Will the atheists please stand up?

Over the past few years, the gay rights movement has made tremendous strides. With the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the ever increasing number of states, most recently being Delaware, that are legalising same-sex marriage and outlawing anti-LGBT discrimination, and the overall acceptance that is being shown towards the LGBT community, it is only a matter of time before we are fully accepted into American society. As someone who is LGBT, namely those last two, I can say that I am very proud of my country.

As someone who is an atheist though, I can say that our country still needs a lot of work.

It is not that we are fighting for the right to be able to legally love whom we want or that we are fighting for the right to vote. We already have those rights, unless we’re also LGBT. We are fighting for something much more basic, something the LGBT community was all too familiar with at one point in time. The right to exist and freely express who and what we are.

For the longest time in American history, atheists have been legally discriminated against. Several states still have on the books, even if they cannot be enforced, the laws that keep atheists from running for public office or having their testimony counted in court.

The stigma that is associated with atheists makes us the most distrusted and hated minority in the country. Nearly half of this country would not vote for an atheist candidate. Nearly half of this country would not want their child dating or marrying an atheist. Nearly half of this country thinks atheists share their vision of America the least. In all of these categories, atheists are more hated than gays, Muslims, and every single other group mentioned.

But the LGBT community did something we can learn from. They stood up. They came out of their proverbial closet. They came out and were proud of who they were and were unapologetic about it.

Now, when someone comes out as gay, it’s not that big of a deal anymore. It’s usually very positive too, except for the hate that usually comes from homophobes on the religious right. Sure, there are still cases of people being cut off from family and friends from it, but that is becoming less and less of an occurrence. And yes, it’s sometimes a kind of big deal when a public figure of some kind comes out, but less so nowadays.

That was the greatest tool implemented by the LGBT community. They came out so much that once they did, people had to accept the fact that there were more gays out there than they thought and that at least one of their close friends or family was probably LGBT. They came out in such great numbers that people were forced to accept that it was normal.

Atheists aren’t doing that. They aren’t standing up.

Either they live in an area that is already so secular that they don’t feel the need to come out or be active, or they live in an area where they are afraid to come out for fear of losing their friends, family, jobs, or even lives.

If you fear that, don’t. I lost some friends and family over it. They weren’t my real friends. That’s what I learned from that experience. If someone is going to not be my friend simply because I am no longer convinced by the claims made in the Bible, then they were not a true friend.

Coming out will make things better for you the sooner you do it. When you come out, sooner or later your friends, family, and colleagues will no longer have an issue with it. Sure, they might think you’re wrong, but it will become normal to them and no longer this scary thing.

Not only will you coming out help yourself, but it will also help others who are too afraid to come out themselves. If they see more and more people are coming out as atheists, then they will be more willing to do it themselves. You can be a pebble that starts an avalanche (yes, that was a Lord of the Rings reference; shoot me).

That’s what the LGBT movement did. They came out, and homosexuality is being accepted as normal, because they have been doing it for so long and in such huge numbers. That’s what we need to do with atheism.

With all of the positive media attention about Jason Collins coming out, as well as Delaware State Senator Karen Peterson, Nevada State Senator Kelvin Atkinson, and recently Amini Fonua, an athlete from Texas A&M University, the question I have to ask is: where is our Jason Collins? Where is our Ellen DeGeneres? Where is our Barney Frank? Where is our Harvey Milk? That can be you.

We need to come out and be proud. No more hiding the fact that we don’t believe in their gods. Will the atheists please stand up? Will you stand up?

Bryan Fischer: Homosexuals being selective with sexual partners is proof being gay is a choice

Bryan Fischer, host of American Family Radio, has outdone himself this time. I never thought that this man could get any more stupid and absurd with the stuff that he spouts off on a daily basis.

On the Tuesday broadcast of the show, Fischer said that “anytime a homosexual exercises any sort of selectivity at all when it comes to intimate matters, he is proving that it is a matter of choice. Nobody is compelled to follow those impulses.”

Yes, because gay people are not going out and having sex with literally every other gay person out there, then that is proof that being gay is a choice. Who knew?!

Mind = blown!

