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10 Things Christians and Atheists Can (And Must) Agree On

By David Wong December 16, 2007 317,470 views
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6. We Tend to Exaggerate About the Other Guy

Cyberpunk author Neal Stephenson wrote in one of his books - and this was probably just moments before the character was split in half by a robot weilding a samurai sword - that the only real sign of intelligence was the ability to detect subtlety.

Anybody can memorize facts. But you remain a clumsy, intellectual oaf of a person as long as you keep looking for sheer black and white in every situation. That's what's so frustrating about politics, the way everybody wants to paint the two parties as angels vs. devils. And if you just said to yourself, "Yeah! Those evil ________ are always trying to polarize us that way!" then, guess what, you just did the same thing.

So please, please, please, when we get into these atheist vs. Christian arguments, can the atheists stop acting like Christians want to abolish all science and live in grass huts? Just because some Christians reject the science on evolution, doesn't mean they reject all science.

I mean, give me a break. America has been full of Christians since the day we invaded it, and has been a scientific and technological freaking superpower. So please stop waving your arms and warning that if Christians get their way, we'll all be sacrificing virgins on altars and replacing surgeons with priests.

And Christians, will you please, pretty please, with sugar on top, stop implying that the atheist lifestyle is one long drug-riddled blood orgy? You take a country like Japan, where just 12% of the people say religion is important to their lives and yet have some of the lowest crime rates in the world.


Japan


Okay, so maybe Japan is a bad example. But it doesn't matter. To move on, we only need to agree that rejecting science on one subject doesn't mean you reject all science on all subjects, and that rejecting Christian morality doesn't mean rejecting all morality.


And if we agree that we tend to exaggerate about the other guy, can we also agree that...

7. We Tend to Exaggerate About Ourselves, Too

If you're like me, there's this weird process that happens when you encounter somebody who believes the opposite as you, especially when they're really pushy about it. You actually go the other direction. I secretly think the Yankees are good enough to win 80 games this year and maybe make the playoffs, the other guy snorts in my face and tells me they'll be lucky to finish last. I roar back that they're going to win 100 and take home the title.

It's like that other guy is so irritating, I want to position myself further away. Or maybe it's like haggling over the price of a used car, you start low so that once the compromise happens, you'll be closer to your end than his.

It's often the same thing here. It looks like this:

"I believe the Bible is true."

"There is no evidence that this one religious text is any truer than other texts like it."

"EVERY LETTER IN THIS BOOK IS ETCHED DIRECTLY FROM THE HAND OF THE ALMIGHTY AND ANY ONE SYLLABLE CAN REDUCE ALL OF THE WORK OF ALL THE WORLD'S SCIENTISTS TO RUBBLE!"

"YOUR BRAINWASHED DEVOTION TO A RIDICULOUS BOOK OF SUPERSTITIOUS LIES HAS DESTROYED CIVILIZATION AND KILLED BILLIONS!!!!"

In reality, there are very few Christians who do or even try to follow the Bible exactly, including all the obscure rules about church women staying silent and hatted. Word of God or not, the faith changes, adapts with the times. That is, in fact, the entire point of Christianity. Jesus was a reformer, and set that precedent. It continues to this day, it's what I like about it.


Now Christians hate to admit that, because it opens the door for the other guy to say, "See! If it's not the word of God then you admit it's all a big pile of fly-ridden crap and that atheism is the one true belief system!" So, the Christian digs in and pretends they've never experienced a moment of religious doubt in their lives.

Conversely, atheists like to pretend they're islands of pure, rational thought in a sea of wild-eyed craziness. But we all have a little crazy in our world, and we all depend on some fantasy that floats outside the boundaries of cold reason.

Atheists still tell their girlfriends they "love" them, and not that they simply feel a psychological artifact of a biochemical bond generated by the mating instinct. They still refer to their "mind" as if it's something more than chemical switches. And remember what we talked about with "justice" and "right" and "wrong." None of it is scientific.

