The Problem With Atheists These Days

Most Muslims are ok.  Most Christians are ok.  Most people, in general, are ok, including atheists.  But then you get the extremists and by this, I don't mean hairy little men running around donning the finest in tea-towel head equipment and high-yield explosive devices as their latest fashion accessories. Oh no, no.  I'm talking about the irrational passionates whose reaction dials are permanently set to 'knee-jerk'.  This is kind of like most microwave ovens which are never set to any power setting other than high.

Yes, I agree that Christianity has dominated Western culture for quite long enough and religious privilege is driving secularists such as myself up the wall.  Here in New Zealand, Christianity is still permitted to be taught in secular schools which in this day and age is quite absurd really.  In the long run, this needs to be addressed, but it's not - or rather should not at all be - a priority call (see my blog Abolishing Religious Instruction From New Zealand Secular Schools) as there are much more pressing issues at stake, such as religion having a direct influence on legislation.  The lesser issues and everything else?  Meh, we'll get around to dealing with them when we've got some spare time.  Well, at least that's how it should be anyway.

Unfortunately, we have individuals, groups, and organisations rallying together to speak up and fight the little things and believing quite incorrectly that the little things will lead to rectifying the greater issues.  Nope, not at all.  That's not how the church plays ball and whether you like it or not, the church is setting the rules and the knee-jerks are playing precisely the way the church anticipates them to play.  Not only are the knee-jerks ingorant of this fact, they DON'T WANT TO KNOW.  I guess it's a pride thing.  You know, we wouldn't want religious people to be smart and ahead of us now, would we?

So the problem with atheists these days, or more accurately, the outspoken anti-theist atheists, is that they react to anything and everything religious and have little or zero understanding of the battle they are fighting or whom they are fighting against.  They exhibit no tolerance at all and quite frankly, they are no different to religious fundamentalists who won't even so much as allow a lesbian to enter a bridal shop.  Yes, we need to separate religion and state because bigotry has no place in society and its governing legislation, but is witnessing a small thank-you prayer before a corporate meal or school exam really shoving religion down one's throat?  Is it something to lose our minds over?

The very psychology behind the closed mindedness that keeps people religious and irrational is the exact same psychology that causes the anti-theist to seek out and smack down anything and everything religious.  Or to put it more bluntly, to deny all religious people of any religious freedom whatsoever, regardless of whether it has any effect on those around them or not.

At the end of the day, being such an intolerant insolent because of a harmless superstitious tradition makes you look like a fool when you react so strongly to a practice that you insist you don't believe in. The people who do take public prayers seriously (a lot don't and only say these prayers to keep other traditionalists happy) will take one look at you and triumph at the fact that the power of prayer is demonstrably real by the manifestation of the evil within you trying to resist God's power. Not only that, but they will get up to tell everyone in Church how God is working through them because yet another non-believer has been defeated by the power of Jesus Christ through prayer. You think that sounds like utter tripe? Then get a grip and stop making the rest of us look like weak non-religious pansies.

Abolishing Religious Instruction From New Zealand Secular Schools

The battle to have RI removed from New Zealand secular schools has been going on for a little while now. As a huge knee-jerk reaction I promptly volunteered to give my perspective on RI in schools as I had spent most of my life in children's ministry. I spent a few days writing a review on the curriculum used to teach RI and also a background on my own experience in children's ministry including my time as an RI teacher. In my background story and review I made sure I got straight to the point with brutal honesty. It wasn't the time to be politically correct or refrain from possible offences. The truth needed to get out and we be done with RI in our secular schools once and for all!

After some months of discussions, learning, reflecting and most importantly, thinking, I came to realize two things. Firstly, I had no support in light of the fact that I would be upsetting most of my friends and family which would inevitably cause a great tension between us and most likely end our relationships. The ‘support group’ for the campaign weren't particularly friendly and accepting of things that went against what they wanted to believe goes on in children's ministry. As someone who knows child and youth evangelism inside out, they should really take my thoughts and advice into consideration. At the end of the day, most of these people are on a warpath to eradicate something they don't really understand and once they've won the battle, they'll have no idea what their achievement actually means. I decided to pull out of the campaign and wash my hands of it. Many people were angry with me, but these people I've never met so no loss to me.

The second thing that I realized after much thought is that removing RI was going to cause an even greater problem. I should have seen this while I was writing my background story because I even mentioned it in there without recognising what I was getting at.  CEC puts their time and resources into RI which in my experience is the least effective form of children's evangelism. When we take this privilege away from them, they will then turn to more effective programs making an already problematic children's ministry more effective and quite frankly, dangerous.  The church sees legal battles that threaten their privilege to evangelize children as spiritual battles and in their eyes, spiritual trumps legal.  They will fight and they will fight dirty.  The law becomes irrelevant when souls are at risk.

Now don't get me wrong. When I say fight dirty, I don't mean there will be kidnappings and muggings. I mean the church will up their game and their tactics will move to the next level of cunning. The CEO of Churches Education Commission said himself, “This campaign against us has allowed us as an organisation to really get into an innovation space.” This isn't a benign comment.

What I believe we should be doing is educating, not having legal battles. The legal route is “we want this, we don't want that.” Educating is a much more approachable and effective way of making changes. As Dr Kerry Sparkman wrote in his book The Ant And The Ferrari, adding legislation and introducing tougher penalties is like putting more ambulances at the bottom of the cliff rather than addressing the reason that people are jumping off in the first place. Rather than say no to RI which will cause greater problems in the future, we should be working with those who provide it and also with the schools and address the problem that caused this issue in the first place - the choice to opt out rather than to opt in. I admit that the schools weren't taking the issue seriously enough, but take the school to court for not respecting parents’ wishes rather than taking the state to court and having RI abolished.

Do I support RI? No. Do I think it should be removed from secular schools? Yes, but only by going about it in in the right manner. Even the most friendly dog will bite if you poke it with sticks and the church is quite a large dog and not to be messed with recklessly. Right now, the best solution would be to have schools change RI from opt out to an extracurricular activity that parents can choose to opt in.