Your article sheds alot of truth on Christianity but there’s a few things missing. I would like to discuss (not debate or argue) with you what I think and hear your opinion. Sadly most Christians do not live like Christ at all! In fact that’s something I examine myself with daily. The bible tells us to be like Christ and He (being son of God and son of man) makes it impossible to exactly like Him but we can try. Anyhow, in this article when you spoke of the woman being caught in adultery and the whole stoning to death as punishment, here I Jesus stops them and shows her compassion forgiveness and love (as you have said) BUT you shouldn’t stop there. His message to her was (paraphrasing) “hey it’s okay your a sinner, everyone messes up but if you believe in me and repent of this sin your forgiven and will forever be with me”. And you can go on to include Corinthians love chapter which basically gives us the road map on living, Love God as you love your self and love your stinkin’ neighbor (even if he is gay, athesis, terrorist, etc.).
I would continue writing but I have to get back to work.. Let me know your thoughts on this.
Much love,
Blake

Hello, David Anthony Jacques, and thanks for the article. You should read Bart Ehrman’s “Misquoting Jesus.” The story of the adulterous woman was a later addition by someone copying the Bible, and was not in the gospel as originally written. Hardly any Christians know this (see Blake’s previous comment here), so your analogy might work with them, but it would be better to use an example that was in the Bible as originally written.

Fantastic article; verbalized my exact thoughts on this whole “Chick-Fil-A” debacle more eloquently than I ever could! (so glad an excerpt of this made its way onto my tumblr feed as I have just found a new favorite site)

You guys know that intolerance toward people who practice religion is still intolerance, right?

Regards, someone who isn’t particularly religious, but who also doesn’t like hypocrisy.

@ Blake: I should think it might be better to simply quote Jesus rather than paraphrase (“Go and sin no more (and then if you really homosexuality is a sin, well, please see this previous article about that word only appeared in the Bible in the 1950′s http://anamericanatheist.org/2012/07/14/sex-ed-part-iii-homophobia/))

More to the point, however, Muero, who comments directly below you is correct. This story isn’t actually original to the Bible anyway. It dates to the 4th or 5th century and does not fit stylistically (as in, it’s lexicon and rhetorical style are totally different) when compared to the rest of John.

So in a nut shell, it doesn’t matter what it says Jesus said, because this story is almost certainly not authentic.

@ Muero: I love that book, actually. It broke my heart when I first read it, realizing the intellectually honest thing I had to do was leave behind the faith of my upbringing, but that book more than most is close to my heart because of its honesty and simplicity. No BS. No agenda. No theology, just the facts.

I chose not to include that fact since the point here is what Christians believe and act on, not necessarily what logic and reason might lead toward. This is not to say Christians aren’t reasonable, but that occasionally reason must lead one away from belief.

@harrygunn: I believe you’ll note that the point of my essay, which I drove home there at the end, was we should let Christians and other religious folks do as much as they want in the way of free speech, attempts at legislation, preaching whatever level of distaste, distrust or hatred they see necessary.

I’d call that tolerance. I’m not asking them to be nice or follow their Bibles at all.

I’m asking those in the secular community to bridge the gap and step in where our religious contemporaries seem to have blind spots in practicing what they preach.

Please explain the hypocrisy in such a stance and I’ll gladly revise it.

@ Patrick: Of course, thanks for the kind words. Anything here you take a likin to, feel free to pass it on.

Cheers!

ADJ

Yeah, let’s show some good ol’ tolerance towards those Muslims that use the Quran to justify beating and mutilating women, not to mention murdering infidels, because hey, their holy book says they can. And how about some tolerance towards those Catholic priests who violate children, then get moved around and let loose to violate children elsewhere.

Intolerance should be aimed at their bigotry, their propensity for violence, their indoctrination of children, their subjugation and abuse of women. They have the right to believe whatever bizarre, outlandish things they want, just as we have the right to ridicule them for it. But more than their beliefs, we must speak out against the evils they perpetuate.

Trust me, I despise hypocrisy. I will gladly entertain other alternatives. But silence is not an option. Not anymore.

Thank you for the call to action. Hopefully, the rational, sane, and yes, secular population will heed the call.

Ari, the author never suggested tolerance toward crimes. He’s suggesting toleration of free speech. Many people have never been exposed to humanistic/atheistic thought, and if others want to start this discussion in the public sphere, many might find new ideas and come to the side of reason.

@Ari: Once again, Muero is correct.

I mean, bigots getting togettjer to eat chicken sandwiches is lame, but it doesn’t actually hurt anyone. If we’re honest, such an act has less potential to turn into something violent than even a KKK BBQ.

Free speech must be protected, as much as it sucks sometimes. But that would never extend to actual physical harm.