Even weirder? Free will. Remember, to a neuroscientist, free will is every bit as real as the Tooth Fairy. They can watch your neurons light up at the moment you make moral decisions, can trace the exact electrochemical pathways. If there is nothing beyond the physical, then your ability to choose your actions vanishes along with God and Heaven and the angels. It was an atheist professor who told me that, in a class on ethics.

Two days later, he told me if I was ever late to class again, he'd knock 100 points off my grade.

To deter me from being late in the future.

As if I had the free will to be late or on time.

So we all got those contradictions, that's my point. None of us are 100% on board.


You don't have to admit this one out loud. I know you lose debate points for it. Just keep reading if you agree.

8. Focusing on Negative Examples Makes You Stupid

That guy, the "God Hates Fags" guy who runs the protests I mentioned back on the first page? Fred Phelps? His church (Westboro Baptist) has become world famous for those dickish demonstrations.

Which is amazing, considering that the "church" is made up entirely of Phelps' family and a few friends. That's it. And they're world famous, mainly because atheists looooooove to hold them up as an example of what dicks Christians are. When you need an icon of intolerance, they're as useful to have around as Hitler.

And please don't come at me with the, "Christians hate Phelps because they know he's saying out loud what they're secretly thinking! They secretly hate homosexuals just as much!"

Please. The White House and Congress and the Supreme Court are full of Christians, always have been. If all Christians thought like Phelps, American gays would be in concentration camps. There'd be nobody to stop it.

Smearing all Christians with Phelps' bile is a cheap shot, like saying all atheist schoolkids are potential Columbine shooters. At worst, that kind of stereotyping is dehumanizing and divisive. At best, it's a recipe for mediocrity.

I compare myself to the worst so that I don't have to try to be the best. I can spend all day on my sofa, playing Wii Boxing and helping no one, and I'll still be a better man than Phelps. But I think we've got to shoot higher here.

It's just another form of hypocrisy, and if there's one thing we can agree on, it's that hypocrisy sucks.

We're almost done here.


Now, if only we can agree that...

9. Both Sides Have Brought Good to the Table

Okay, bear with me here.

Christians, I'm not saying that atheists have brought good things to the world by telling people not to believe in God. I'm talking about the thing that drives atheism, the philosophy behind it.

I'm talking about rationalism. I'm talking about the philosophy that started saying, centuries ago, that it's not demons that cause disease. It's microbes, and genetic defects, and chemistry. And that we can find those causes and we can find cures. Cures in the physical world, without consulting the priest, without going through a ceremony.

Think about what I said before. If atheism is wrong, it's only wrong in that it takes rationalism too far, beyond the edges of the universe. But you don't have a problem with the rationalism itself. There are people you love who would not be alive without it. You can pray that grandpa's heart holds out for another year, but rational thinking invented the pacemaker.

So even if you detest atheism, you can at least agree that it grew out of something good.

Atheists. You hate wars. You hate genocide, you hate iron-fisted dictators who line up peasants and jump over them with monster trucks. You hate it when corporations steal your money, and when fat suburbanites will let a million Africans starve before they'll donate. You hate guys who treat women like lifeless sex dolls, guys who lie and leave.

You hate all of that, because you know that the ability to have empathy for other humans (even those who don't benefit us) is the only thing that separates us from the cockroaches. And when that fails, it's terrifying and awful in countless ways.

In the middle of a religious debate, you may say that religion and superstition are the prime evil in human society. But you look behind it, and you'll find that other monster is bigger. Humans doing the opposite, acting like animals. Treating other humans as nothing but engines for their own pleasure.

Religion - whether it was handed down by God or just invented by a bunch of guys- serves mainly to fight that. It makes humanity sacred, and the moral law moreso. You can hate the methods it uses, you can say that there are other ways, you can say that it only replaces one cancer with another. But most of what it's trying to get you to do - treat other humans as sacred and put morality above your own impulses - you already do. And you criticize religion mainly for not doing it.

