wingedbeast (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wingedbeast) wrote2015-03-08 09:21 pm
wingedbeast) wrote2015-03-08 09:21 pm
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Tip #8 Caps With Skulls On
In the first sketch of the first episode of the British sketch comedy show "That Mitchell and Webb Look", there's a conversation between two German officers on the front lines of the Russian front in WWII. One of the officers notes that the official uniform hats have, as the official sigil, skulls on them. He follows up this realization with a question. "Are we the baddies?"
There are, obviously, far worse things to object to. The joke rests upon the reality that people can accept or even commit acts of horrific evil... without really noticing that they're doing bad. In fact, it can be the small things that get to them.
Now, you and I may ask the question of how it is that some people can do obvious wrongs, large or small, without even the slightest visible inkling that they're doing something wrong. I've asked the same of Christian evangelists and apologists.
I asked that question about the Family Research Council and their lobbying of the Ugandan government in support of laws applying the death penalty to homosexuality. I asked that question about William Lane Craig when he defended God-mandated genocide in the bible, using significant doses of blood libel. I asked the question about he Christian apologist who had this response to me in the comments of a Youtube video.
"Why don't you just stick to the subject instead of trying to tell me off all the time. You are worse than an old maid school mistress.
If you would just write with your own fingers "ATHEISM HAS A TERRIBLE BLOODY HISTORY THAT I AM NOT PROUD OF" and "I'M NOT AN ATHEIST ANYMORE."
Do this and I'll go easy on you in the future. Until then you will remain a target of my displeasure. LOL"
Notice the threat of bullying at the end.
None of this makes your religion look good. It makes your religion look bad for having you as a member. This becomes all the more problematic when you, as many apologists do, claim that your faith grants you a superior morality.
Now, it may seem like I'm simply advising you not to be jerks. That's only part of what I'm saying, here. Another part is that I'm telling you that it's very easy to be a jerk, to be a supporter of evil, even to be downright monstrous without realizing it.
You should, on a regular basis, take stock of your behavior and challenge it on a moral level. Have you, in your zeal to defeat monsters, become a monster? Being on the "side of right", as you may believe that you are, isn't enough.
Fewer things can corrupt faster or more thoroughly than a failure to acknowledge that you can be corrupt.
There are, obviously, far worse things to object to. The joke rests upon the reality that people can accept or even commit acts of horrific evil... without really noticing that they're doing bad. In fact, it can be the small things that get to them.
Now, you and I may ask the question of how it is that some people can do obvious wrongs, large or small, without even the slightest visible inkling that they're doing something wrong. I've asked the same of Christian evangelists and apologists.
I asked that question about the Family Research Council and their lobbying of the Ugandan government in support of laws applying the death penalty to homosexuality. I asked that question about William Lane Craig when he defended God-mandated genocide in the bible, using significant doses of blood libel. I asked the question about he Christian apologist who had this response to me in the comments of a Youtube video.
"Why don't you just stick to the subject instead of trying to tell me off all the time. You are worse than an old maid school mistress.
If you would just write with your own fingers "ATHEISM HAS A TERRIBLE BLOODY HISTORY THAT I AM NOT PROUD OF" and "I'M NOT AN ATHEIST ANYMORE."
Do this and I'll go easy on you in the future. Until then you will remain a target of my displeasure. LOL"
Notice the threat of bullying at the end.
None of this makes your religion look good. It makes your religion look bad for having you as a member. This becomes all the more problematic when you, as many apologists do, claim that your faith grants you a superior morality.
Now, it may seem like I'm simply advising you not to be jerks. That's only part of what I'm saying, here. Another part is that I'm telling you that it's very easy to be a jerk, to be a supporter of evil, even to be downright monstrous without realizing it.
You should, on a regular basis, take stock of your behavior and challenge it on a moral level. Have you, in your zeal to defeat monsters, become a monster? Being on the "side of right", as you may believe that you are, isn't enough.
Fewer things can corrupt faster or more thoroughly than a failure to acknowledge that you can be corrupt.