Repudiating The Myth Of Christian Persecution In The United States

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Many Christians walk around with a Gibralter-sized chip on their shoulders, crying about how they are being treated unfairly and compare themselves with David in that mythical story we all know so well. They fly into rages when unbelievers have the unmitigated gall to throw up a billboard here and there about godlessness because we all know there are almost NO Christian billboards out there…

The fact is that Christians are very much privileged in the United States. Christianity is an ideology in the US that enjoys implicit, unrelenting, and uncritical acceptance and one would have to be a complete idiot to counter the fact that the mythical delusion of Christianity is dominant here. Christians are continuously told that they are special and deserve privileges. Many stores take the Christian Sabbath into account and are not open for business on Sundays. Most Christians don’t have to work on their holidays. They can assume that television programming will be geared toward their holidays. They can generally construct holiday displays such as nativities without fearing vandalism. “Merry Christmas” is a greeting that they will most often hear during this time of year and can, with impunity, ignore and be ignorant of the holidays celebrated by other religious groups. In fact, many school events will probably address Christian holidays. There is no shortage of churches for a traveling Christian to worship at and whenever someone talks about or thanks god, Christians can assume it’s their god. Almost every hotel in the United States has bibles in their rooms and when there is a need, Christians have many charities to donate to or get assistance from.

Persecuted? Please… Unlike those who do not believe in a deity, Christians won’t be discriminated against because of their religion and can assume that their opinion won’t be ignored because of their religion and they never have to worry about living in a place where they are not welcome because they will almost never encounter groups that exclude Christians. While it can be a gut-wrenching decision for an unbeliever to “come out”, Christians don’t worry about revealing their religion to parents, friends, etc. Without worry of being labeled a bigot amongst their own, they Christians can discriminate in ways not otherwise allowed.

Christians can wear evangelistic clothing or jewelry without fear of persecution, as well, and can promote their religion on cars or houses without fear of vandalism. They rarely have to worry if their religion will hinder their professional ambitions, but if you are known as atheist, it becomes very difficult to find or keep a job. In fact, Christians can assume that most neighbors and coworkers share their beliefs and many Christian owned businesses participate in advertising in directories of other Christian-owned businesses. In short, Christians can assume that almost anywhere they go and anything they do, they’ll feel normal.

Many of the laws in the United States come with built-in exemptions for Christians and their beliefs and Christians can assume that most politicians are Christians who represent Christian interests and this is reflected in that almost without exception, government prayers are Christian in nature. Yes, many of these privileges are seeing a decline as more and more of the godless are becoming vocal and getting involved, and so Christians interpret this as persecution, but this is only because privilege is all they have ever known. They have been on top of the food chain in this country for so long that they are largely clueless that in a free society, such privileges are inappropriate.

Of course, you will never get them to admit that as long as they continue suffer under their memetic viral delusions. They will continue to whine like petulant children until they either come to their senses and embrace reason and abandon their silly, outdated and completely ridiculous superstitions, indoctrination and dogmatic garbage or they manage to die off without infecting their own progeny.

There is a reason so many unbelievers refuse to be accommodating and stand idly and quietly on the sidelines. It's because so many unbelievers get routinely thrown under the bus. There is a reason so many unbelievers cannot keep their mouths shut while the children of our Nation are getting indoctrinated every Sunday morning, rendering them totally and completely unequipped to integrate into a post-modern society. It's because they are being taught that the earth was created six-thousand years ago, that a nine-hundred-year-old man crammed an army of animals into a boat for forty days, that donkeys and snakes talk and all the other countless and totally insane fairy tales that they are taught as unmitigated truth. That unbelievers should be tolerant and accommodating is an insult to the collective of human intellect and against the very backbone of basic human rights.

It is because there is still so much persecution of unbelievers in the world, and because there is still so much discrimination, hatred, bigotry and outright violence against unbelievers that being "nice" to fundamentalists is fast becoming a thing of the past. You can only beat a dog so much before it bites back.

If you are unable to fight this discrimination directly, perhaps due to the threat of losing a job or being shunned by family, then support organizations that do. I recommend joining American Atheists, Inc. Since 1963, they have been the premier organization laboring for the civil liberties of atheists and the total, absolute separation of church and state. American Atheists was borne out of a court case begun in 1959 by the Murray family which challenged the recitation of prayer in public schools.
Note: This is an excerpt from my book "A Voice Of Reason In An Unreasonable World - The Rise Of Atheism On Planet Earth" and was originally written several years ago and has been circulating in various publications for a year or two. A very similar version started appearing several months ago on a couple different venues. I am, however, the original author.
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Al Stefanelli, Georgia State Director - American Atheists, Inc.

Comments

Anonymous (not verified) / Sat, 09/03/2011 - 02:16

First! Great article as always. Keep them coming. Basically, atheists are discriminated against for clothing, jewelry, vehicle license plates, bumper stickers, yard signs... Many lose jobs and even have to leave town all the while a religious person is safe and sound. We have the numbers, we have the masses, but we must be vocal and stand our ground. This is life not a fairy tale about a magical sky daddy. Unfortunately, we are Daddy's with earthly children who look up to us. Because of discrimination, many can't be vocal. I agree support this organization financially.

Anonymous (not verified) / Sat, 09/03/2011 - 03:55

Outstanding! Well thought out and written! I want to share this with my theist friends whenever I hear "if you want to be an atheist, fine, just keep it to yourself".

