"What the hell makes you think you deserve any magnanimity in your defeat? You've had the upper hand for centuries, and what did you do with it? To this day, Christianists relentlessly smear, defame, and attack gays, atheists, sexually-active single women, biological scientists, and anyone else whose behavior or thinking doesn't conform to the primitive taboo system of your barbaric and ridiculous religion. Not an atom of magnanimity there. American Christianist spokesmen cheer on and encourage brutal Christian thugs in the governments of Russia, Uganda, and Nigeria when they enact outrageous laws to enable hideous persecution. You're still fighting to deny gay people the right to marry in the states where they haven't yet won it, and before Lawrence v. Texas swept away the last laws against homosexuality itself, you supported those, too. You still smear Darwin as a progenitor of the Nazi regime, which actually banned his writings. You supported and defended racist subjugation of black Americans, the very racism you now claim should not be compared to your hostility to gays. What magnanimity did Alan Turing or Oscar Wilde get? What magnanimity did Galileo or Bruno get? Or Hypatia? You wrecked our entire fucking civilization and plunged it into a thousand wasted years of stagnation and backwardness, and then fought against rebirth every step of the way. And you guys don't change. The only reason you aren't still brutalizing and terrorizing the rest of us is that you've lost the power to do it -- the majority of "Christians" in the Western world now only "believe" in a superficial and almost meaningless sense, and would recoil in healthy repulsion at the ghastly human costs of actually enforcing the taboo system. You true believers are back in the minority now, and it's going to stay that way."Infidel's full commentary is posted here.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Infidel753 on Fundamentalists Losing the Culture Wars
Earlier this month, Ross Douthat penned a commentary entitled "The Terms of Our Surrender" for the New York Times. Douthat reflected on the growing acceptance of LGBTQ rights in our society and the defeat of Arizona's SB 1062, lamenting that anti-gay voices are being "marginalized" and left fewer public spaces for "dissent". Fellow blogger Infidel753 took offense at Douthat's column on how the homophobic right should "negotiate surrender" in the culture wars, condemning the hubris of anti-gay, fundamentalist Christians ("Christianists").
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Thanks for the post! I didn't mean to target Douthat personally so much as the broader Christianist element he speaks for here, and I actually give him credit for explicitly acknowledging Christianity's past record of intolerance. But he did put himself out there for everybody to sharpen their claws on, and his column was a convenient opportunity to make a point.
ReplyDeleteInfidel -- You didn't sound like you were targeting him personally; I definitely got the impression that it was the larger movement you were criticizing. The Religious Right definitely needs perspective when talking about how it has been "marginalized".
DeleteGenerally I agree with the remarks of Infidel, although to my mind he overstates the case. Sadly the extremist atheist has much to much in common with those they rail the most about from a psychological point of view. Still he is largely right. I think the overstating actually weakens his voice and that is a shame.
ReplyDeleteI like Infidels commentary so much. It sums up what is wrong with these views and throws it open for everyone to see what the consequences are for stupid beliefs when they get applied as laws.
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