{"id":7427,"date":"2011-09-19T16:08:12","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T20:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=7427"},"modified":"2011-09-19T16:08:12","modified_gmt":"2011-09-19T20:08:12","slug":"washington-post-when-atheism-turns-ugly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/washington-post-when-atheism-turns-ugly","title":{"rendered":"Washington Post: When atheism turns ugly"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Fanatical atheism is no worse and no better than fanatical religion, though it may be more bitterly ironic,” writes Brad Hirschfield in the Washington Post.<\/em> “There is something pretty odd, dare I say hypocritical, about a bunch of people who call themselves ‘freethinkers’ and ‘humanists’ not only verbally abusing people of faith, but actually tearing up verses from the Bible as an act of protest, as they did on a pier in Huntington Beach, California Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

“It doesn\u2019t sound terribly humane to me, and I am quite sure that destroying texts, however much one may object to them, is the opposite of free thought,” notes Hirschfield:<\/p>\n

15 members of a group called \u201cBackyard Skeptics,\u201d proved nothing so much as their own ability to act out in the name of no God, in precisely the same obnoxious ways which they associate, too often accurately, with how they are treated by people of faith. Are we really still at the level of needing to recall that two wrongs don\u2019t make a right?<\/p>\n

If atheists\/agnostics\/freethinkers\/humanists object to being insulted and talked down to by people of faith, as well they should, perhaps they should refrain from the same behavior. While they may not draw on traditions such as \u201cLove your neighbor as yourself,\u201d \u201cDo unto others as you would have them do unto you\u201d or \u201cLove your enemy,\u201d there are plenty of parallel teachings in secular thought which are just as ennobling.<\/p>\n

If one really can be \u201cgood without God\u201d as the California protestors\u2019 signs proclaimed, then why not be so, and let the proof be in the experience of their living?<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE to read more<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Fanatical atheism is no worse and no better than fanatical religion, though it may be more bitterly ironic,” writes Brad Hirschfield in the Washington Post. “There is something pretty odd, dare I say hypocritical, about a bunch of people who call themselves ‘freethinkers’ and ‘humanists’ not only verbally abusing people of faith, but actually tearing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[674],"tags":[2232],"class_list":["post-7427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheist","tag-atheist"],"yoast_head":"\nWashington Post: When atheism turns ugly<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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