If being gay is a choice, because gay people are exercising “selectivity” in “intimate matters,” then being straight must also be a choice, because straight people also partake in selectivity. This means that straight people have those same urges for those of the same sex, but they choose to ignore them so they don’t make Baby Jesus cry.

Bryan Fischer is choosing to be straight, therefore, by his own logic, he is choosing to ignore “those impulses” and desires he may have for other men. When Bryan Fischer comes out of the closet, I don’t think many people will be surprised, other than his flock of sheeple that listen to him and actually take him seriously.

Homosexuality Just as Bad as Holocaust, Atheism Even Worse

There is a website called boundless.org, which is a website (including a blog and podcast) about young adults (by adults) and how they should live their lives according to Jesus. Their About Us section goes like this:

The transition through young adulthood is a time of adventure, discovery and excitement; but also loneliness, longing and uncertainty.

With encouragement and advice for navigating relationships, career, culture, faith and more, Boundless helps you mature in Christ as a foundation for marriage and family. That requires living intentionally with purpose by bringing your gifts, talents and Christian worldview to bear on your whole life.

The host for the Boundless podcast, Lisa Anderson, is also the “program director for young adults at Focus on the Family.” Now we can see what kind of angle they are getting, trying to brainwash confused and desperate teenagers and the like into thinking everything will be okay as long as they follow Jesus. This is not a dissection of the entire website. Just some background information which puts this all into context.

A blog post that came out Monday by the name of “Why We Fight” by Andres Hess, who works on the “broadcast production, content development and research teams at Focus on the Family. He teaches Bible and psychology classes at Colorado Christian University…”

The post starts off by talking about the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, which “tells the powerful story of a group of paratroopers who fought in World War II.” Hess talks about the shock the soldiers received when they stumbled across one of the Nazi Concentration Camps. When I first read this article, I had no prior knowledge of what the post was about or the site it was hosted on. I was not sure what to expect, until I read this part (emphasis mine):

Watching this scene, two things struck me. First, these soldiers endured extraordinary hardships fighting in World War II, and second, their sacrifices were worth the lives of the many they were able to save. The world saw the terrible carnage that results when God’s commands are disregarded.

My initial response:

Yes, the world is a terrible place when God’s commands are disregarded, even though Adolph Hitler believed he was doing the work of God by exterminating the Jews. This is directly from Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiography (emphasis mine):

I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.

The Bible commands that believers kill nonbelievers and those of other faiths, among many more people for many more reasons. Before anyone says it does not, please read this. God’s commandments were not being ignored, quite the opposite, they were being carried out by a faithful follower. I wonder if Hess thinks that Hitler was an atheist. He probably does, and then if pointed out all of the evidence for Hitler’s Christianity, he would probably use the classic “No True Scotsman Fallacy” that Hitler “wasn’t a true Christian.”

Hess goes on to say, “Sometimes people ask why we engage on controversial family issues like cohabitation, homosexuality and abortion.” He goes from Holocaust to homosexuality. I cannot wait to see how this one turns out.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just let everyone do what they want? Why can’t we just do our own thing and leave others to do theirs? Well, yes, that would definitely be easier. It would be much simpler to tolerate and to avoid the seemingly endless debates. So why not just leave it alone?

Yes. It would be easier, so please, as a bisexual, pro-choice atheist that is currently in a “cohabitation” with someone I care for very deeply, leave us alone and stop trying to take away our rights.

We can’t and won’t disengage on these issues because we love people and hate things that destroy people.

That old “hate the sin, love the sinner” nonsense. His entire blog post seems to be an elongated version of that overdone message, mixed in with some “we’re going to keep doing this, even if the world hates us for it, because we love Jesus and Jesus loved people, so we love people.”

These next bits are just… I really do not know how to describe it. Just read (emphasis mine):

Some may not see the connection between the evil of the Nazi war machine and the evil of abortion and sexual sin, but biblically, they are analogous. It’s sobering to consider all sin is a serious offense against a holy God and reaps punishment from Him. The Bible is clear. All sin offends God and deserves eternal punishment away from His presence.

Yes, he is comparing the Holocaust, one of the worst tragedies in history that killed ten million innocent men, women, and children, to gays and people living together who are not married.

