Good will to all men? Not from the grumpy atheists! (Thank God not all atheists are grumpy but there sure seems to be a lot of them)
Why is it that so many in the atheist community cannot bring themselves to get past their anger whenever they engage in discussions? The language of many of their contributions in public debate is laced with invective and dripping with sarcasm and bile. There are exceptions of course, but they tend to fall more into the category of being the 'exception that proves the rule' when compared to the hostility of many of today's atheist posters. Comment offered by the theists in the public square is often depicted as being 'malicious' or 'venomous' and intended to enslave the 'feeble minded and weak' by those who post. Nothing could be further from the truth. Venom is something that is oriented to death. Christians are oriented in a 180 degree different direction. We speak not to the culture of death that grips our world but rather for the culture of life and light which ends with the gift of eternal life. For example, the Catholic Church in its hum...
I don't trust the source to be neutral. Is there another version of it somewhere?
ReplyDeleteTry here, Lady J
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1270364/Christian-preacher-hooligan-charge-saying-believes-homosexuality-sin.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Thanks, Michael. Well, a lot of fuss over almost nothing, isn't it? And it's not about "religious freedom." It's about minding one's own business.
ReplyDelete"The Rev Arthur Bentley-Taylor, 68, vicar of the Emmanuel evangelical church where Mr Mcalpine worships, said: "As far as I am concerned, this is about free speech. If we arrested everybody who said something we found offensive, everyone would be in prison.’"
Very succinctly put. And I find myself in agreement with him.
Here's what I find intolerable, though: Even though I do not believe in the concept of "sin," I keep running across people -- who live in narrow little worlds -- that accuse me of sinning and expecting me to "do something about it."
Do what, exactly? They certainly do not believe in my religious freedom! Why should I bend to theirs?
But if they would simply leave it alone as their opinion, I could ignore them. But they don't want to be ignored. They want to be obeyed. They have a vision of how they want the world to be, and they just cannot accept that the rest of us do not want to live there with them. They push and they poke and they prod -- like our "preacher/hooligan" in the article, until they get a nasty reaction, and then they have the gall to pretend surprise!
And yes, we all have a right to free speech. But do we have the right to bother other people by proclaiming loudly at those who simply want to be left alone? Do we have the right to insult those whom we don't know over something that is no one's business but their own?
I'll tell ya, I also don't believe in this concept of "turn the other cheek." If someone interferes with me as I mind my own business, I will react negatively. And physically. Yes, I hit.
If more people did that, instead of running to the cops (parent figures -- the "grown-up" version of tattle-taling to Mommy), we'd have far fewer of these cases clogging up the courts, and our legal system could get on with the business of dealing with real criminals, eh?