Hating the Sin, Not the Sinner
Since the “Four Horsemen” of atheism have had their books on the top of the charts, Christians and even some atheists claim that any atheist who criticizes Christianity or calls Christianity out for the evil that it preaches are themselves intolerant bigots. To this, I always say the same thing. I hate Christianity, not Christians. We don’t choose what we believe. We have reasons to believe what we believe (even if those reasons are not reasonable). There are many reasons why Christians believe what they believe. Some are indoctrinated at a young age, some were manipulated out of fear, guilt, despair, etc., and some are brought to Christianity through some other sort of emotional experience. It isn’t their fault that they don’t question their beliefs or that they believe in a ridiculous bronze aged mythology. So I have nothing against Christians as people. In fact, I think most Christians are very good people, who believe very ridiculous things which sometimes cause them to do very evil things all in the name of their deity of choice.
Christianity, on the other hand is not a person, it is the religious system of belief (relationship with God) and the beliefs based on the Bible which has continued to refine themselves for over 2000 years for the express purpose of converting people and spreading itself like a virus. This system has discovered which buttons to push on whom and exactly how and when to push those buttons. The sad part is that even the people pushing those buttons don’t see it as doing anything dishonest or immoral. So I can’t even blame Pat Robertson or James Dobson. They have been tricked by the system of Christianity (i.e. other Christians who have also been tricked by the system). They really have no malice in their heart. Even Fred Phelps doesn’t hate “fags” because he is a hateful person, he hates “fags” because he believes that his God punishes him because he allows “fags” to sin. If you truly believed that the fate of your eternal life rests in the hands of pleasing your deity, you would do whatever hateful thing you thought your deity would want you to do. That doesn’t make you a bad person, just and dangerous person.
All we have to do is get these Christians to start wondering how the trick is done. Get them to ask questions and to question what they have been taught and indoctrinated into believing. But the point here is that I don’t blame Christians, I blame Christianity. My view on this is similar (ironically enough) to the Christian view of loving the sinner and hating the sin. In this case, the sin is Christianity as a belief system. So you won’t hear me (or read me in this case) say that Christians in general are stupid or dumb (some particular Christians maybe, but more often than not they are just lazy and ignorant) or that they have no rights to believe in stupid or dumb belief systems. They have every right to believe whatever ridiculous thing they wish to believe. But I think it is important to point out to them just how ridiculous those beliefs are and to point out that their beliefs are dangerous to others. If they have the right to force their beliefs on everyone else than I have the right to fight back though education. If they have the right to preach their system of belief, than I have the right to criticize their system of belief. That doesn’t make me hateful of them as people nor does it make me intolerant of their beliefs. I fully support their right to preach, but they don’t seem to respect my right to criticize their ridiculous bronze aged fiction.
