Atheists in the public sphere spend their every tragic waking hour doing little more than mocking the faithful. In the words of Robin Wright, they seem determined “to make it not just uncool to believe, but cool to ridicule believers”. To that end if you ever have the misfortune, as I once did, to step foot into an atheistic get-together, which are now common occurrences in the Western world, patronised by people afflicted with repetitive strain injury from so furiously patting themselves on the back for being clever, you will witness unprecedented levels of intellectual smugness and hostility towards hoi polloi.
I don't think atheism, per se, is the problem.
I think it's religious hatred.
There are plenty of atheists who don't buy religion, but like certain aspects of it or can at least see some rationale to it.
They realize that there are intelligent believer and unintelligent believers.
Just like there are intelligent atheists and unintelligent atheists.
But the religion haters treat all religion as stupid across the board.
And they think they're smart because of it.
But they don't understand religion, certainly not Christianity.
Sure, lots of them have read the Bible cover to cover.
They don't understand how to read the Bible. Or interpret it. Nor do they bother trying to understand anything about theology.
Or say the difference between Protestant and Catholic theology.
It's one thing to say: I don't believe in God.
It's quite another to say all religion is stupid, without knowing what the hell you're talking about.
And when your explanation makes sense, i.e. then in their eyes that's somehow dishonest.
It was somehow dishonest that natural law is affirmed in the Mosaic Law and in the Christian Covenant, but ceremonial law was not. Somehow that's "picking and choosing" as if people can't make the difference between a universal moral law based on universal of right and wrong, and one that is purely situational, i.e. dietary laws.
They set up their own ideas of what a consistent Christian doctrine should be, and when Christians don't follow it, they're hypocrites. And of course, that makes atheists morally superior.
So if you base your morality on Scripture, but you neglect Leviticus, well that's dishonest, even if you have a perfectly logical explanation as to WHY it's no longer in force.
Hey, the prohibition against homosexuality is based on natural law, and dietary laws aren't. Who knew?
Well atheists DON'T.
But they think they know it all.
And that's what makes them seem so smug.
The truth is, if you don't want to understand, you won't.
Hostile atheists are so filled with hatred and resentment against religion, they can't learn about it. Many want to feed their hate, even if they say all they're looking for is evidence. If they say they want evidence, but don't actually examine, they can satisfy their own conscience.
If atheists want evidence, there are thousands of books and websites to help them. They wouldn't need to hit up believers on twitter. If they did read up on Christianity, they wouldn't sound so ignorant when they do debate.
But it's not about knowledge. It's about building themselves up by putting others down.
And that's why they are so annoying.
