemy, and I will crush you.’”
“A pacifist has a lot of difficulty reconciling pacifism with scripture.”
“After church tonight you will go home and you will eat chicken, not human, because of the spread of Christianity… go to a country where there hasn’t been the spread of Christianity and they’re having human for dinner.”
“Jesus is a God who hates.”
Singing: “Jesus hates me, it is so,…”
All Mark Driscoll, of course.
April 30th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
I’ve heard this sort of result before and I often wonder if it’s something to do with in-group / out-group distinctions.
That is, religiousness is often realized in insular, anti-egalitarian groups who are likely to those from the out-group as being less human (in a moral sense), and thus not subject to the rules in the same way. Even moderate religious groups tend to have quite strong group identity that fits them into this argument.
I very much doubt it’s a considered moral position, though, so it’d be interesting to see how religious groups have reacted to this result.
Thou shalt not kill, except for Philistines.
May 1st, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Oh, good, thank you, that’s the sort of atheist attitude I was talking about in my comment above!
“That is, religiousness is often realized in insular, anti-egalitarian groups who are likely to those from the out-group as being less human (in a moral sense), and thus not subject to the rules in the same way. Even moderate religious groups tend to have quite strong group identity that fits them into this argument.”
That has absolutely nothing to do with religion as a metaphysical or moral proposition, and nearly every modern religion stresses the equal value of every human being
The derogatory views that are often found in the atheist community that religion is a primitive, clannish, close-minded, obscure system of beliefs explaining why the in-group is special are, to put it gently, simplistic, inaccurate caricatures, and it is just these sorts of views that give atheists their reputation for arrogance.
Human exclusivity, clannishness, in-group/out-group bias doesn’t have much to do with religion. It occurs with or without religion. After all, you’re clearly working with such a distinction, shown by your reflexive, defensiveness-through-aggression religion-bashing.
Amusing “news” story related to this post:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/5/1/726798/-BREAKING:-Obama-to-nominate-Jesus-Christ-to-Supreme-CourtRepublicans-Announce-Filibuster
May 3rd, 2009 at 1:49 pm
You’re reading extremes into what I said.
Maybe I went a little too far by saying ‘often’, but it’s hard to dispute that there exist a large number of religious sects that are both insular and anti-egalitarian.
I completely agree that this has nothing to do with religion as a meta-physical or moral proposition, and since I didn’t claim that, I don’t know why you’re mentioning it.
My point is that religion is a group distinction that people feel particularly passionate about, which accentuates in-group/out-group behaviour. I’d argue that it’s this passion that explains the results in the post, not the religion.
None of this was reflexive, defensive, or even aggressive. Nor was it religion-bashing so much as an attempt to explain an empirical result through a social mechanism which religions often possess. I wouldn’t be surprised if fanatical sports-fans showed a similar survey result. Similarly, radical atheists, OS-fanatics, or even political radicals. I’m saying that it’s a part of human nature.
Please, try to read what someone’s saying before attacking them – I completely agree with your general point about hyper-aggressive atheism being mis-guided.
Yeah, that article’s a good example of humour catering to the extremes. Makes me uncomfortable, regardless of which group is dreaming it up.
May 4th, 2009 at 10:45 am
My apologies for misinterpreting your comments. It’s rare to find an atheist/agnostic passionate enough about atheism
to be reading this blog who isn’t strongly anti-religious.
I can’t say that I’ve ever seen this strong in-group/out-group mentality in any religious groups other than fanatical evangelical Christianity or in people who feel strong ties to one of the sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Which certainly does explain the. However, in my work I’ve never met anyone in a mainline Christian, Jewish, or Islamic organization who is ‘particularly passionate about,’ or even considers there to be at all, an in any way significant religious ‘group distinction.’
However, I also think race and nationality have an equal part in the in-group/out-group dichotomy held by the conservative white evangelicals creating these results.
I’m not sure if OS-fanaticism ever goes quite to the extreme of approving torture of the other group
. Although I agree with your point that it’s less about whatever the supposed distinction is and more about how strongly the distinction is felt and how insular the group is and how threatened the group feels.
Oh, I don’t particularly think that article is catering to any extremes. Only to people who have actually been following politics and reporting for the past few months. Well, that may be an extremist group. But it’s just a commentary on Republicans reflexively, and often hypocritically, opposing nearly every action on the part of Obama, with a few snarky remarks referencing specific incidences.
May 10th, 2009 at 2:03 am
I’m passionate about blog-reading, maybe? Actually, it’s probably more that I’m passionate enough belief systems in general that I want to discuss them honestly as possible without degenerating to name calling. It’s easy to tell someone you disagree that they’re mad, it’s much harder to try to understand the complexities of their beliefs and try to sway them that way, and it’s that which I’d like to be able to do. No idea about my chances, though, but it’s the pursuit that matters, imgo..
I guess I say ‘catering to extremes’ because a devout Christian would clearly find it blasphemous and offensive. It’s one thing to disagree with someone and say that you think their beliefs are unfounded, and another to take their sacred things and make fun of them. One’s respectful, the other’s not, and, even if it’s not always the best approach, I prefer the respectful approach (assuming I can manage it).
So, by extremes, I guess I mean that the humour exemplifies an approach to dealing with other people’s beliefs that I see as further from the middle than the one I aspire to follow.
I like your point about racism and nationalism perhaps being part of the source of in-group/out-group attitudes shown in the study. Maybe a way I could have presented my original point would be to have said that perhaps people who are strongly group identity driven are more likely to be religious as this offers them another reinforced group within which to define themselves, hence the correlation..
July 31st, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Karen: Do you have a cite for the quote: “After church tonight you will go home and you will eat chicken, not human, because of the spread of Christianity… go to a country where there hasn’t been the spread of Christianity and they’re having human for dinner.”?
I did a quick google and found lots of people claiming he said it but no direct source.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:19 pm
sports blogs says:sports blogs…
Your topic The Accidental Scientist ” Blog Archive ” Cocktails and Buffy: On … was interesting when I found it on Tuesday searching for sports blogs…
November 15th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
There’s a different between politically justifiable and morally justifiable, any person who thinks torture or like acts are morally justifiable aren’t christian, but this has no bearing on what needs to be done in the political climate, and being politically in favour of the death penalty does not mean you would be willing to be the executioner. The problem with atheists is they’re often liberal, and they past few months have proven liberals aren’t good at getting things done. Religious people are conservative and good at getting things done. Atheist may want to close Gitmo and save the world but in doing so they will fail because its not politically prudent to do so. As firm believers in separation of church and state atheist should realize that christians have the ability to sort their opinions accordingly. So it seems because atheist have only the secular mindset to them moral and just become inextricable from the each other when in fact they are polar opposites. I’m for the death penalty, for the war, against healthcare, but would never sentence a man to death, kill a man, nor turn the sick away. Obviously there are religious “simple folk” out there who adhere to conservatism without thinking morally at all, which makes them bad people, but as long as one realizes they would never do the things they support politically they can remain moral. And of course atheists aren’t amoral they just subscribe to their own individualized morality which may or may not be against torture; an atheist may follow religious morals better then a theist, but when someone says atheists are amoral they might mean they believe they are going to hell for not believing in a god. I’d like to say this blog was a good attempt but to the skilled reader it just shows an ignorant liberal atheist, three things that I am not.