Walking through campus this morning, I witnessed a red faced, agitated young man. He was ripping posters off of a poster board, and shredding them in his hands. I looked a little closer – wondering what he was doing. He was being quite selective in the posters he was ripping – they all appeared to have been informational posters about “new atheism”. I saw him rip two of the posters. I didn’t see the information on the posters, aside from the title, but a quick Google turned up this web page describing the movement. Obviously, it must be suppressed.
I almost confronted the man, and then realized that there likely wasn’t much that I could say that would do anything but aggravate him further. He was doing God’s work, removing the traces of blasphemy.
From a University poster board. At a research university, where all ideas are supposed to be valued and freely explored. Where tolerance, understanding, and communication are to be valued, cherished, and nurtured.
On a campus that boasts a “Chair of Christian Thought”
I’m hoping that whoever put the posters up will replace them, if only to show red faced agitated man that information can’t be destroyed.
He did have the forethought to leave the posters of almost-nude, oiled up hotties for the Bermuda Shorts Day parties around town.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I should point out the irony of intolerant believers confronting intolerant unbelievers…
I suppose the rhetoric on the “new atheism” website (and possibly on the posters – I couldn’t find one that had been left) is a bit blatantly intolerant – but the only one who was acting intolerantly was the man ripping up the posters. If he wants to shred paper, I say let him. No confrontation offered or wanted…
Indeed — I was thinking about confrontation on a more metaphysical context. I think that discourse in the age of the social network tends to be more of the drive-by ambush (even when it manifests itself into the physical realm like you experienced) than direct confrontation.
I hate the whole atheists-together movement stuff. I’m not sure that atheists creating their own “church” or organization is the right way to go, because in a way it makes them hypocritical for being anti-Christianity.
That said, I am atheist, but I don’t subscribe to their newsletter. I just don’t believe in God and go about my life with a mostly secular system of values. And I hate it when people tell me “atheism is a religion” and bullshit like that, but obviously for some people, it is one.
I’m not even thinking about atheism-as-religion – that’s pretty irrelevant in this. I’m thinking solely about “I don’t like your message so I’m going to shred your posters so nobody sees them” reactionism…
and yeah, I don’t get atheism-as-religion either, but I do see the potential value of organizing some form of group to respond to the silliness of fundamentalist lobby groups, but Religion is definitely the wrong angle there.
Yeah, my comment was more a reaction to a recent encounter with a friend who started accusing me of being in the atheist church.
The tearing down of signs worries me about people in general. What are they so frightened of that they feel the need to silence those they don’t agree with?
.
tolerance can be overdone, too.
.
Hmm, by far my favorite topic at the moment. But will reserve my opinions for personal/private conversation.
I think the above topics covered the range of issues pretty well. All in all I think that religions will always exist and so will atheists. As for whether atheism as a religion has a purpose, well it’s the royal opposition isn’t it? Unity may be seen by some as strength, and without it they (the scientists and atheists) may find themselves once again in the dark ages where they have to risk their lives to state simple truths.
BTW there was a short attempt a few years ago to set up a club for Undergrads at the UC. It fell through when the President was setting up for a meeting and was confronted by a holy believer who proceeded to have a long drawn out argument with him that he was not really interested in participated. In some ways I am glad that it didn’t startup because it would’ve stirred up significant conflict as that is the nature of the debate. There is intolerance on both ends, but that’s mainly because each side is arguing from different realities and really only one is verifiable. Just sayin’.
As regards the topic of tolerance/intolerence in religious matters we should not forget that there are many millions of people in the Western World for whom religious convictions and ideas are completely unimportant. They know practically nothing about God, Jesus Christ, the Bible and Christianity and do not miss their lack of knowledge. For them the Christian religion is something of the past that has no relevance for the people who are living now.
Viewed in this light the idea of people who “fight” with each other or “violently disagree” with each other over ideas, doctrines, ways of life that have to do with God, Jesus Christ, the Bible and Christianity may be not such a horrible idea after all. Such people are at least interested in the Christian faith, they have studied it to a certain extent, they know a number of things about it, they have opinions about aspects of Christianity.
It think than on the day when religious tolerance/intolerance have stopped to exist, on that same day religion as a way of dealing with the world and human life will also have disappeared from the earth.
Mind: do not understand me wrongly: of course tolerance is better than intolerance. Probably in all cases and in all matters. But perhaps there may be matters and situations in which intolerance is better than ignoring.
I know quite a bit about God, Jesus Christ, etc… I attended a Catholic school and was more “christian” than my fellow students, and scored better in Religion class than they did. Despite my being an atheist. The christian religion is not something of the past – it is a collection of ghost stories designed to control a population. That sill has a place today.
But to say that the bible and christianity (or religion in general) will save people from being violent to each other is sheer deranged lunacy. How many hundreds of millions of people have been slaughtered in the name of God (or gods)?
I would MUCH rather be a moral athiest because that is how I choose to live, than an obedient theist because I’m scared some ghost is going to punish me after I die.
ps. very classy, running Google Adsense on your Bible and Christianity spam site. I’m sure Jesus approves.
Dear dnorman,
I agree that religions, including the Christian religion, have led to horrible wars in which millions of people were killed. If my text in any way suggested that I am unaware of this fact, I just chose the wrong words or forgot certain aspects of the topic I was dealing with. It is a historical fact (that no religious person in his right mind can deny) that religions have very dangerous aspects.
+++
As regards your ps:
I am a retired high school teacher who taught English and religion in Holland until my retirement a few years ago. After retiring I wrote a website in which I summed up all I knew about Christianity.
I know very little about computers, about websites, about blogs, etcetera. Friends of mine converted my texts into a website.
Once I had the website I was faced with the problem of how to attract visitors.
Somebody explained to me how links dropping works. It is true that what I am doing now (and have been doing for a couple of months) is links dropping: I take part in ongoing discussions on blogs with the (hidden?) intention of drawing people to my own website.
Your ps suggests that what I am doing is wrong. It is not done.
If I am doing something wrong it is out of ignorance.
Please, just tell me: is it wrong what I am doing? If so, why?
I will be glad if you can help me with this question.