The Ginger Valkyrie

I’m an atheist Jew and I really dislike Christians. 

Now before you get jumping on my back about “love thy neighbor” and that I’m condemning an entire religion/people/whatever, I truly mean to say I hate specific Christians who tend to be Fundamentalists, but are not always and are sometimes much much more insidious than Fundies. 

I have never ever attempted to explain my stance on religion to others in a complete manner. To some, I’m a raging wacko and others I’m totally tolerant and accepting of all. This is my attempt to explain exactly how I feel on the topic. Continue reading if you want to see how conflicted I am. 

Pro tip: If you’re interested but are starting to think along the lines of TL;DR, a quick synopsis is right after you click the READ MORE link.

Here is my problem in a nutshell: As an atheist Jew, I would be actively persecuted in parts of my own country - a country supposedly tolerant of others. I truly believe that everyone is entitled to believe in whatever religion they want to believe in. One of my core tenets is tolerance. But when a religion (or more accurately its followers) actively hates and brainwashes people, it makes me furious. The collision between hating parts of Christianity and being tolerant to all creates some serious cognitive dissonance and leads me to a behavior I disapprove of in others - acting different ways with different people. Ha, I’ve heard it said that the truly tolerant are truly intolerant of the truly intolerant.  

Some background on this topic: I’m an atheist and a (terrible) Jew. The first part is pretty self explanatory - I don’t believe in God. I would be perfectly happy to if (and only if) I had definite proof He exists/existed. And no, life all around us and the creation of said life does not count. The universe is infinitely huge and I cannot fathom why any higher being would want to get involved in our lives (personally or globally). To IT (the higher being) we would be as important, AT BEST, as Sim people from the Sim City games. Yeah, we’re curious about them and enjoy making them do stupid things, but at the end of the day they’re just not important and eventually you tire of them and move on. 

Part 2: I’m culturally Jewish. That means that my father (and his whole family) are Jews. My paternal grandfather was very religious, my grandmother less so, my aunt (dad’s sister) sent her children to Hebrew school and they know the appropriate prayers and when holidays are, my uncle (so my dad’s sister’s husband) is also Jewish and *his* father was a rabbi in Poland. Oh yeah, everyone on that side of the family, dating back to my great-grandparents (at least) are from Poland. During WWII, my grandparents escaped Poland and lived in Siberia for several years. When they returned to Poland after the war, my grandfather changed his last name from the Jewish Rozencrantz to a more Christian Rożek. It was a made up name to protect his family from anti-Semitic post-war Poland. That all being said, I don’t think any of us (my father, my aunt and uncle, and my cousins) believe in God. We are culturally Polish Jews. 

And I swear to any God, if you feel all snooty by pointing out that it’s my father and not my mother that’s Jewish therefore I can’t be Jewish, I will hit you. But not before I shout this at you: It doesn’t fucking matter any more unless you are orthodox! 

On the subject of my mother, she and her family are all (northern) Italian Catholics. Again, my mother is not religious either, but it meant that for a time (my parents are long divorced) when I was younger, I celebrated Christmas. And I still love Christmas - it’s a secular love.

Okay, now to the Christians:

As a savvy internet atheist, I come across many many many boards/forums of flaming atheists finding the stupidest things Christians say and rage about them and their stupidity. It is here where I start thinking: Fucking Christians are fucking stupid. The Bible is a inaccurate, ahistorical, completely unfounded, completely contradictory set of stories written BY HUMANS. What idiots to believe in a carpenter that lived 2000 years ago and a God that can’t be proved. 

And, for the most part, I believe most of that. Just not in such a raging way.

Now, I have friends that are Christians - it’s just how they were brought up. And they are all liberally minded, agnostics or they are spiritual (whatever that means). Also I live in New England :) But all of them slant towards the Christian side of the spectrum just as I tilt towards the Jewish side of the spectrum. There are a TON of people just like them that either believe because they grew up with it and don’t place a lot of stock in it all OR they’re agnostic. These people I have no issue with. Here I believe that you have a right to believe in whatever religion you want, no matter how silly it might seem. 

