Atheists, Billboards and “Hate Speech”

The American Atheists (AA) just erected billboard in Times Square reading, “Who needs Christ during Christmas?” with an “X” through “Christ.” While I defend their right to be offensive, I can still take issue with their message.

Even though the West is quickly abandoning their former secular roots and the freedom of speech in favor of repressing what is now deemed “hate speech,” we are on a dangerous trajectory, granting government additional power to suppress speech deemed “offensive.”

Nevertheless, I think that the AA message is needlessly offensive and even hypocritical. It is needlessly offensive because it offends without providing any off-setting content. It represents nothing more than mindless sloganeering. It contributes no substance, edification, inspiration, or illumination, just crass intolerance towards the Christian faith. It offers nothing but offense!

It is also offensive because of what it represents – an attempt to eliminate Christianity! I have dialogued with many militant atheists, and they have made no secret of the fact that they think that the world will be a better place without Christianity, and for this they labor! It is worthy of note that they are little different from their infamous forebears:

• Karl Marx: "In simple truth, I harbour hate 'gainst all the Gods."

• Nikolai Lenin: "Every religious idea, every idea of god, even every flirtation with the idea of God, is unutterable vileness."

• Nikita Khrushchev: "We, Communists ... are atheists ... Public education, the dissemination of scientific knowledge, and the study of the laws of nature, leave no place for belief in God ... We consider that belief in God contradicts our Communist outlook." "We remain the atheists that we have always been; we are doing all we can to liberate those people who are still under the spell of this religious opiate."

These atheistic luminaries were not content to merely speak against the Christian faith. They strenuously  sought to eliminate it along with those who practiced it. Do we have cause to be offended by this modern crop of militant atheists? Without a doubt!

In addition to the offense, the AA billboard also represents hypocrisy. Their website announces their purpose:

• American Atheists, Inc., is organized

·         to stimulate and promote freedom of thought and inquiry concerning religious beliefs, creeds, dogmas, tenets, rituals, and practices;

·         to encourage the development and public acceptance of a humane ethical system stressing the mutual sympathy, understanding, and interdependence of all people and the corresponding responsibility of each individual in relation to society;

Although the AAs claim that their purpose is “to stimulate and promote freedom of thought and inquiry,” their billboard is designed to accomplish the very opposite thing - to silence and discredit any real thought or discussion. This parallels my own experience with the militants. I have challenged them to public debates on numerous occasions, but they have always declined.

They also claim that they want “to encourage the development and public acceptance of a humane ethical system stressing the mutual sympathy, understanding, and interdependence of all people.” However, instead of fostering “mutual sympathy,” their billboard fosters blatant intolerance and an utter lack of “sympathy.” Instead of wanting to work along with us to improve society, the AA clearly wants to eliminate us. What else could “Christ” with an “X” through Him connote!

Meanwhile, the militants have hypocritically accused me of intolerance, when I have simply referenced surveys and studies that have demonstrated the ill effects of the gay lifestyle. They have labeled my “homophobe,” “bigot,” “hate-monger” and even “sexist” – nothing to promote their goal of “freedom of thought and inquiry.”

The AA’s claim that they are trying to work for a “humane ethical system,” while they are exhibiting the height of “Christophobia!” While they bash us for our alleged intolerance, they model the very behavior they claim to reject! However, they are known by the fruits that they bear.

Atheism’s Glorious Crusade

The American Atheists from Cranfield New Jersey decided to take a tour of  Bradford  County, Florida and were appalled at what they saw – the Ten Commandments on public property! It turned out to be just the thing they were looking for and they filed suit:

• “We have maintained from the beginning that the Ten Commandments doesn’t belong on government property,” stated American Atheists President David Silverman in a press release. “There is no secular purpose for the monument whatsoever and it makes atheists feel like second-class citizens. But if keeping it there means we have the right to install our own monument, then installing our own is exactly what we’ll do.”

“No secular purpose?” That now means “no atheistic purpose.” However, for any society to remain robust and healthy, it needs a common core – a rationale for its existence and survival. We have now lost that. Neither the Ten Commandments or even the Constitution are able to provide the common core – the thing that makes us all feel like we have a common goal, that we are brethren striving for the same values.

We still swear on these, but they remain little more than an empty tradition for most Americans. If we do not know who we are, we cannot know where we are going, apart from the next sexual encounter. This is tragic! It is also frustrating. We no longer speak the same unifying language – we have become strangers to one another - and we have no idea of the ramifications of this. None of us have any direct experience of a civil war, and therefore take our comforts for granted.

Can the atheists give us anything that looks or feels like a common glue? Evidently not:

• The group plans to place a 1,500 pound granite bench near the Ten Commandments monument, which will feature quotes from American Atheists founder Madeline Murray O’Hair, founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, as well as an excerpt from the Treaty of Tripoli. An area of the monument will also feature the ten Biblical punishments for violating the Ten Commandments, such as the death penalty for murder and adultery. http://christiannews.net/2013/06/02/americas-first-atheist-monument-to-be-displayed-outside-florida-courthouse/

The atheists cannot offer anything constructive apart from ridicule. They will recite the biblical punishments for the violation of the Ten Commandments, but have nothing to offer in its place. Although they might cite the Founding Fathers, none of these were known to be atheists, and they certainly weren’t promoting an atheist agenda. In fact, atheists almost uniformly admit that they have no beliefs about anything, even about atheism.

I wish someone would require an answer from them to these questions:

• What do you have to offer instead of the principles and beliefs that have made this country great? From what we can see, whenever atheism has come to power, they have always financed it with millions of corpses. Why should we believe that it will be any different this time?

Meanwhile, they complain that the public display of the Ten Commandments “makes atheists feel like second-class citizens.” Have they considered that their flagship communism has made many others feel worse than second class citizens! If “feeling like a second class citizen” is a sincere concern of theirs, they should also be concerned that they might be making others “feel like second class citizens.”

Did a Ten Commandment display in Florida make these New Jersey atheists feel like second class citizens? Of course not! Are they concerned that Christians in the military might feel like second class citizens now that they have been threatened with a court marshal if they proselytize? Meanwhile, there is no such threat against the promotion of atheism, a religion that has the murder of 100,000,000 people in its resume.

This is not an isolated faux pox by a group of renegade atheists. It represents their determined thrust. If you have any doubts about this, just scan the various atheist websites and Facebook groups! Almost all are devoted to scorn, without any fruitful vision for a healthy society, apart from the promotion of permissiveness.

They claim that “There is no secular purpose for the [Ten Commandment] monument.” However, if this criticism is to be taken seriously, the atheist must show a purpose for their agenda. However, it is only a negative one.

Not all atheists show a disregard for truth. Atheist Walter Balcerak writes, “As a secular humanist, I believe religions are mainly harmful delusions.” Surprisingly, he acknowledges that some good comes out of religion. Balcerak quotes the atheist professor of psychology, Jonathan Haidt:

• According to Haidt, religion does more than unite people. He says studies indicate that religiously observant Americans “are more generous with their time and money, especially in helping the needy, and they are more active in community life.”

• Research on 19^th century communes demonstrates the cohesiveness of religious groups, he asserts, because they were much more likely to survive than secular ones. Of the 400 communes studied, 20 years after their founding only 6 percent of secular groups had survived, compared to 39 percent of religious groups.

This again raises the question, “What does atheism have to offer us in place of the Ten Commandments?”