It has been a while since I have posted (I have been
extremely busy, especially at work), but I was briefly inspired today so I
thought I’d throw a random post in. Hope
you guys enjoy it.
Many Christians simply do not understand the difference
between “secular” and “atheist”. In
their eyes the two are exactly the same thing.
This comes from the apparently commonly held belief (I’m not sure
whether it’s so much a “belief” or just a “claim” they often make to bolster
their arguments) that not talking about God somehow promotes atheism. I can kind of see how, if you had twisted
your way of thinking so that you could accept obvious bullshit as absolute
truth, one might come to the conclusion that “removing God” from something was
inherently atheistic. However, to “promote”
atheism one cannot simply remove any given god.
To “promote” atheism one has to speak out against the concept of gods.
This is the major difference between secularism and
atheism. To promote atheism is to teach
that there are no gods. To promote
theism is to teach that there are one or more gods. To promote secularism is to have nothing whatsoever
to say on the matter.
Really, it’s all a matter of perception. If, for instance, our schools were actively
promoting atheism (I mean REALLY actively promoting atheism, not the “promoting
atheism” claimed by ignorant doomsayers), then secularism would be the champion
of the religious, assuming they could not simply kill all people who disagreed
with them and force their beliefs on all children everywhere. Secularism would be okay by them if it were
removing “not their beliefs”. They would
have no problem with it at all. Then
Christians could easily see how secularism was different. There would be no confusion at all. Why?
Because the only reason there is confusion today is because they want
there to be confusion. They want to
smudge the line, stretch the truth and obfuscate the facts because secularism means
a change in the status quo, which favors them.
Contrary to all of their claims, Christians do not want an equal playing
field. They’ll accept an equal playing
field if they have to, as they have tried to do with the “teach the controversy”
bullshit. (Unfortunately for them the
only “controversy” about evolution is in their heads.)
Equality is what Christians want only when they can’t have
superiority. Even then it’s often only a
pseudo-equality they are actually attempting to achieve. To “teach the controversy” appears, on the
surface (and in their claims), to give “equal” classroom time to two competing
ideas, one a scientific theory, the other a fanciful fairy tale thinly
disguised as a scientific theory. If you
listen to them then “teaching the controversy” would be “equal”. After all, people who’ve done all the work of
figuring things out have one idea, people who would rather let moldy old
parchments which tell of unicorns and magic dictate their reality have another
idea, presenting both would be “equal”.
Of course that is a false dichotomy.
There are those who believe life on this planet was seeded by aliens or
meteorites. They may or may not be
concerned with the origins of that life, but it is possible that neither the
theory of evolution nor the fairy tale of intelligent design fits in with their
beliefs.
In the end all of their complaints are about answering the
same question. “How can we get (more of)
our teaching in the classroom so that future generations of children don’t look
at people with our beliefs like they were some kind of alien retards?” That’s really what it’s all about;
propagating their beliefs. They have no
interest in equality because, all things being equal, science is going to kill
idiotic religious beliefs sooner or later.
And that’s the real problem they have with secularism. It makes all things equal.
Many probably do actually believe that secularism in schools
promotes atheism. Though I don’t think
all of them are too stupid to figure it out, they are all at least too stupid
by choice to want to figure it out. It
will be a while before the world as a whole rejects fairy tales in favor of
enlightenment and knowledge, but in America and, especially, many European
countries the winds of change are blowing, sometimes in gale force. That has to be pretty scary for many,
especially those who already believe that they are so super special and that
their message is so super dangerous to anyone who doesn’t agree with them that
the world is out to get them.
Fortunately, courtroom judged clear up to the Supreme Court
have access to dictionaries and are, generally speaking, pretty intelligent
people who are fully capable of figuring out the vast difference between “secular”
and “atheist”.
