One thing that pisses me off about the Christian faithful is their absurd insistence that Christians are kind, good people. It’s not a total lie, but it most certainly is no more than a half-truth for many of them (not all, of course). Christians are kind and good to other Christians. If they find out you’re an atheist, they can be vile, cruel and horribly mean-spirited. They certainly aren’t kind toward Muslims. They can even be cruel to other Christians who happen to be homosexual, illegal immigrants, or, still 40 years after Martin Luther King, Jr., to those who aren’t of the same color.
This segment from a 20/20 special on religion deals with atheism. It tells the story of Nicole Smalkowski, which first made the news last year. When she declared to her basketball coach that she didn’t want to pray with the team because she was an atheist, her life was turned upside down and her dreams shattered. The other kids at school insulted her, mocked her, and called her a devil worshiper. Staff members of the school told her that America is a Christian nation and that if she didn’t like it she could leave. She was accused of stealing and of making death threats. Ultimately, her parents pulled her out of school and started to home school her in order to get her away from all of the Christian love being directed her way.
This is typical Christian behavior. Even my grandparents, as sweet and kind as they are, reacted despicably when their daughter-in-law’s brother visited with his black girlfriend. The ability to call yourself moral, just and righteous while treating so abysmally those who do not share your beliefs is something the faithful have mastered well. In the video clip above, a woman who is the wife of a local pastor and who substitutes at Nicole’s school claims that the other children at the school are all ‘good’ Christians. Well, that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it? Saying you’re a good Christian is akin to saying you’re a good bigot, a good hypocrite, or a good Nazi. It’s a tremendous misuse of the word ‘good’. Someone needs to teach those of faith the real meaning of the ethic of reciprocity (you know, the ‘do unto others’ bit). Like the ‘love thy neighbor’ mantra, Christians love to preach it but fail spectacularly at practicing it.
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