Religious discrimination
July 15th, 2007There is a new kind of discriminating double standard on the scene, and this time it has nothing to do with your age, sex or racial background.
It has always been fairly apparent to me that most people view Christians in a negative light. As most can easily guess, the obvious reasoning behind this is the generally accepted fact that most Christians are going to try to covert, condemn or consult you—you know, the “you’re going to hell!” or “Jesus loves you!” typical stuff. Most people have had an experience like this.
Even if you think you don’t have any negative associations to Christians, consider this: If someone brings up Jesus, or any other subject mentioned in the bible, do you suddenly find yourself even a tad bit uncomfortable? If so - have you stopped to find out why? Chances are you formed these negative associations based on a couple religious walnuts you had the pleasure of running into.
In a world where people talk openly about everything from sex and drugs to that weird fungus growing between their toes, why is it that even the lightest mention of any Christian concept or figure causes the room temperature to plummet and automatically guarantees a “FREAK” stamp across your forehead?
There is really no need to sugarcoat it: Believing in the God of the bible has just never1 been cool.
But what about this new kind of double standard?
I understand that some Christians have been pushy and downright annoying with their beliefs. What I don’t understand, however, is the growing number of atheists on the scene who are just as pushy and annoying with their beliefs (or lack thereof), claiming to avoid Christians for those very reasons.
Hypocritical much?
For the most part, it’s just very much socially accepted to proclaim just how “atheistic” you are. A Christian doing the very same thing would most likely result a hostile response. Nobody wants to hear about how a praying mother and a supportive church community helped you turn your life around, but everyone loves to read about how stupid Christians are, how flawed their faith and logic is and how much you hate God and can’t understand him.
You know, it’s interesting; quite often the people who claim to be the most “open minded” really end up really being the most “selective minded”. I’ve met just as many (if not more) people who refuse to have anything to do with Christian things because they “can’t stand those judgmental, closed-minded hypocrites” than Christians who refuse to hear about about things contrary to what they believe - like evolutionary theories or pro-choice side of abortion debates, for example.
This just goes to show that you shouldn’t ever generalize people. Consider the following statements: “You’re a Muslim, so you must be violent and possibly connected to a terrorist!” or “You’re a Christian, so you must be trying to convert me!” They may sound like ridiculous claims, but I’d be lying if I told you no one thinks that way. There are people out there—and more than you think—who have very limiting preconceived ideas about world religions and their believers.
Don’t be mistaken; I’m not hating on non-believers. I respect people regardless of their beliefs, as long as they have reasonable logic to back them up. It just saddens me to see a society where people can’t (or feel they can’t) express ideas, beliefs and concepts freely because of political correctness and/or social outcasting caused by the rest of the world’s less intelligent population.
1 - [Christianity has never been cool] within modern times. As Jack kindly pointed out, there was a time in history where being anything but Christian was grounds for burning.
I think the difference lies in the fact that most “non-believers” are apathetic to religion - they don’t care about it either way, and thus generally don’t want to hear anything about it. A true leave-me-be type of attitude.
Whereas those who are firmly religious will talk about it to everyone around them, and talk about how Jesus saved their life, or whatever.
It’s a social taboo and it always has been to talk about religion or politics in polite society - talking about religion in casual conversation would almost be tantamount to pulling out my vibrator in company and saying “Yeah, my sex toy has saved my life and changed me for the better”.
It’s just not done. :) To each their own I think - people should recognise that if they want to be religious, they keep it private, and if they don’t want to be religious, they keep that private too. I wouldn’t recommend flaunting your religion in public, if only because it’s such a touchy subject for so many people.
Reply: Good thoughts!
RE: talking about religion as a social taboo -
Very true. The thing is, I find it both frustrating and repressive to *not* talk about certain subjects simply because they’re “taboo” - I mean, I can certainly understand why you wouldn’t bring those subjects up over a formal dinner, but its almost gotten to the point where just can’t bring it up period, polite society or not. It’s almost as if there’s a pink elephant in the room and no one is allowed to talk about it.
And about keeping your religion private… In theory that would certainly keep everyone happy, but you’ve got to keep in mind that the basics of some religions is to *share* it with others - ie. not to keep in a “secret”.