Anonymous (not verified) / Sat, 09/03/2011 - 07:32

You forgot to mention among the absurdities that a "virgin" was somehow knocked up by god and not her fiancee. It's the truth because she said so and of course was saving her chastity until after marriage.

Anonymous (not verified) / Sat, 09/03/2011 - 11:43

Perfection. Reposting this to my Facebook page! :)

Anonymous (not verified) / Sun, 09/04/2011 - 12:20

American Atheists is a great organization for atheist advocacy and for spreading the truth of atheistic convictions (as opposed to the misinformation propounded by theists).

But to become an atheist ACTIVIST in the political arena, consider the National Atheist Party. We are the only party in history conceived by and representing the consensus views of atheists.

www.usanap.net or www.facebook.com/national.atheist.party

Al, excellent article as always. Troy

Anonymous (not verified) / Tue, 09/06/2011 - 05:59

Excellent article, Al. It is refreshing to see someone so adamant about enforcing equality instead of trying to conform to a hostile society (an act that I'm guilty of myself, to a degree). I've noticed that all of your articles come with a particularly vicious bite. It would seem that you were extremely religious at some point in your life. Let me guess, Southern Baptist?

Anonymous (not verified) / Tue, 09/06/2011 - 12:54

My days as a Roman Catholic included the concept that all "other" religions, including other christian sects, were "wrong" and their members were going to hell. Especially the Jews. I can remember during the early stages of my "de-programming" trying to fit the ideas that Islam and Judaism acknowledged Jesus and his mother, Mary. TV shows on Discovery and The History Channel tried to help me in that quest with shows that only gave a tiny fraction of the belief systems in Islam and Judaism...just enough information so that an ignorant catholic like me could justify the thought that "well, at least they all agree that they worship the same god", and move on with my life. Of course, that didn't wash with me, and it wasn't long before my inquisitive mind became active enough to cause me to begin reading what the Qu'ran, the Pentateuch, the hadith, and the canonical gospels had to say.

It didn't take long before I realized that *all* of the Abrahamic religions are a crock of shit. Hell, they reveled in it. Like your dog that likes to roll in dead animal carcasses. Stink to high heaven. No piety here, thanks. Just unbridled hate, genocide, torture, rape, incest, greed, avarice...punctuated by passionate love-making (but don't pull out, that'll cost you a stoning!).

The facts are kryptonite to believers. No historical or archaeological evidence for the existence of Jesus, Moses, the Exodus, the list is long and distinguished. Wrong governor of Judea when Jesus was allegedly born, wrong Caesar, no census was taken to move Jesus to Nazareth in order to fulfill prophecy, the long list of other gods who preceded Jesus and had the same bloody characteristics (Horus, Krishna, Mithras, Dionysus-Bacchus, Buddha, Zoroaster, et al), fantastical tales of war and sacrifice in the Old Testament that never happened, supposed divine intervention at various geographical locations that don't exist or didn't at the alleged time claimed in scripture...

Pelt the damn Jehovah's Witnesses with these kinds of questions when they next stop by for tea. But be nice.

I've had my fill of claims of persecution by religious nutcases. If you want to talk persecution, ask the 6 million Jews who died at the hands of supposed christians in service of der Feuhrer, ask the Gypsies, the Poles, Lithuanians, Armenians, Czechs and others. Ask the poor starving folk in Somalia and the Sudan right now how much help they're getting out of the evangelical missionaries "doing the Lord's work". Ask the gay citizens of sub-Saharan Africa what they think of the recent edict about condom use and AIDS by Pope Paul the Nazi-est.

There is no persecution of christians in the U.S. Never has been. It's all smoke and mirrors, and they know it. It is painful to listen to an otherwise rational and intelligent but religious person speak about "their love for Jesus", yet they cannot accept that he quite likely never. even. existed. The only evidence offered is the Bible, and he's not even mentioned in the Old Testament! Not once! The Messiah, yes...who was supposed to be from the house of David, but no Jesus.

I hold no hope that humanity will awaken from the hellish nightmares being fostered by our religious fruitcakes. Recently, my elder sister and I had a conversation about attending church. She is atheist, but doesn't give it much thought and is certainly not vocal about it. Our parents are devout RC and attend Mass religiously (no pun intended). She is visiting them at the moment, and last Sunday she went to Mass with them. I asked her if they asked her if she wanted to go to Mass with them, and she replied "no, they never do, they just assume that I will". She went on to say that "I'll never tell them how I feel about religion, I'd rather they just live out their days in their cocoon of a fantasy world without the hassle of me telling them what they don't want to hear".

In a sense, that's how many non-believers act. "Don't make waves". "Let them be". The trouble with that mentality is that we by default act as enablers. The power available to believers is stupendous. Weapons of Mass Destruction. Suicide bombings. Murder and genocide. All can be justified through unquestioning acceptance of scripture. All can be written off by societies that look the other way and pretend it isn't happening. Let's not forget that the hard-line fundamentalists deny Anthropogenic Climate Change. Shoot, the Qu'ran teaches that fresh water and salt water cannot mix. How's that for science in the Madarassas, eh? How is that different from Moses allegedly parting the Red Sea, or the catholic ritual of transsubstantiation, or the unnecessary Jewish rite of circumcision?

No, it's way past time for un-believers to make their voices heard. Hitchens is right when he states that the religious are his (our) enemies and that they won't let us forget it. It's time to turn the tables on them.