If the tendency existed in Christianity at the beginning, it shouldn't be a surprise if it continues through today in some form. Christians aren't still being thrown to genuine lions, but they do frequently complain of persecution if anyone dares disagree with them or suggests that they shouldn't be privileged. Some Christians actively seek out ridicule and contempt through deliberately obnoxious behavior. But for them, that's just being good Christians — if atheists behaved with a fraction of such attitudes, the outcry is horrific.
Brian Elroy McKinley, a Christian, writes about an encounter he had with a couple of Christians who objected to McKinley's earring:
"How do you feel yelling at people on a street is going to help further God's Kingdom?" I asked.
"People need to hear the word of God and change their ways," said the cross holder.
"I agree, but these people only think you, and your God, are fools. How can that be good?" I said.
"These people aren't rejecting us; they're rejecting God. Plus, the more people scoff at us, the more God will bless us for being fools in the sight of the world," said the cross holder.
"Uh, how's tha...."
"Christ said, 'Blessed are those who are persecuted in My name'" said the other.
It suddenly dawned on me that these two guys were seeking a form of martyrdom in order to feel they were truly Christians.
"So by yelling at people, and having them think you are fools, you set yourself apart from the world, prove your love to Christ and receive greater blessings in your life as a result?" I asked, bordering on sarcasm with that one.
"Christ said we must reject the world and publicly proclaim the world's need for salvation. People can't deal with that because their hearts are sinful. If we truly love God, then we must be willing to be called fools for His name's sake," said the non-cross-holding man. "Is your love for Christ so shallow that you're not willing to do that?" [emphasis added]
If you look again at the emphasized text, you'll notice that the speaker doesn't seem to care if they actually convert anyone — changing people's minds so they become Christian seems to be less important than becoming more "holy" in the eyes of God. This confirms something I've long wondered about and strongly suspected: that many Christians proselytize not so much in the real desire to convert us atheists, but rather because they are trying to earn brownie points from their god.
I'd also like to point out an interesting difference between the obnoxious behavior displayed here by these and so many other Christians and the behavior of atheists which is often criticized as being obnoxious. Atheists are criticized for mocking religion, laughing at religion, and failing to be sufficiently respectful of religious beliefs. You don't much find atheists standing in the street yelling at passers-by anything like how they are going to hell for believing in a god. These Christians, in contrast, are doing just that.
So which is really more obnoxious, disrespectful, intolerant, and militant? To be fair, this is an example of a Christian being critical of such behavior, so it's not like I can say that there is a double-standard with Christians criticizing atheists while giving obnoxious Christians a free pass. Or can I? Brian Elroy McKinley is being critical of this behavior and even uses it as a reason to question his own attitudes; but how often do we find liberal, theistic critics of so-called "New Atheists" doing anything similar?
Frankly, if liberal theists and religious believers really were concerned with tolerance and respect, why don't they first target the much larger numbers of obnoxious Christians who behave in ways similar to that described above? There's nothing about such behavior which is especially contradictory to Christian dogma, is there? I honestly think it's because they don't see such behavior as a serious problem. Atheists mocking theism and religion is a problem because they are challenging the status quo and Christian privilege; Christians who are verbally abusive with threats of hell are only reinforcing the status quo and Christian privilege.
First of all, thanks to Brian for pointing out stupid behavior in his own group. There really isn’t nearly as much of that as there ought to be. Generally Christians will see Christians behaving badly and simply wipe their hands as they declare the “bad” Christians really aren’t Christians at all–and so not their problem. Brian, I think, gets it. He gets that whoever wears a Christian label reflects on Chrstians generally. And he’s willing to step up and take responsibility by saying, “Hey, I’m a Christian, too, and I just want to say that I think these guys are idiot representatives of my faith. I’m embarrassed by them and I don’t agree with them on this.”
So, thanks for that bit of responsibility.