As for flaunting your religion, I definitely agree. There is a huge margin between expressing your beliefs and flaunting your religion. Expressing your beliefs is fine, but flaunting them is borderline rude and impolite.
I should also point out that not all firmly religious people will talk about their religion to *everyone* around them. Some of them have tact when it comes to that department. ;)
July 15th, 2007 at 5:04 pmI strongly disagree with the statement “that most people view Christians in a negative light.” The VAST majority of America is Christian, and that goes for Australia and probably Britain too. Those aiming for a political position of power in the US wouldn’t dream of admitting that they’re atheist (when have you last heard a US politician renouncing their faith? It’s okay if you’re Mormon even, as long as you’re some sort of God believer). You go to any of the more conservative places in America and you’d find it hard to even say things like “God isn’t real” or “I don’t believe in Jesus” without getting stares or outright anger. If we are to consider statistics alone, a very great deal of number of people are Christians, if not fundamentalists, then moderates.
Secondly I think you’re using somewhat of a strawman argument. People praying for good fortune (to use the Virginia Tech tragedy, how often was the notion “we’ll pray for the families” uttered?) all the time yet I think you’re maybe ignoring such ubiquity and focusing on the minor incidents of “pushy atheists” and having those seem more significant than they are as a whole.
The atheists who refuse to address Christian arguments are bad atheists. Those atheists that go “no, God ISN’T real I don’t care what you say!!” are pretty silly. However, the majority of atheists I know do take on religious arguments and address them, even if it means taking them apart. How is that narrow-mindedness? The book “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins is filled with one Christian argument after another and all of them persuasively countered. Many atheists do try to engage many religious people in a dialogue.
There are of course atheists out there that don’t really understand WHY religious dogma doesn’t make sense, but are atheists “because it sounds cool” or something. These might be the type of people who are the pushy ones that have outrageous reactions to religious and refuse to engage in discussion. But… I think (or at least I hope) these people are definitely not representative of atheists.
Reply: I specifically didn’t mention times when countries are united in tragedy (9/11, Virginia Tech, etc.) or American politics because I was targeting the day-to-day interpersonal social settings (at social gatherings, with friends, online forums, school, work etc.) - places in our day-to-day lives where religious discrimination becomes more apparent.
Pushy atheists were not really the focus of the religious discrimination I was talking about though. I merely commented at the apparent rise in the numbers of “pushy atheists” and how they are generally perceived as “cooler” than a pushy Christian. Obviously there are different kinds of atheists, just like there are different kinds of Christians, Muslims, Jews etc. in terms of how they handle objections and present their beliefs.
To be fair though, it all goes without saying that the entry was written with my society in mind - a society where religion is essentially not allowed in public schools and (as far as I know, which isn’t much when it comes to politics) religion is rarely mentioned in politics. It’s a whole different society to begin with. Living in one of the most secular cities in the world could definitely twist the perspective. :P People here are far less accepting of religion (and a lot of other things) than say, the American bible belt is.
July 15th, 2007 at 7:50 pmI suspect that the reason people get uncomfortable when Jesus or Biblical topics are brought up in a non-religious setting is generally because the Christians that bring Jesus up for no apparent reason are usually doing so to preach. No, that’s not always the case, but 90% of the time it is. Preach at me once, shame on you, preach at me twice, shame on me for hanging around long enough to let you.
(Incidentally, I think it’s a bit unfair to say that being Christian has “never been cool”. Consider the large swaths of European history where Christianity was the de facto religion and being anything else was grounds for burning.)
I don’t know where you live, but among those I know, pushy atheists and pushy Christians are similarly mocked. The major difference tends to be that pushy atheists are just annoying, while pushy Christians are actively making my life unpleasant by, for example, petitioning the library to remove books they find ungodly or passing laws that would make marrying my choice of significant other illegal.
Reply: Good point on on Christianity *never* being cool. Though I was referring to modern times, I probably should have mentioned that instead of letting it be assumed by the reader.
I’ve added a footnote. Thanks for pointing that out. :)
July 15th, 2007 at 9:51 pm