What is Kristof Smoking???

Hey Folks,

I'm entirely for peacefull coexistence with my superstitious bros & sis's, but if "the Christian Right has largely retreated from the culture wars" as Kristof claims, nobody told the folks around here or at Foxxx News.

How about where you are?

Or is "the Amazing Kristof" just smokin something again?

The Bible says, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Well, the way some of these "Christians" have been treating atheists, liberals, Democrats, gays, pagans, and Muslims (to name only a few), they seem to be asking for it - at least if they want to be treated in the same way they treat others. Or maybe they think their Holy Word doesn't apply to them !

I've commented in red.

- Uke Man

p.s. And "obnoxious"? Compared to the "God hates fags" guy???


December 3, 2006
A Modest Proposal for a Truce on Religion
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

If God is omniscient and omnipotent, you can’t help wondering why she doesn’t pull out a thunderbolt and strike down Richard Dawkins.

Or, at least, crash the Web site of www.whydoesgodhateamputees.com . That’s a snarky site that notes that while people regularly credit God for curing cancer or other ailments, amputees never seem to enjoy divine intervention.

“If God were answering the prayers of amputees to regenerate their lost limbs,we would be seeing amputated legs growing back every day,” the Web site declares, adding: “It would appear, to an unbiased observer, that God is singling out amputees and purposefully ignoring them. What's wrong with this? It's just the other side of the coin from an athlete going on camera to thank Jesus for helping him win the game - we never hear a jock cuss God for making him lose. Is Kristof using a double standard? or just afraid to go at it directly?

”That site is part of an increasingly assertive, often obnoxious (isn't that - like beauty - in the eye of the beholder??) atheist offensive led in part by Professor Dawkins — the Oxford scientist who is author of the new best seller “The God Delusion.” It’s a militant, in-your-face brand of atheism that he and others are proselytizing for. I haven't experienced enough of this to judge whether Kristof is accurate or overstating the case; but, in any case, I am against proselytizing. I'm for education; and I don't want to cram the truth from the physical world down someone's throat any more than I want their view of the metaphysical world crammed down mine.

However, if what Kristof characterises as obnoxious and in-your-face behavior is directed at obnoxious, in-your-face fundamentalist preachers and politicians, I'd call that "fighting back" rather than "proselytizing."

Furthermore, the term "proselytizing" is defined as "converting." While the term clearly applies to religion, I find it unfitting when applied to rational, objective, scientific argument based on observation of the physical world. Is one convinced by or converted to the Periodic Table?

He counsels readers to imagine a world without religion and conjures his own glimpse: “Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witchhunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, noSerb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ-killers,’ no Northern Ireland ‘troubles,’ no ‘honor killings,’ no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money.” Well, I don't think religion caused these bad situations, but they certainly serve to justify and organize them. People would still be jerks without religion; but, again, it's a counter punch, not an assault. As a teacher for thirty-one years, I'm well aware of an almost daily assertion by a religious chorus that society's troubles stem from not having organized prayer in public schools.

Look elsewhere on the best-seller list and you find an equally acerbic assault on faith: Sam Harris’s “Letter to a Christian Nation.” Mr. Harris mocks conservative Christians for opposing abortion, writing: “20 percent of all recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage. There is an obvious truth here that cries out for acknowledgment: if God exists, He is the most prolific abortionistof all.” And what's wrong with this? Maybe some believers find it rude or obnoxious, and I personally wouldn't say something like this to any individual person unless I were provoked. But it DOES need to be said publicly to those rude, obnoxious "Christians" who, without invitation, get into non-Christians' faces, both personally and through public discourse.

The number of avowed atheists is tiny, with only 1 to 2 percent of Americans describing themselves in polls as atheists. But about 15 percent now say that they are not affiliated with any religion, and this vague category is sometimes described as the fastest-growing “religious group” in America today (some surveys back that contention, while others don’t). With so few Atheists and so many stiff-necked "Christians," what drives Kristof to criticize atheists? They're but a fly speck on the fundamentalist cow pie.