The people I despise are those who reference the Bible for every aspect of their small lives like a child looking to a parent for guidance. Honestly, that’s how I think of these people - as children. Willful, arrogant children living in the bodies and livelihoods of adults. These are the same people that tried to push Kansas to teach creationism instead of science, these are the anti-gay protesters that constantly refer to the Bible for their sources, the  people that won’t let a woman decide what to do with her own body, that believe there are no morals except those from the Bible, that believe that their form of religion is the only valid religion anywhere, and the list goes on and on.

Some actual history: I understand that these people exist in every religion and every country, but, in some sense, none of them hate on such a scale as true Christian believers. For instance, take the Crusades. By the way, there are more Crusades than you think there are. The first crusade for Christianity in Europe happened in the early 700s and is known as the Reconquista. The Spanish wanted to reclaim Spain for Christian Spaniards and throw out the Muslim Moors. The last crusade (as called by Pope Sixtus V) was when the Spanish armada attacked England’s fleet in 1588. King Philip II of Spain (a Catholic) wanted to overthrow Queen Elizabeth and end her Protestant reign of England. So, in case you missed the math here, that’s nearly 870 years of crusading against non-Christians and, later, non-Roman Catholics. And during those years, there was multiple massacres of “heretics”, rampant anti-Semitism, at least nine “official” Crusades (the ones that are numbered), the selling of indulgences, schisms within Christianity, and Islamophobia among other examples. And that’s just in Europe!

Let’s look at the beginning of Christianity. It emerged in the Graeco-Roman world in the 10s and 20s BCE through people like Paul of Tarsus and John the Baptist. All the early parts of the Bible (not the Old Testament) are about the four apostles traveling around converting people. They are traveling around the Roman Empire trying their damnedest to convert pagan Romans who strongest believed in their pantheon of gods and goddesses. All the people they exclude in the Bible because they’re magicians, worshipers of false idols, murderers, etc. are all normal pagan Roman citizens. The Greeks and the Romans had schools of philosophy and thought and took Christianity in much the same light. So, as the Greeks and Romans are wont to do, they compared, apologized, critiqued, and investigated Christians and Christianity and wrote it all down. They tended to find that Christianity was illogical (and they fucking loved logic), contradictory, and tended to attract the lesser educated who wouldn’t think and analyze the religion, but would spout off “Have faith.” (Actually, one author says something along the lines of ‘They [the followers] do not think, but rather accept the doctrine and, when presented with evidence against them say “Faith will guide you”.’ It was eerily reminiscent of modern followers…). So let me repeat, the Greek and Roman thinkers of their day thought Christianity was, at best, illogical and at worst brainwashing trash for the uneducated. 

Not terribly long after that, the Roman Empire started to destabilize and turned into the Roman Republic. By that point, the unwashed masses of the countryside were converted. And then the Emperor Constantine converted in the early 300s CE - albeit during a battle when he needed some serious help and then only publicly admitted to converting on his deathbed, but hey who cares right? He converted and Christianity took off. 

So Christians were actively and passively persecuted for all of 315 years… and “got back” at the world for the next 1710 YEARS. Maybe you can see where my dislike of Christianity stems from… Throughout history they have brainwashing people into believing that they were pretty much awesome. 

Modern Followers:

My problem with these schmucks is that they believe in denying people basic rights - marriage, money, education, love, happiness, religion of choice, etc.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

In case you don’t recognize that quote, it’s from the second sentence of the United States Declaration of Independence.  First note that it says “their Creator”, not “God”, not “our” - it is some Creator whatever you believe in. So those schmucks are not only hateful, but unconstitutional. As a tolerant person (and generally apathetic in these areas), I don’t particularly care what you believe, what you do, who you have sex with or what you do with your body (as long as you’re not intentionally hurting yourself… then I worry) as long as you don’t try to push your beliefs on me. I can agree to disagree on certain topics, respect your beliefs, and we can get on with life. However I’m finding that most people are not at all apathetic when it comes to the LGBT community, minorities, poor and homeless folk, varied topics on women, sexuality, and other religions. And that pisses me off. 

