So a friend posted her thoughts regarding the current political environment, and she mentioned her assessment of how she approaches her religious beliefs with respect to politics and the government overall, and emphasized the ‘separation of church and state.’
And there were quite a few responses – all of them were respectful and civil. In fact, my friend mentioned how pleased (and a bit surprised) everyone was being polite even when there was a disagreement.
But then this reply comes into the fray.
As far as I’m concerned this is 1) typical of someone who espouses a “new atheism” or who adheres to the “I’m spiritual but not religious” notion; 2) offered by persons who really have nothing to add to a conversation other than a kind of “I’m so much more enlightened than you folks;” 3) used more often then not as a way to shut down civil conversation by caricaturing those who may disagree.
Now I don’t know whether this person is an atheist – but this is something that is said by atheists all too frequently. Regardless of this person’s motivation in posting this … it has got to be one of the dumbest comments I’ve seen in awhile. I mean seriously stupid!
At no point had anyone in this conversation even remotely suggested that there be an American theocracy. And frankly, not one candidate for any political office has suggested this either. A theocracy is a government actually ruled by a religious authority. Even if a political candidate speaks about his or her faith and even if that same candidate states that his/her faith influences how she/he judges situations and engages in the public square … that is not a theocratic viewpoint. But let’s not let critical thinking or common sense or simple decency cloud our thinking.
And to suggest that a belief in God is equivalent to being foolish, possessing uncritical thinking, being obscene and immoral (the opposite of decent), and being filled with hatred or cruelty (as opposed to compassion) is baseless and plain ol’ dumb. That people throughout history have acted this way … that people will more than likely continue to act this way at various points in history … that these same people may also profess to be religious … SO WHAT?!?
New flash: people don’t always behave. But that does not mean that an inherent belief in God is the source of this bad and sinful behavior.
Even if people were to justify their decisions and actions based on a particular religious tenet, and let’s just say that these actions are horrible and to be despised … this does not impute the same to every single believer as being mean, hate filled, stupid, and indecent.
I would say this same thing regardless of a person believing in God or if a person were an atheist. There are stupid, mean, obscene, sinful people on all sides. This doesn’t necessarily mean that their particular belief system is riddled with stupid, mean, obscene, hate-filled, murderous tenets.
=== NOTE ===
I considered whether or not to pixelate or mask the person’s name from their comments when I placed it as an image in this post. The person chose to go public with this comment on a very public forum and therefore, a public comment can be and should be attributable. Therefore I’ve left the name in tact.
=== NOTE #2 ===
Just a reminder … this is my blog and I do welcome comments. However, I do not welcome nasty, unsubstantiated, personal attacks no matter how witty one may think those to be. My general rule is that if you conduct yourself in the same way as you would do if you were sitting in my living room, showing the respect that comes from being a guest/visitor, then you’re probably just fine. Anyone who doesn’t play by my rules will be deleted.
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