>Atheists are criticized for mocking religion, laughing at religion, and failing to be sufficiently respectful of religious beliefs…
Here I would add, “usually in response to being presented with theistic beliefs–unsolicited.” There are atheists who initiate dialogues with theists, but by far it’s the theist who presents their beliefs as though that’s perfectly OK. Then gets upset when the atheist responds and presents his own thoughts on the matter, that don’t agree.
Finally, Christians will go well beyond this to martyr themselves. They will push for illegal state established religious presentations, then say their First Amendment rights are being violated when they end up in court–after they violated the law. They use state-sponsored _public_ promotion to get themselves sued. Then declare they’re personal religious freedoms are being violated and infringed. I’ve seen this more times than I care to recall. In this way, they actually provoke legal “attacks” so that they can then feign that they’re being attacked for what they believe, rather than for the reality that they were only being stopped from acting in a way that infringed on the rights and liberties of others and used the state to promote religion in a way that is illegal. I have _rarely_ seen a case where I felt I must side with a theist on an issue of religious “persecution.” When I examine the details, it is nearly always the case that the Christian was merely stopped from persecuting others for _their_ beliefs or for exercising their legal rights.
This Xtian persecution complex is also very well illustrated by Youtube creationists. The greatest poster-boy for this behavior is VenomfangX. Like so many other youtube creationists before him, he has utilized the tactic of feigning some kind of crisis in his life which just demands he delete all his videos. Then miraculously within days, he comes back, crisis averted, and he goes on as if nothing happened, except he’ll reference his crisis in order to prop himself up as a martyr.
Martyrdom is also an excuse to get out of defending and taking responsibility for one’s failures.
Fundanazis are basically crooks who use force and fraud, mostly fraud. Evangelicals tend to be up front from the start, saving the fraud for later. The religious types who worry me most are the liberals who are always pull their punches in the face of adversity. They are more interested in keeping moral brownie points, than in standing up to crooks. “A liberal is someone who walks out of a room when a discussion turns into an argument.” They surrender before the fight.
I have a Christian friend who probably deserves the label “obnoxious Christian.” He is obnoxious because he loves and supports all conservative Republicans, including Bush, McCain, and Palin, and seems totally blind to all of the things that these three people have done wrong, then criticizes anyone who disagrees with him. He hates President Barack Obama and all liberal Democrats like him, thinks Obama is a Muslim, will not see anything Obama is doing right because he is too busy criticizing him for everything he is doing wrong, and will make any Christian who supports Obama feel condemned just because we disagree with my friend. He thinks that the world is bad and made up mostly of lies, deceptions, and half-truths (only partly true), but thinks Christianity is all good and does not lie, deceive, or tell half-truths (what about the lie that Obama is a Muslim?). Of course, the world lies by telling us that God does not exist and that abortion, homosexuality, gay marriage/parenting, evolution, embryonic stem cell research, sex/living together before marriage, vanity, and idol worship are all okay when they obviously are not. The world also wants us to believe that it’s okay to want to do whatever you want without consequence, when in reality, everything we do has a good consequence or a bad consequence, depending on what you do, and we all should take full responsibility for our actions whether we want to or not. However, Christianity can lie as well as deceive, and sometimes in worse ways than what the world is capable of. And this is where my friend comes in. My friend, and many others like him, are typical, fire-and-brimstone, conservative Christians who are simply blind, ignorant, and misinformed in their belief that the world is all bad and Christianity is all good. All about morals and in telling others how to live, but no love for anyone who disagrees with them, and they don’t want to hear that they are taking the Bible out of context while claiming to adhere to gospel truth. Oh, and don’t expect these people to help you out or even believe you, either, if you try to tell them that your father, whom they love, know, and admire, is an emotionally abusive control freak whose salvation you often take into question because he only acts like a Christian while he’s attending or cleaning the church or interacting with his Christian friends. You won’t get any love or support because everyone thinks you are making it all up, which you aren’t, so don’t bother. Anyway, I may be a Christian myself, but I consider myself a moderate, not a conservative or a liberal, who only believes in and supports what makes the most sense to me but isn’t afraid to think for myself or explore new ways of thinking and/or believing. After all, if Jesus had His own way of doing things, then why can’t I?