You're going to come back here and say that you're not criticizing that part of religion, the concept of things being sacred, or morality, or any of that flowery stuff. It's the intolerance and manipulation and superstition and ignorance you hate, the zealots demanding evolution be stripped from the textbooks.

But from the Christian's point of view, when you attack one, you attack the other. The story of Christianity (or mythology, if you prefer) is bound to the morality. Humanity is sacred because were were planted here in a six-day act of divine intervention. Lying is wrong because God said so. You should work to preserve a marriage because God made that bond sacred with Adam and Eve.

So when you attack that mythology, Christians hear you attacking the morality along with it. And that is why they fight so hard for it.

Seriously, what did you think the creationism thing was about? It's about keeping humanity sacred. They think that once you dash the idea of a created humanity, then there'll be nothing to stop strong humans from treating weak ones as cannon fodder.

And logically, there won't be anything. You can't defend morality with logic. Once you explain it away as an artifact of the genetic herd instinct, well, hey, we've got the genome mapped out, right? Couldn't we just cut that morality gene right out of there?

If you're saying, "But that would be retarded! The world would go down the toilet if we did that!" Guess what, that's just your morality gene talking. Your objection is merely based on a genetic disposition toward social behavior, and can be ignored with the proper genetic changes.

Do you see how weird this gets? There's no logical conclusion to it, it just gets more and more strange. So what's their motivation to go that way?

After all, you know as well as I do that there are two kinds of people who attack Christianity: those who love rationalism, and those who just have a knee-jerk reaction to being told what to do. You've got people who are right for the wrong reasons, and others who are wrong for the right reasons, and some who are right for the right reasons and others who are wrong for the wrong reasons.

It's like all my friends are with me on the beach, looking out at the ocean. Half of them look at the water and say:

"This is Oceanis, the living Blue God! He is sacred!"

While the other half say,

"Here is a convenient place to dump our sewage."

The truth has to be somewhere in between.

Right?

Whew. Last one, for the people who are still reading. Can all zero of you agree that:

10. You'll Never Harass the Other Side Out of Existence

Remember when I said that, when somebody comes on too strong, no matter what they're selling, we tend to run the other way? I mean, sure, the "God Hates Fags" guy has changed tens of thousands of minds. But not in the direction he intended.

People are not convinced that way. The sarcasm, the disdain, the laughter. It makes you feel better, and rallies your friends, but it does exactly nothing to change minds on the other side. Conservatives may like to read Ann Coulter, but nobody else does.

No, in reality, if changing minds is your thing, there's only one way to do it:

Lead by Example.

There's a thing the church has been doing for centuries, that I don't think it can do any longer. It goes like this:

"Jesus is the son of God."

"How do I know that?"

"Because if you don't know that, then you will burn in Hell for eternity."

No. Uh-uh. If you want people to live their life in a certain way, based on a certain fact, you can't substitute a threat for evidence.

You have to lead by example.

Atheists, same thing. you want to show me that atheism is the key to a balanced, satisfying, confident life? Show me.

Trust me, if they introduce a new energy drink tomorrow and I observe that everybody who drinks it suddenly can dunk a basketball from their knees, I'm going to notice. So will everyone else.

That drink will be unstoppable.

So if you want to criticize the Christians' intolerance, then be tolerant. Show them how it's done. Shame them with your tolerance. You won't have to say they're awful. They'll look awful by sheer comparison to you.

And don't show up in a room full of Christians and start making fun of their taboos, immediately talking about boobs or whatever, as if the only reason people adhere to a rule is out of fear of experiencing the awesomeness of breaking it. You've got taboos, too. All of you. Things you don't like to see or hear in polite conversation. This is the internet, I can show you the pictures.

Be tolerant. Lead by example.

Both of you.

And don't think of it as a tactic to win converts. Think of it as common courtesy.


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572 Comments

mr. wong,

There are a - to me, surprising - number of comments claiming that this was a great article, very "refreshing," etc. Having read, among others, your "Unleash the Horror" article (or whatever it was titled), I just wanted to let you know that I found this article annoying.