How do Christians reconcile the idea that murder is just as bad as homosexuality? I have always wondered how they manage to think that loving someone deserves the same kind of punishment as murdering someone. “All sin offends God and deserves eternal punishment” is how they seem to do it. The punishment given to gay people who love each other is the same punishment as murderers. How is that “holy”? How is that moral?

Hitler’s sin and my sin both evoke God’s righteous wrath. The holocaust was one of the worst eruptions of evil in the history of the world, but what awaits those who reject God is worse, far worse.

Not only are homosexuality and cohabitation just as bad, according to Hess’ god, as the Holocaust, but rejecting his god, being an atheist like myself, is “worse, far worse” than systematically slaughtering entire races of people. Seriously?! How is it moral to think that not worshipping something, which has no evidence for its existence, is worse than killing countless numbers of people?

This is the kind of religious garbage that is passed off as just and fair morality to children who do not know any better. The website itself is aimed at teenagers who will grasp onto anything that will throw them a raft when they feel that they are drowning. These are taught as good and moral values to have. How are these things considered good? How is it moral to think like this? These thoughts and beliefs are immoral and dangerous.

If anyone who was not religious thought these things and expressed them on a daily basis, everyone would believe they are disgusting people who need to be locked away before they hurt anyone. However, once we tack on “God told me to,” wrapped in a bundle of nicely worded bigotry, then they are moral, righteous people, and we should respect their viewpoints, even if their viewpoints say that many people should have their rights taken away.

The Mosaic Law is Still in Place

It’s one of the oldest lines in the book (I’m not referring to the Bible), that Jesus, upon his coming to Earth as the son of God and eventual crucifixion, created a New Covenant for Christians (then the Jews) to live by, thereby abolishing the Old Covenant of Moses and the laws of the Old Testament, referred to as the Mosaic Law.

This is why certain Christians today claim that they do not have to follow the laws where God commands the stoning of gays (Lev. 20:13), supposed witches (Exo. 22:17), adulterers (Lev. 20:10), fornicators (Lev. 21:9), people of other faiths (Exo. 22:19), disobedient children (Lev. 20:9), entire towns of nonbelievers, including their women, children, infants, and livestock (Deut. 13:13-19), women who aren’t virgins on their wedding nights (Deut. 22:20-21), people who work on the Sabbath (Exo. 31:12-15), blasphemers/infidels (Lev. 24:10-16), and many more.

There are, however, many Christians who would gladly quote these verses and say that we are still bound by these laws, such as the extremely homophobic Kansas and North Carolina pastors that have been in the news recently. Which is it then?

By today’s standards, this is barbaric and disgusting. If someone today tried to kill someone else for any of these reasons, they would be considered a murderous psychopath, not someone who is doing good by carrying out the will of some god, even if those might be their intentions.

This rightfully so should be considered such, because it is barbaric; it is evil and backwards. If God is so loving, how can he ask this of his people? Even if these aren’t in effect right now, which I will get to in a second, what kind of “loving father” would command at any point in time his children to kill others, God’s other children, for just happening to be born in a different nation, for being born into a family of a differing religion, or for being born gay? “God is love,” I guess.

The claim made by Christians is that Jesus abolished these laws. This may be true, and let’s assume that it is for a minute. Now, I’m not going to argue if there is a new covenant. There is. It is laid out in the Old and New Testaments that God was going to create such a thing. In fact, here is a Christian explanation for the New Covenant. My only contention is when people say that since the Old Covenant was abolished, they no longer have to kill sinners, such as gays, supposed witches, adulterers, etc.

One Christian apologist blog claims that it has been abolished in one of their posts “Has the Mosaic Law Been Abolished?“

Since it was fulfilled, its requirements no longer apply. Thus practically, it has been abolished. As such, we are not required to follow it.

The author of the post gives numerous biblical verses that support the idea that the Mosaic Law has been abolished, or at least that we are no longer required to follow it. I suggest reading them all. If this is so, then what are the laws that people should follow? One of the people in the comments had this very same problem, except they were a Christian. They claimed, “According to [the author], we can now have sex with animals, commit incest…” and do all sorts of other things that were forbidden in the Old Testament.

A different Christian apologist site called Truth on the Web, has a different perspective on the matter. Emphasis his, not mine.