And so far as I know, Wednesday’s protest was relatively peaceful, which is why I am compelled to begrudgingly support their right to do it.

PS: pardon the grammar and spelling, I’m using my iPhone right now.

It is a very interesting article that brings up some good points, but in my opinion there’s a clear point in which this starts to take shots at Christians, which I don’t feel is necessary when talking about respecting the beliefs of others. I know that you know all Christians aren’t spreading hate and looking to oppress civilization as a whole, but what really irks me nowadays is how people seem to use words like “Religion” as if they’re the most forbidden of curse words for only the least intelligent of us who don’t know any better than to think the way we do.

I know for a fact that while I may not speak as eloquently as those with Master’s or even Bachelor’s degrees, I’ll be damned if I don’t understand just as much about how the world works as they do ya know? Being a Christian didn’t change that for me, nor did it hinder my ability to “think freely” as so many people seem to associate with atheism, “humanism”, and so on. From all the examples the author used of Jesus taking the socially downtrodden, he doesn’t mention in detail about the fact that they were no longer what they used to be after they chose to follow Him. Jesus wouldn’t have cast a stone at these people, and neither should we, but just because he didn’t harm someone didn’t mean he just let them do whatever. He tried to show them a way other than what they did before, allowing them to hopefully make what he saw as the right choice.

And yeah, that means that they had to make a sacrifice in order to really change: some things that they did before they could not bring on their journey to salvation. So what? That’s exactly what change means: you can’t expect to do the same thing with different results. I’m sorry that there’s so many people in power who use the Lord’s name to harm and insult others, but in my eyes I see that hate on both sides…only now the Christians are the ones ridiculed for it. Merriam-Webster defines propaganda as “ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause”, so it’s funny that this article states a “lack” of propaganda on the secular side, when in my opinion this article is nothing but that: The “propaganda” are articles such as these, the “gilded cathedrals” and “holy places” are the modern media such as the internet and television, all with the “images or effigies” of the non-religious standing there with their hands open wide granting unconditional love to all, except that really means “all that believe what we believe”, because if that was the case then there’d be no need to imply that the world would be a better place without the religious. It’s perfectly fine to be a good person who loves and helps all those around, but I hate when people try to act as if there’s not agenda behind their actions whatsoever like this. The world would TRULY be a better place if BOTH sides weren’t so stubborn and would combine beliefs and ideals and find a common ground…but that would be unrealistic it seems nowadays

Maybe I can settle this distinction here and now: I never claimed I respect Christian beliefs.

I respect people as people, and I respect a person’s freedom of speech, be it good, benign, or hurtful.

However I don’t respect one’s belief that I am destined for (and rightly deserve) an eternity of torment.

It’s like love the sinner, hate the sin. I can love the believer and hate the belief.

… and what common ground do you feel there is in terms of beliefs?

@Nancy: The name of the game is finding some together, and if worse comes to worse we can CREATE some common ground together. I’m not going to pretend I know enough individually, but I’m willing to learn in order to build. Everyone is commonly human, and commonly want the world to be a better place, only the methods are what divide us. In order to make a change it needs to be realized that sacrifice has to.be made on BOTH sides, not just one.

@Anthony: If you can’t respect someone’s belief, then how do you expect someone to respect yours? Absence of respect can be easily mistaken for the absence of love, which we all know creates the evils we see in the world today. I don’t have to LIKE nor AGREE with what you believe in order to respect your intellectual ability to come to that conclusion, because respecting your beliefs go hand-in-hand with respecting YOU. What makes your belief any more respectable than mine? Nothing. We’re all equal in our ability to believe (or not believe), so even if I find atheism absurd, or if you find Christianity absurd, I expect you to expect me to respect you.

And vice versa of course. Sorry, my phone acts up sometimes lol

@Leo: but how do you find such commonalities when one side is so very wrong about something so seemingly fundamental?

@leo: At this point I think you’re just equivocating. I respect you and your intellectual ability to come to a belief. Thats not at stake here.

Why should I respect the fact that you believe I deserve eternal torment? That’s not te same thing. That dehumanizes me, and it’s disrespectful since you know little to nothing about me.

I jump to no such conclusions with respect to you. I don’t claim to know what you deserve or claim to believe you should be punished or rewarded for anything.

In this precise respect, we are most certainly not on equal footing.

And even though I would say I have no “beliefs” of the faith based variety (but please, let us not go down THAT rabbit hole) I wouldn’t mind if you didn’t respect what you call my beliefs. I don’t know you, and I don’t need your permission to have an opinion, and I feel my opinion is backed up by facts. If those facts were challenged, I’d be perfectly willing to adjust my beliefs. But there better be some good solid facts to discuss first.

So we’re not really having the same conversation I think.