Since I'm commenting to provide my personal criticism so that you can possibly adjust articles in the future, rather than just call you a cuntwagon and leave it at that, I suppose I should say that the main reason I disliked this article was because the entire thing felt incredibly half-assed. The "Horror" article was much more pointed, and while segments will still leave me wondering as to whether or not you believed most of it, the argument itself was very convincing and presented quite well, if not to my tastes.

Here, though, you present the kind of argument that I would expect at bonnaroo. Although you have some interesting points, it basically boils down, for me, to a reflection on how people don't understand each other, and how they could just get along if they realized they had a lot in common. I will agree with you that both sides have a lot in common, and probably a lot more than they realize, but to say that a future war can be avoided through these observations is not only foolhardy, but also dangerous. My point is that these people are disagreeing on the very nature of their existence, as well as whether their very existence even has a nature. I apologize for the awkward wording so as to create some feeble dramatic effect, but I think I'm reasonably clear. If there is anything else on Earth that should have a greater effect on an introspective society, I have yet to come across it. It's human nature (and, I would argue somewhere else, the nature of the universe) to draw a line in the sand, and for an issue such as this I'm surprised that you would see opportunity for reconciliation.

Once again, I really think most of your articles are great, but this one struck me the wrong way, mostly because I have a lot of respect for your writing.

Cuntwagon.

6/30/2009 8:29:58 PM
mrcheezy

The artical is refreshing, but unfortunately I think it's ultimately not going to have a great deal of effect. For most people, it's telling them nothing they don't already know, and vitriolic abuse-spewers aren't going to listen to it anyway.

Anyway, out of a perverse desire for argument in all its forms, I'll outline my points of disagreement with the article, even though nobody is likely to read them or actually care. I enjoy it.

I only got one step in before disagreeing, but it was mainly a matter of semantics. It is, technically, possible to do something in the name of atheism, but, to my knowledge, nobody ever has. Atheism, remember, is simply the condition of not having any belief in any form of deity. It carries no other viewpoint or philosophy with it. It is, certainly, possible to do things according to a philosophy which is dependent on your being an atheist, but doing something "in the name of atheism" is nonsensical, like doing something in the name of rabbits being fast or ham being tasty. It may seem like a small distinction, but the misidentification of atheism as a system of belief - as you yourself do in the same entry - leads to terminal misunderstandings between atheists and theists. It's not a system of belief. It's simply a lack of one specific belief.

I have a couple problems with the terminology of entry 3 - primarily that it implies moral objectivism on the part of all readers - but I agree with your point, if not exactly with the way that you get there. In 9,there's also that whole ethical argument regarding moral relativism that you just seem to assume everyone is in accord about.

The whole thing seemed to come off to me as somewhat condescending and unnecessary, but then it occured to me that things might actually be bad enough over in the States that this sort of writing is necessary. Where I come from, there isn't really any religious conflict at all, so for theists and atheists to be at each others' throats in unfamiliar to me. Obviously I'm not the target audience.

6/25/2009 5:42:34 PM
Redmold

I loved reading the article and I think it was very thought out, well done.

What I feel as a human being is that I don't need to believe in something to know what is right and wrong. My morals and beliefs don't need to be shaped or guided by religion. I was raised to know what is humane and what is "crazy" or not right.

As an atheist, I am not one to go shove my opinions in other people's faces. I have many religious friends and they are all as decent a human being as me. What I dislike in religion and I guess in atheism as well is the fundamentalists. The extreme ends of each side. People should not take anything too seriously and need to lighten up; put on your fellow man's shoes for once.

I find it a little silly to justify morality, humanity and common sense from religion but I know that some people need religion and it is not my place to judge. I think people need something to make them secure in life or else they end up going crazy. The most insecure people in life happen to be the ones that cause the most problems. I am completely satisfied with my choice in life that I do not really care what other people think or what they believe in. Extremists are so insecure that they have to brush their egos and reaffirm their beliefs on others which cause conflicts because two insecure people with two different beliefs will always argue.