I think having sex with a vibrator is wonderful, but hey if it’s not your thing, I’m not going to make you do it. Whereas some of these people are saying “Well you got raped and while that sucks, you should accept this new life as a miracle of God and heal through the birth of your new child.”

Wow. The arrogance is phenomenally overwhelming. How dare someone tell me what I should or shouldn’t do with my own body? Or, for that matter, who I love or don’t love? How dare you assume that because I don’t believe in YOUR God (for whatever reasons e.g. proof, science, hopelessness, loss of faith, different religion, logic, etc.) that I must be an immoral, devil-worshiping heretic?

These people are egocentric, ethnocentric (meaning you believe that your culture is superior to all others and, therefore, the only one that matters), arrogant, and in many cases flat out wrong - even about the Bible! I can say in good faith that I hate these people as much as I despise racists, sexists, Nazis, and all others that believe their way is the only way and the superior way. 

What I can’t fathom is the idea that somehow these people cannot see or cannot realize that there is an entire planet’s worth of people that believe in something radically different than the Judeo-Christian God. Yes people, there are other countries out there with other people that have other cultures and, wait for it… other religions!! *gasp*

*sigh* So this is what it comes down to… clearly I cannot stand what these bigots stand for. It’d be one thing if they were just bigots, but they ALWAYS turn to the Bible for hand-picked passages that “explain” their hatred of a group. They always miss the historical sentiments of the time the Bible was written in. Of course homosexuality was outlawed - you know why? Because the pagan Romans practiced it - it’s known as pederasty today. Boys embodied ideal youth  - pure, intelligent, curious, hairless, and innocent. It was a relationship between an erastês (the dominant partner)and an erômenos (meaning “beloved”) or pais (“child”, he was the submissive younger partner).

The pais was regarded as a future citizen, not an “inferior object of sexual gratification,” and was portrayed with respect in art. - “Pederasty in Ancient Rome”, Wikipedia

Anything traditionally Roman was written into the Bible as evil BECAUSE it was Roman and Romans at the time were pagan. Hence why “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” and all its related passages about magicians are in the Bible as well. Guess what? Romans practiced magic as most cultures did (including CHRISTIANS - at least two of the apostles teach the people that speaking in tongues and prophesying is good and even desired). The priests and priestesses of the pagan Roman pantheon of course used magic, therefore magic = pagan = heretic! BUUUUURN THE WITCH! Except I don’t think the Romans had any newts lying around…

I mean you (yes YOU reading this) are most likely wearing clothes made from at least cotton and polyester. HERESY!

‘Keep my decrees…’Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material…’  - Leviticus 19:19, New International Version, bible.cc

Sucker. You just got excommunicated.

Oops, this ended up being a bit of a rant on the various historical reasons why Bible thumpers are morons. But my point still stands - historically, true believers have done awful things like killed and brainwashed millions; Biblically, it makes no sense; the morals taught overall are shaky; and a good part of Christianity hates and rationalizes its hate via the Bible. So I’m left with the dual feelings of: “live and let live” and “eradicate the fuckers.”

Why can’t we all agree to mutually respect each other without forcing propaganda down each other’s throats? After all, Jesus basically preached peace, love, and rock n’ roll.  

If, by some chance, you actually read that (or if you didn’t and skipped to the bottom) and you have something to say, I welcome it - good or bad, praise or critique, but please nothing flaming or hateful. After all, I have just laid out my views in, I feel, a pretty respectful way considering the strong feelings I have for a certain segment of Christianity.

For the rest of you Christians, I do respect your beliefs and if you choose/chose to use the Bible as the foundation for your morals, do-gooding, and respectful behavior then I’d say you got the overall message of the Bible and I congratulate you. So, if anyone has any thoughts, please let me know?