about atheism in America. Specifically, it was about what some call "radical atheists." These are people who are not only atheist, but they are convinced that religion is a threat. So to make their case known, they go for the shock value of offending religious people.
For example, some of the atheist organizations around the country are sponsoring art exhibits which have paintings of religious leaders in shocking ways. Of course, this is nothing new.
On the one hand, this whole movement is hardly worth noticing. Look, in Iran Christians are being jailed and potentially hanged for their faith. In China, even with the lessening tension, Christians can still be harassed and persecuted. Given that, who really cares if someone wants to hang a painting of a communion wafer with a rusty nail through it.
On the other hand, it makes me think about a topic that I keep coming back to -- becoming what you hate. Children of abusers tend to abuse. Not all of them, of course, but the trend is there. Children of alcoholics tend to become alcoholic. Some of it is biological, of course. But there seems to be this tendency of doing unto others as it was done to you. I would have to think than an abused child would *swear* that he or she would *never* abuse another. Yet, statistically, there's a better than average change that this is exactly what will happen.
You see it on the national level too. People groups who are persecuted often fight back until they are the persecutors.
So with the atheists, it is interesting. Here are a group of people who are angry at religion because they feel that religious people are intolerant. And they are responding to this with intolerance.
They make infomercial, lopsided claims to support their cause, just as some of the religious people have made. So they point out that religious people sometimes become suicide bombers and terrorists, but they neglect to mention that religious people also become saints and open hospitals. And they ignore the anti-religious who have caused the deaths of thousands (they're still finding mass-graves from Stalin's regime).
Or they blame religious people for interfering with science (for example, insisting on the teaching of creation in schools). But they neglect to mention that Einstein was a Jew and Mendel was a monk.
To me, it is very interesting, this idea of becoming what one hates. I see religious people doing the same things -- the one-sided arguments and spins on reality. Look closely, and you'll see that the two groups -- the extremist atheists and the extremist religious -- are pulling from the same well. Their tools are bias information, fear, and psychological manipulation.
It is amazing, isn't it? How we imitate what we oppose? Perhaps, becoming aware of that is the first step to stopping it?