6/24/2009 3:50:07 AM
nate_72

In contemplating this discussion what struck me as interesting is the omission of the "relationship" angle in Christianity. As morality in our western culture continues to crumble it seems fairly obvious that "genuine" Christians are few and far between. Regardless of what religion you believe in or if you are truly an atheist, it seems irrevelant when you consider the reality of a supposed modern culture. For instance, in our culture here in American, its seems painfully obvious that for the most part we worship people, places, and things all of which are unreliable and mortal. If you are a genuine Christian then you believe in Gods word and the teachings of Jesus. You believe without a doubt that God's promises are true and that Jesus' love for you is guaranteed and that you are not yoked by the slavery of people, places, and things. Phillipians 2:15 states, "That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke,in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world". So regardless of how you may or not feel about an atheist beliefs, genuine Christians are called to be "harmless" and to be the shining light of Jesus Christ. If your atheist bretheren is exposed to your "light" then his/her choice to stay in the darkness is just another way of denying the truth and denying Jesus. I repsect their right to make that choice, but I weep for their salvation. Our war is a spiritual one, it is not of men, but of the souls on men and my belief is that the Holy Spirt of God is the only thing that can conquer the sinful desires of the souls of men. God bless all who read this and I pray that one day all will know Jesus. Please feel free to comment on my blogs at http://kurtsalfi-IFFY33.blogspot.com

6/24/2009 2:50:58 AM
iffy33

A truly great article, really.

Calm, expressive, funny and informative. I'm forwarding this to many friends of mine, not because they're ultra-atheists or ultra-christians, but because this is something that deserves a reading.

Mr. Wong, you have my praise.

6/22/2009 10:01:39 AM
vato_loco

sorry for the horrible grammar on my original post, tired :P

6/18/2009 5:36:43 AM
qwertymanXD

To mr wong, excellent job you have given atheist and Christans some serious things to consider, hopefully the majority of people will have learnt something from this article and take these lessons on board into their everyday lives.

I consider my self to be agnostic (unbiased/open to all concepts). This article helped me to expose and then remove some of my own bias, it alos opened me to some new methods of thought which, I will introduce to my everyday life

I would like to thank you for this article, it was real important

Dear bigots, both atheist and Christan who continue to miss the point; this article was intended to get you all to consider how your thinking affects others and that your belief is not necessarily 'true' or 'correct', it is only what you believe (this goes for both sides). please consider the difference between what you KNOW and what you BELIEVE and you will be much better off

6/18/2009 5:35:37 AM
qwertymanXD

This is a fantastic article! Well reasoned and calm, exactly the way I like my religious/atheistic debate. This is something a lot of people would benefit from, if they went into it in a similar calm manner, allowing themselves to hear another side's opinion rather than bullheadedly striving to take offence wherever possible (as if so often the case in real life).

Usually I like to read the comment sections on pages, but at a glance I can tell that this one is going to give me a headache, so might give it a miss.

6/15/2009 3:59:15 AM
asperad

To GreySphinx, Grimace, NeoValour, and everyone who is whining about how this article is ignorant and knows absolutely nothing, CONGRATULATIONS! You win the Completely Missed the Point Award!

But all sarcasm aside, please take a step back and read your posts before submitting them. And I don't mean check for spelling or grammar mistakes. I mean actually take the time to wonder "hey, I wonder if this post could possibly make me sound like a total douche?" I'd like to direct you guys to the part of the article that talks about understanding why the other side gets so offended.

No matter which side you're on, you're assuming you're right. There is no proof that God exists. There is no proof he doesn't exist.

And to GreySphinx in particular: faith is belief. It is impossible to believe in anything without faith. One of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett, once wrote (this may be somewhat paraphrased): "You don't believe in things that exist. They just ARE."

There is no evidence for or against God. Therefore, people choose to believe. Yes, even if you just "reject belief" in God, you still believe there is no God. Ergo, Atheism is faith-based.