The apostle John taught throughout his writings that the law is still to be observed by God’s people.  You could read in John 5:14 & 8:11 where Jesus told people to “sin no more”. WHAT IS SIN? I John 3:4 states, ” …sin is the transgression of the law”. SIN IS THE BREAKING OF GOD’S COMMANDMENTS!  Jesus said not to break them anymore!

More disagreements between Christians on their own scripture and Messiah. Fun.

From what I’ve gathered from the latter of the two apologists, the Ten Commandments are still in effect, because Jesus, the Apostles, and others cite them throughout the New Testament, but the author says nothing of the 600 or so other commandments of God.

Are they the laws that were abolished upon Jesus’ crucifixion? If it is true that we are supposed to follow the Ten Commandments alone, then what are the punishments for breaking them? The Old Testament says to stone and kill people who break them. It is suggested in the New Testament that the same punishment be dealt when Jesus quotes the laws of Moses in Mark 7:9-13.

And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)— then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”

So even if the laws I mentioned at the beginning were abolished, the Ten Commandments were not and are still commanded of Christians to this day. Do not forget too, the punishment for breaking the Ten Commandments “is to be put to death.” Hey, Jesus’ words, not mine (well, technically Moses, but Jesus is quoting him).

Now, God (Jesus’ daddy…who is also him…who is also a part…that is still separate from him…and…what?) did not seem to change his mind about the laws and commandments I have mentioned when they moved into the New Testament, as is abundantly clear in Romans 1:26-32.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips,slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

I’m going to ignore the part where God just made people gay, fully knowing that they would be punished for what he made them do.

According to this, things like homosexuality and other sins mentioned are to be punished by killing the sinner. Remember, this is not the Old Testament. Romans is in the New Testament, so there is no getting around it. God is telling us in the New Testament that homosexuality, among other things, is still a sin that must be punished with death according to “God’s righteous decree.” God wants us to kill gays (Leviticus 20:13), but we’ve been “released from the law” (Romans 7:6), so we don’t have to, but God still wants us to, because gays “deserve death” (Romans 1:32).

Some verses point towards a New Covenant being established, but there are also verses where Jesus himself is quoting Mosaic Laws, such as stoning disobedient children. Then there are laws and commandments in the New Testament that are identical to those in the Old. This further proves that 1) the Bible can be interpreted and cherry-picked however one sees fit in order to justify their beliefs and actions, and that 2) there are contradictions upon contradictions contained within the Bible.

The Christian Listener

During the most recent episode of Dogma Debate, we had on John Christy, a Christian listener of the show, for David Smalley and the rest of us to converse with. The segment was supposed to be only about twenty minutes long, maybe forty at the most, but we ended up talking to him for over an hour and a half. A reason for that is because 1) we had a lot to talk about, and 2) he takes forever to say anything.

He was a nice guy. I am not trying to hate on John. I like him as a person. I am not a bigot against Christians, as much as Christians (and some atheists) would like to think I am. I do not like his beliefs. I do not like what he stands for. I do not like the source he claims is his moral compass. There’s a difference. If the Christian can say, “Hate the sin, love the sinner,” then we can say, “Hate the beliefs, not the believer,” which is how I felt about John.

A very big problem I did have with him during the show was how when asked very specific and direct questions, he would employ how it takes forever for him to say anything, which derails the conversation to avoid actually answering the question. While the show was going on, I got comments from listeners who were saying exactly that. When repeatedly asked the same question because he was avoiding it, he just continued to ramble on as if he did not hear a thing (which maybe he honestly didn’t because he was calling in on Skype).

Getting onto some specific points from the discussion.

John claimed that Jesus was breaking the Mosaic Laws, such as when he broke the Sabbath, and this is why we shouldn’t follow those laws anymore. The problem here is that it’s not biblically accurate, which is funny, because John kept saying that we weren’t being biblically accurate, neither was the North Carolina pastor who wanted every gay to be put into a giant concentration camp for them to die off in.

The reason John is not biblically accurate is because Jesus was angered by the Pharisees for not following the Laws of Moses, as is clear in Mark 7:9-13.

And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)—then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother.Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”

Jesus is clearly mad that people are not following the Old Testament laws, especially the hypocrites who claimed he was not. Jesus wants us to follow the Old Testament laws of Moses. Jesus wants disobedient children to be executed. It’s right there in black and white.

