[Response to "....a face to meet the faces...." Religious Sensitivities?? (December 31, 2011)]
Tim Minchin's recently censored song about Jesus is far from the funniest or cleverest he has written, but it has a serious point to make (he highlights the absurdity of the supernatural qualities attributed to the man). Mr Minchin's songs express his view of the world; he didn't write the song deliberately to be mean to Christians. Nevertheless, in using humour to point out Christianity's flaws, he is mocking the beliefs of 44% of UK citizens.
With eloquent and strident atheist champions like Tim Minchin and Richard Dawkins at the forefront of our culture, and a population who are increasingly godless and likely to be rude about religion, it might well seem – although it is not true! – that atheists are simply bullies and Christians are their targets.
Sadly, we do have to accept that some people are not very nice. There are atheists who are not very nice and there are Christians who are not very nice. Atheists who are not very nice are unfortunately going to be rude to Christians and mock them. On the internet, I notice that not-so-nice Christians are just as likely to be rude back but are more likely to make death threats. Beyond encouraging these people to be nicer there's not much we can do to stop them.
Even excluding these not-so-nice people from consideration, there remains the question of how a nice atheist could possibly persuade others to their position without coming across as aggressive towards any particular religion. This is a tricky one to untangle, because the line between justified criticism and plain rudeness is so fine and different people draw it in different places. For example, many people (including some atheists) find Richard Dawkins aggressive, even nasty; many others consider his forthright criticism fully justified and necessary. Perhaps the necessity of criticism is particularly hard for a Christian to see.
Christians need to understand that many atheists not only think God is a myth but also see religion as actively harmful. It's nothing personal and it's no one religion in particular and it's not every aspect of every religion, but overall and in general we reckon religion as a whole makes the world worse: it would be better for the world if there were less religion. That must be hard to grasp when listening to sermons about peace, love and charity, but atheists do not accept that religion makes people more loving or more moral – atheists are every bit as loving and moral as Christians. Atheists do, however, attribute to religion the fundamentalism which defends and propagates all kinds of intolerant and oppressive behaviour around the world. Without religion, the thinking goes, we would be equally moral, equally social, but we would be guided by human empathy, reason and science, making the world a better place.
Given that making the world a better place is generally considered a good thing to do, most atheists would see it as their duty to stand up for their point of view, to encourage people away from religion and (most likely) towards a rational humanist philosophy. However, there is no suggestion of trying to impose atheism on people by banning religion or anything like that – that would be the kind of intolerant, oppressive behaviour despised by any atheist worth his salt. Instead, atheists are patiently making reasoned arguments and using humour to put their point across.
To understand why UK atheists focus on Christianity more than other religions, Christians need to remember that their religion is dominant in our country. Christianity naturally attracts the most direct criticism, because it is the religion running most of our schools, embedded in our national holidays, and entrenched in our government. In fact, atheists are critical of all religion, but Christianity is around us every day.
The atheists' open criticism which seems aggressive is actually the most peaceful, tolerant and liberal way of encouraging the change we hope to see. How could a point be made any more gently or with better humour than Tim Minchin's cheeky little song about Jesus?