And Grimace, about your comment concerning how everything would be great if we all followed the Bible, I invite you to actual read that thing sometime. The Bible is an extremely violent book.

And now, to everyone, GreySphinx and Grimace included: stop twisting people's words. If I misinterpreted something you people said, then I apologize, but stop twisting people's posts to suit yourself and then acting all smug about it.

Theists: Your belief in God is totally irrational, therefore, it is OK for some people not to believe in it. But it's also OK for you to believe in it, because belief does not have to be rational. And don't act like you're in the right, because you're ignoring your own principles by rejecting others.

Atheists: Rejecting an idea out of hand, without any evidence for or against it, is unscientific and irrational. It's OK for some people to believe in God or the supernatural. It's also OK for you to not believe in any of that stuff. Just don't go acting like you're the enlightened group, because you're ignoring your own principles by rejecting God.

Alowishus: this article is not saying that both sides are right, it's saying that both sides are being dicks and that they should really stop.

6/12/2009 3:03:11 PM
LizardBite

awesome find!!! this is smart, informative, wise, and funny!! you my sir are a great dude!

6/8/2009 6:09:51 PM
iamgodzilla

tzaqaree, indeed you probably are a different kind of atheist than me... perhaps you're exactly the kind of "irrational crazy" atheist Wong talks about but my point still stands -- just because those kind of atheists exist doesn't mean we're all like that. We're not all hypocrites who deny the irrationality of others while embracing our own. There are plenty of us who are in no way offended that art, beauty, love, etc. all have complex scientific explanations that we can someday uncover and better understand.

Yeah, I love my family -- does this "love" have a complex chemical/ materialist basis? Absolutely, as I suspect everything does. So what? Does this mean my love is any less real than yours just because you think there's something fundamentally mystical about it? I challenge you to tell me so. For that matter, I'm confident that all I am is the classic "bunch of chemical reactions in a bag" -- does this make me any less of a human being than you? I challenge you to tell me so also.


And btw, atheism isn't "faith-based" any more than the denial of unicorns' existence is faith-based. You can't simply "disprove" the existence of something. But what you can do is reject baseless assertions. That's what atheism is -- a rejection. No "disproval" necessary.



--------
By the way Wong, I just remembered another one of your goofs: Comparing an exposed breast at the Super Bowl to your girlfriend/wife betraying your mutual understanding of intimate exclusivity is really stupid. The first is a matter of people getting offended by seeing someone else's natural body part. The latter is a violation of personal trust and committment. There are, in fact, plenty of swinger couples (atheists AND theists) who wouldn't care if the other banged a bunch of strangers. Why? Because they have an understanding that there is no exclusivity, thus there's no betrayal of trust or violation of commitment. It's simple stuff, really... and there's plenty of rational logic behind all this if you think deeper. But as long as your understanding of the matter doesn't go any farther than "it's either all just meat or we're all truly irrational folks", then you're going to continue missing the point and frankly, contributing to the very problem of misunderstanding that you're ironically trying to solve with this blog entry.

6/4/2009 11:01:03 PM
GreySphinx

GreySphinx, maybe you're a different kind of atheist than me but when I tell my wife and child that I love them, I am not just using layman's terms. I love them. It is more than just my evolutionary instinct to protect my DNA. There is something more to it than just science and logic. And yes, it could make us "a little bit of irrational crazy." I do not act in a rational, sane manner a lot of the time. Even now I am arguing on the internet.

Grimace, it is unfair to single out atheist countries as the only ones that are domineering. Before reading further understand that my definition of faith is believing something without physical evidence. As it is impossible to disprove God's existence, Atheism is faith based. However, it is not a religion because there is no mass consensus on a belief structure. Almost any government with an official faith, including atheism, is prone to violence. This is more because the government must remove contrasting ideological thought which is sadly often carried out by force. Otherwise it would not be a purist religious state and a state religion is meaningless. It is possible that the fact that the government is communist and fully denies other faiths as the cause for violence rather than the atheist element.

