Atheist Extremists

by Staks Rosch

Some call the Religious Right extremists, but I don’t really think they are. According to the Bible, they aren’t extreme enough. This was the main principle point of A.J. Jacobs recent book "A Year of Living Biblically." Although Jacobs comes to a feel good moderate conclusion, it is clear that his main point is valid one. It simply is not possible to "live" the Bible literally in today’s society without breaking multiple laws and acting with a great deal of immorality. After all, the Bible strongly advocates blood sacrifice, stoning, sexual repression, slavery, rape, treating half the population as property, etc. While moderate, liberal, and even the Religious Right Christians try to down play these things and even try to explain them away, the fact is that they are there and you can’t erase them despite the new Bible editions and translations designed to do exactly that.

The Religious Right are also not extreme in their numbers. As of 2005, 56% of Americans rejected the science of evolution. That is a good indicator of people I would consider to be Religious Right. It should also be noted that 80% of Americans would consider themselves Christians. So it would be fair to say that the Religious Right makes up a growing majority of Americans and that an easy majority of Christians are in fact supportive of the Religious Right.

Now for the fun part, it is my view that the Religious Right are raping Humanity. To support this view, I will point to just some of the things that they have been up to. The list is not even all inclusive. They are actively preventing the spread, education, and use of condoms in AIDS infested Africa, they are standing in the way of medical research to use Stem Cells to cure many diseases, they are attacking the rights and liberties of gays and lesbians and preventing them from being able to marry among other things, they are continually trying to force theology into science classes at the expense of actual science, and they are continually trying to undermine research into our climate change problems which threaten to destroy the entire human race. And like I said, that is just a few of their activities which in my opinion support the position that they are "raping humanity."

As a moral person who cares about the world, I feel like I have not just a responsibility, but a duty to stop them. The best way to achieve the almost insurmountable job of stopping the Religious Right is to go right for the jugular so to speak and to simply point out that their beliefs are not only false beliefs but also patently ridiculous and therefore, their very reason for raping humanity is not valid. I wouldn’t really expect that to be a hard task considering that the Bible itself has been documented to have over 13,000 changes to it (not counting translation errors), and that the character of Jesus is almost an exact copy of so many other savior characters of past religions and mythologies (Mithras would be a good example of this). Then there is the God of the Old Testament which was part of a pantheon of Gods in the Canaanite religion. There is good evidence to suggest that Yahweh is just a re-naming of the Canaanite god Yam. Both Yahweh and Yam for example share the same antagonistic attitude toward rival god Ba’al Zebul (later renamed by early Jews to Ba’al Zebub and now known as Beelzebub or Satan). But that aside, just as I am trying to stop the Religious Right from raping Humanity, along come the Religious Left, the Religious Moderate, and even the Non-religious Moderates who try to stop me from stopping the Religious Right from raping Humanity.

These moderates claim that I am "preaching hate" just by pointing out how ridiculous some of these beliefs are. Many of them even claim that I am "just as extreme" as the Religious Right. What makes me so extreme? I openly challenge them to not only prove their claims of magic, miracles, and resurrections but also criticism them for elevating their "faith" over reason and I actively push for a separation between Church and State? Or is it that I point out the facts and the history of their own religious beliefs and show that their beliefs are lies and mythologies? I engage the Religious Right in debate while they try to shut me up and block me out. In short, I mock them as they send me death threats and attempt to take away my rights and freedoms and threaten the survival of the entire Human Race. This makes me "just as extreme?" While I strongly support their right to believe whatever they wish, I also think that I should have the right to make fun of them if their beliefs are ridiculously stupid. People make fun of Tom Cruise all the time, but try making fun of Mel Gibson and all of a sudden these moderates become the Blasphemy Police.

I see this problem as a moral one. The Religious Right are raping Humanity and the moderates are trying to stop me from even criticizing the Religious Right for doing it or at the very least, the moderates are standing there watching the Religious Right rape Humanity and doing very little if anything to stop them on their own. Imagine the scenario with an actual rape. Jill be being raped by John while Bob is just standing there watching. Wouldn’t Bob be immoral too? Bob may not be equally immoral, but certainly immoral to some degree. But what if Phil jumped in to try to stop John from raping Jill... and Bob pulled Phil away? Do you think Bob is right to say that Phil is being equally extreme as John the rapist?

The Religious Right has declared a "Culture War" against anyone who disagrees with their view of their religion. While moderates seem to have all but surrendered to the Religious Right, some atheists like Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, Dennett, The Rational Response Squad, myself, and so many others are fighting back in a "War of Ideas." Are these two wars "equally extreme?" I don’t think they are. The Religious Right wants to control culture and we want to debate their ideas. In this war, they can’t win and they know it. Their only hope is to control culture to the point in which questioning their ridiculous ideas is forbidden either by law or by exerting social pressures. Moderates are a part of those social pressures. If you are a moderate, STOP! Let us have our War of Ideas and let the best ideas win.