Wise Divides, Foolish Unities

Posted on December 20, 2007 in Agnosticism Folly Watch Morals & Ethics Secularism

….religious right fundamentalists are playing the victim card, decrying an anti-Christian decision, really telling teachers they can’t use their position and authority (in a health class!?!) to preach to other faith and none christian students is anti-Christian? This video is anti-Christian, and represents a fundamentalist literalism no student should have to be subjected too. I doubt the irony is lost on students of faith. — Bene Diction

This hasn’t hit the atheist blogs yet and I can guess what will happen: it will be cited as yet another example of Christian oppression. That can’t erase the fact that this first came to my attention via a set of leftist Christian blogs who all say that they don’t like what Michael Nider did from both theological and secularist grounds.

Atheists have a hard time fathoming Christian division. When it suits them, they ignore it to cast blame on every Christian for every dastardly deed done by the Fundamentalist Right. When not, as here, they attack it as the sign that Christianity is about to fall apart and they will triumph as Hemant from Friendly Atheist does here:

We’re still at a point when the “leaders” in both camps are on speaking terms and can work together. In the religious world, the two sides don’t ever seem to interact. (Can you envision Jim Wallis working alongside James Dobson on a frequent basis?)

He’s talking about the Rational Response Squad, a group of atheists who act pretty much in the fashion of cult recruiters. They find a likely target and bomb him/her with “reason”. It’s a trick that the Moonies and others have used ad nauseum and to see Hermant brush it off as just a difference in methodology is disturbing:

….we atheists need to make the best of this opportunity. We can criticize the tactics the others use. But for now, we’re still in this together. We need the mutual support of each other.

And Brian should at least be commended for saying just that.

So where Christian diversity allows the left to come out and say that the Letter from Hell incident/video is offensive and destructive, Hermant for one is stuck when it comes to challenging the tactics of the RRS. He’s too afraid of the whole atheist community coming apart if he says one little word of approbation against this cultic programming. One must ask, in Hemant’s case, where is the atheistic sense of morality, compassion? When you feel pressed to become a fellow traveller of a group like the RRS, these evidentally fall by the roadside. Clunk.

For Christian comment/condemnation on the Letter from Hell video/incident, check out Connexions and Bene Diction. Division isn’t a bad thing when at least one side bases its conviction on the right principles.

[tags]agnosticism, secularism, cult, cults, RRS, rational response squad, atheism, morals, ethics, morals and ethics, folly watch, Fundamentalism, Christianity[/tags]