6/3/2009 4:44:16 PM
tzaqaree

I appreciate the effort but you're off on a lot, Wong.

1. Celebrating the totally natural death of someone like Falwell isn't a bad thing. The guy lived a long and prosperously wealthy life scapegoating innocent people and died of natural causes. Maybe if someone came into his house and shot him to death, there'd be a lot less celebrations around but I for one felt better on the day I knew I'd never have to hear him pin 9/11 on the gays again. If you saw atheist groups picketing his funeral, maybe then you could start comparing it to the "God Hates Fags" crowd. Until then, please spare me the "Tears for Jerry" appeal.


2. To atheists, "justice" and "love" are simply layman's terms. It's like saying "sunrise"... yes, there technically is no sun actually rising anywhere, but what am I supposed to say, "the Earth's rotation that reveals the Sun"? They're simple words and symbols for more complex, natural processes and atheists who use these words don't necessarily mean them literally... and it doesn't mean that therefore we have "a little bit of irrational crazy" in our lives. And guess what? "Love" being shorthand for a complex natural process in no way makes it any less wonderful and emotional.

3. Speaking of justice and people stealing our stuff on the train. The reason that this would be "wrong" (also a shorthand layman's term) is because it goes against the implicit and explicit codes of ethics we in civilized society agree on. Stealing property in any society that recognizes private ownership of anything is inherently offensive... and you don't need a leap of faith to a higher power to be able to understand that very simple concept.


There's a few others, but these were your biggest goofs.

6/1/2009 11:19:31 PM
GreySphinx

Dear Mr Wong, please forgive me but I think your are...well...wong.
You said that "All we need to agree on is this: it happens in both cases. And if the opposing belief system vanished tomorrow, war and bloodshed and terror would still take place." This is would only be true if both belief systems were equal. However they are not. In the case of the murdering “Christian” it is indeed a corruption of the true beliefs of Christianity. However in the case of the murdering Atheist they are only being true to their philosophy; as every communist / atheistic state has been an oppressive one. As a Christian I certainly cannot agree that if all held to true Biblical principles there would be conflict and strife on this earth; they are the result of not following true Biblical principles. If what you say is true that would negate the Biblical message and prove Atheists are right.

5/29/2009 2:46:03 PM
Grimace

I didnt find this funny. But it was possibly the most intelligent thing I've ever read

5/27/2009 10:01:47 AM
hinge_toast

"I really had to join this site just to argue this point. This is far to close a statement to what a lot of fundies believe, that atheists can't be moral without god.

We don't believe morality has anything to do with any creator or magical lawgiver. We think that morality is a cause of evolution and came about due to living as a social group. Large social groups could not evolve without rules and a form of punishment for those who break them."

However, those large social groups are comprised of many different individuals with many different backgrounds. You're not living only with atheists following only your rules. That evolution you're talking about coudl't have happened without that interaction, without the discussion about what's right or wrong, and without people trying to find the shades of grey beneath such extremes, precisely because we can't live alone. We're social animals.

Seriously, It's surprising how many people missed entirely the point of this, being offended by an article which was basically a giant white flag in text form.

5/20/2009 10:32:47 PM
AlbVega

The only thing that needs to be said is, "Mind your f*****g own." All this article amounts to is, "Now, now, you're both right, alright? Play nice." It's a silly appeasement so both sides can walk away smugly thinking that they'll just let the other idiot be wrong.

5/14/2009 2:49:39 PM
Alowishus

I realise this is cliche'd, but I actually just made an account so I could tell you you're awesome Mr. David Wong.

Eat healthy, because the world needs you.

5/11/2009 8:06:21 PM
Sanalin

I loved this. As an atheist, I must say that I can hardly hang around with most other atheists because they are so bitter and narrow minded; worse than most Christians I know. I wish everyone could read this.

5/8/2009 1:18:29 AM
Sigyn

Now if only we could get everyone in the world to read this. I propose a mass Facebook posting.

Brilliant article.

5/6/2009 11:17:05 AM
MyhrtblngstAndy

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