Granted, many Americans may not yet be willing to come out of the closet and acknowledge their irreligious views. In polls, more than 90 percent of Americans have said that they would be willing to vote for a woman, a Jew or a black, and 79 percent would be willing to vote for a gay person. But at last count, only 37 percent would consider voting for an atheist.

Such discrimination on the basis of (non) belief is insidious and intolerant,and undermines our ability to have far-reaching discussions about faith and politics. Mr. Harris, for example, makes some legitimate policy points (implying that most of his points are illegitimate?), such as criticism of conservative Christians who try to block research on stem cells because of their potential to become humans.

“Almost every cell in your body is a potential human being, given our recent advances in genetic engineering,” notes Mr. Harris. “Every time you scratch your nose, you have committed a Holocaust of potential human beings.”

Yet the tone of this Charge of the Atheist Brigade is often just as intolerant —and mean. It’s contemptuous and even ... a bit fundamentalist. I don't value fundamentalist/dogmatic/close-minded perspectives whether of the right or left. Any atheist who behaves as a dogmatic zealot is misguided, but hitting zealously back at misguided "Christians" who would discriminate against women, gays, atheists, Jews, and Muslims is responsible behavior. This is a secular, multi-faceted nation; and those who think it is a Christian nation that should operate under religious control are worse than misguided.

AND - when has Kristof or any other "mainstream" "journalist" gone after fundamentalists for being a "charging, intollerant, and contemptuous brigade" as he does here with atheists?

“These writers share a few things with the zealous religionists they oppose,such as a high degree of dogmatism and an aggressive rhetorical style,” says John Green of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. “Indeed, one could speak of a secular fundamentalism that resembles religious fundamentalism. This may be one of those cases where opposites converge.”

First of all, if "an aggressive rhetorical style is damning or something to be eschewed, the "Pew Forum" had better inform - in addition to atheists - most politicians, Fox News, and millions of other people - including ministers - in this country that they are out of line.

Secondly, the nature of religion is again being improperly mixed with that of science. "Dogmatism" is incompatible with science. Reliance on "authority" and "faith" are the basis of religion; neither is compatible with science, which requires rational interpretation of observed events in the physical world.

Certainly some could dogmatically support atheism on the basis of "authority" or "faith," but if they did, they would not be scientists or acting scientifically. But at the same time, if a scientist got into a screaming match with a Creationist who claimed everything was 7,000 years old or less; how could anyone call him "zealous," "aggressive," or "fundamentalist"? Anyone, that is, other than a "zealous," "aggressive," or "fundamentalist" non-scientific person?

Granted, religious figures have been involved throughout history in the worst kinds of atrocities. But as Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin and Pol Pot show, so have atheists. But can anyone in the West claim an objective view of Mao and Stalin? Or are they characterized by the West as Iraqis would characterize Duhbya?

More importantly, a nonexistent god cannot justify injustice as easily as one who exists. Whatever Mao or Stalin did that was wrong had nothing to do with god. God smiled on what white Europeans did to India and China and Africa; and He smiles on what America is doing to the world today; but He paid no attention to Mao or Stalin.

So, Dawkins DOES make sense. Since so many people believe in god, it's more difficult for atheists to justify injustice; theists, however, can simply claim it is god's will and - end of discussion.

Moreover, for all the slaughters in the name of religion over the centuries,there is another side of the ledger. Every time I travel in the poorest parts of Africa, I see missionary hospitals that are the only source of assistance to desperate people. God may not help amputees sprout new limbs, but churches do galvanize their members to support soup kitchens, homeless shelters and clinics that otherwise would not exist. Religious constituencies have pushed for more action on AIDS, malaria, sex trafficking and Darfur’s genocide, and believers often give large proportions of their incomes to charities that are a lifeline to the neediest. This kind of argument always makes me crazy. "Yeah, I told the judge I robbed the bank, but since all my relatives and I donate large sums to Jerry's Kids every year, he let me off."

Now that the Christian Right has largely retreated from the culture wars (Yeah, and bears use porta-potties), let’s hope that the Atheist Left doesn’t revive them. We’ve suffered enough from religious intolerance that the last thing the world needs is irreligious intolerance.

Let's hope that the Christian Right actually DOES retreat from the culture wars - someone tell Foxxx News the new directive.

- Uke Man