Theoretical equality

When I first became a Christian I was deeply attracted to and interested in apologists, those who defend the faith. I listened to tapes and read books but such leading apologists as Walter Martin, perhaps the most famous defender of Christian orthodoxy from Christian cults. My interest in such thing waned though over the years till recently when an interest in apologetics has once again been kindled. This time though the focus is not Christian cults but rather atheists.

To be honest I don't really care what you believe. Believe in God? Great. Don't believe in God? Wonderful. It matters little to me. I have no problem sharing my faith with those who are interested but I don't make it a point of conversation. I know the effect that Christ Jesus has had on me, I see the changes that have been wrought in my life for the better and I'm more than willing to help people understand Christianity or my faith more clearly (well as clearly as I can, I am far from perfect or omnicient) but I'm not going to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't believe when it comes to God.

This is where the atheists come in. I find it interesting that take such great pleasure in putting religion in general and Christianity in particular on trial at every conceivable moment. Did you know that religion is the primary cause of all suffering and death on the planet? Did you know that such an assertion is laughable in its brazen falcity? Well, it is. Atheists love to trot out subjects such as the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and religious violence during the Reformation as prime examples of religion's devastating impact upon humanity and society. It is unfortunate though that they are unwilling to acknowledge the fact that recent scholarship has shown us that the supposed death tolls of such actions are quite less than what is popularly believed. Take the Spanish Inquisition as an example. People will say that hundreds of thousands of people were put to death in the name of religion. This is not true. That is not to say that people did not die, but Inquisition scholarship of the past forty years has shown clearly that the death toll was more in line with ten to twenty-five thousand. That is of course tragic but the numbers matter in a sense, especially when one looks at the death tolls compiled by such atheistic dictators as Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong. Those two people alone were responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people.

Atheists though argue that such actions were not done in the name of atheism and therefore don't count. This is of course a falacy. It was Karl Marx himself that said that religion was the opiate of the masses and needed to be iradicated if the socialist utopia was to be realized. People were specifically targeted by such communist/atheist dictators because of their religion. Instead atheists argue that those people were killed in order to promote or protect some sense of socio/cultural homogeneity. Of course they discount such an idea when it is brought forth in a discussion concerning the Spanish Inquisition or the Reformation. In those cases it was clearly a case of blood thristy religious zealots. Such intellectual dishonesty.

Now we come to such bright lights of the atheist community such as Christopher Hitchens, who fights the good fight against such blood thirsty zealots so that people can think as he thinks. Its unfortunate though that he is in reality a blood thirsty zealot himself. The following was taken from a recent talk given by Hitchens.

Then it was Hitchens at his most bellicose. He told us what the most serious threat to the West was (and you know this line already): it was Islam. Then he accused the audience of being soft on Islam, of being the kind of vague atheists who refuse to see the threat for what it was, a clash of civilizations, and of being too weak to do what was necessary, which was to spill blood to defeat the enemy. Along the way he told us who his choice for president was right now —
Rudy Giuliani — and that Obama was a fool, Clinton was a pandering closet fundamentalist, and that he was less than thrilled about all the support among the FFRF for the Democratic party. We cannot afford to allow the Iranian theocracy to arm itself with nuclear weapons (something I entirely sympathize with), and that the only solution is to go in there with bombs and marines and blow it all up. The way to win the war is to kill so many Moslems that they begin to question whether they can bear the mounting casualties.

It was simplistic us-vs.-them thinking at its worst, and the only solution he had to offer was death and destruction of the enemy.

This was made even more clear in the Q&A. He was asked to consider the possibility that bombing and killing was only going to accomplish an increase in the number of people opposing us. Hitchens accused the questioner of being incredibly stupid (the question was not well-phrased, I'll agree, but it was clear what he meant), and said that it was obvious that every Moslem you kill means there is one less Moslem to fight you … which is only true if you assume
that every Moslem already wants to kill Americans and is armed and willing to do so. I think that what is obvious is that most Moslems are primarily interested in living a life of contentment with their families and their work, and that an America committed to slaughter is a tactic that will only convince more of them to join in opposition to us.

Basically, what Hitchens was proposing is genocide. Or, at least, wholesale execution of the population of the Moslem world until they are sufficiently cowed and frightened and depleted that they are unable to resist us in any way, ever again.

...

This whole last third of his talk had me concerned about the first part. He had just told us in strong terms about the failures of religion and its detrimental effect on our culture, and now he was explaining to us how the solution in the Middle East was to simply kill everyone who disagreed with you. He didn't relate the two parts of his talk, which was unfortunate. I'd like to
know whether he thinks the way atheists ought to end religion in America is to start shooting Baptists, or whether he sees other ways to educate and enlighten … in which case I wonder why he doesn't see any virtue in applying those same methods to Islam. I didn't ask the question since the line for the microphone was long, and I had a depressing feeling that the solution would involve sending the Baptists over to Iraq to kill and be killed.

This is not my freethought movement. The Hitchens solution is not my solution.

I could tell that he did not have the sympathy of most of the audience at this point. There were a scattered few who applauded wildly at every mention of bombing the Iranians, but the majority were stunned into silence. People were leaving — I heard one woman sing a few bars of "Onward, Christian soldiers" as she left to mock his strategy. The questions were all angry or disputative, and were all dismissed with comments about the audience's intelligence. The answers were always, "War, war, war," and that we weren't good atheists if we didn't agree with murder as the answer. He seemed unable to comprehend that people could despise and oppose all religion, Christian, Moslem, or otherwise, yet have no desire to triumph by causing physical harm to the believers. I've noticed the same intellectual blindness in many Christians, actually.

I can understand when people point to people such as Fred Phelps and cast derision upon him. I find it confusing that supposedly smart people can't understand that just because people such as Phelps say that they are doing something in the name of religion doesn't mean that what they are doing is supported by that religion. I find it dishonest for these same people to then turn a blind eye on such comments as above by Hitchens and try to argue them away. If Christianity and Christians are to be reviled because of the actions of such people as Phelps then so to should atheism and atheists be reviled because of the actions of Hitchens.

This of course would get us nowhere and is nonsense, but I think it points to a basic lack of theoretical equality in our society when it comes to religion and society. Phelps does not represent me and he doesn't represent Christianity despite what he might say. If someone can't understand that then they are either a moron or willfully ignorant. Just as Hitchens and his call for the genocide of Muslims doesn't represent atheism or all atheists.

Perhaps if we spent less time trying to tear one another down and instead simply talked with one another we would be much better off.