In response to when I pressured him about this, John claimed that Jesus was a law-breaker, that he broke the Sabbath repeatedly. This is partially true. Jesus was accused of working the Sabbath by the Pharisees, because he ate grain on the Sabbath, which required work. Also, the Pharisees accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath by healing the sick. However, according to an apologetics site, Jesus was not sinning when he worked on the Sabbath.

When Jesus healed on the Sabbath, He was not breaking the Sabbath, but fulfilling it, because one is not at rest when afflicted, oppressed and bound by disease or infirmity. As many scriptures show, God delights in redeeming and restoring the afflicted, and giving them the rest exemplified by His Sabbath. God “hears the cry of the afflicted. When he gives quietness [rest], who then can make trouble?” (Job 34:28–29).

I’m not saying that I agree with the either John or the apologetics site, but it’s funny to see how Christians disagree with each other so much with their interpretations of who Jesus was, what he did, what he taught, and how we should live our lives according to his teachings.

Now the reason John brought this up was because he was saying that the coming of Jesus, that his time here on Earth, was him creating a new covenant and getting rid of the Mosaic Laws, such as stoning gays, disobedient children, people of other faiths, people who work on the Sabbath, and other people for what today would be considered barbaric and for arbitrary reasons. Well, that same article on Jesus breaking the Sabbath has this to say on that.

Had Jesus Christ actually broken the Sabbath, He would have been sinning. But the Scripture says that He “committed no sin” (1 Peter 2:22). Had He sinned, He could not be our Savior. But He, being undefiled and separate from sinners, offered Himself without spot and without blemish to God for our redemption (Hebrews 7:26; 9:14; 1 Peter 1:18–19).

Breaking the Sabbath, according to these Christians, is a sin even today. John did not say that Jesus did not break the Sabbath because he was doing God’s will or because it was a matter of life or death, only that Jesus broke the Sabbath, because he was creating a new covenant for people to live by. I, if I were a Christian, would spin this to say that the new covenant had already been made, so Jesus was still perfect and had not sinned, therefore he could still be sacrificed to God (who is himself…but is also his father…but is also a part of him…who is still separate…and then there’s that Holy Ghost thing…what?) for the sins that he let happen.

Speaking of, Smalley also tried to get an answer out of John on this one. Jesus was a sacrifice to God for the sins that God was fully aware were going to happen. God knew that Adam and Eve were going to sin by eating from the Tree of Knowledge. John responded to this by going around the question and speaking for a really long time without really saying anything that had anything to do with the question.

Here is the difference between Christians and atheists. Christians, when faced with the tough questions, will make excuses and/or go around the question itself. Atheists will straight up answer that question.

Another thing he claimed was that Christianity does not command the murder of people for things such as homosexuality, fornication, adultery, working on the Sabbath, etc. This is why he thought, when we played the audio of it, that the North Carolina pastor was being biblically inaccurate for what he said. However, nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus, or anyone for that matter, say that the laws of Moses have been voided, and it is all the more clear that Jesus himself wants us to follow those laws with how he quoted them himself. If he did not want us to follow these laws, then it would be just another contradiction added to the mountain of contradictions found in the Bible.

My favourite part of the interview, the part where you just want to facepalm so badly, is when John said this.

I’m not even allowed now to have my own opinion to myself. I don’t go out and attack homosexuals. I disagree with the Westboro Baptist Church, you know. But I can’t even just think that it’s sin in my own life. Now I have to conform to what society believes, otherwise, I’m gonna be in trouble. I’m gonna lose my friends…

Bigots should be ostracised. Why is the KKK ostracised? Why is it considered a hate group? Because it is! Soon NOM and other anti-gay groups and people will be seen as the same, and they should be. Persecuting others for their sexuality or their gender or their race is not acceptable. Thinking that they are inferior, that they are going to hell, that they are going to be eternally punished because of something that they can’t control should be frowned upon for so many reasons.

However, Christians are not persecuted in America. Christians are not banned from holding public office in several states. Christians are not misrepresented in the media. Christians are not told that less than half of all Americans would vote for them. Christians are not legally allowed to be discriminated against in the workplace. Atheists are. Gays are. No Christian can say they feel persecuted in a country where 80% of the population are Christian.