Imagine that… a theist double standard!

The UK Telegraph reports that an organization known as The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies (AHS) is working actively to establish atheist social networks and organizations in schools, in an effort to combat the effect of evangelical Christianity in schools.

The federation aims to encourage students to lobby their schools and local authorities over what is taught in RE lessons and to call for daily acts of collective worship to be scrapped. It wants the societies to hold talks and educational events to persuade students not to believe in God.

Not surprisingly, Christians are rather upset at the idea.  Well, to be fair, they’re more than upset. ..

Simon Calvert of the Christian Institute said: “Atheists are becoming increasingly militant in their desperate attempts to stamp out faith. It is deeply worrying that they now want to use children to attack the Christian ethos of their schools.

“Many parents will also be anxious at the thought of militant atheists targeting their children.”

Religion is essential to happiness.

 

If you are really out to make your way to success — i.e. happiness — you must not only avoid being sucked in by irreligious humbugs, but you must have a religious basis to your life.

 

This is not a mere matter of going to church, of knowing Bible history, or understanding theology.  Many men are sincerely religious almost without knowing it and without having studied it.  Religion very briefly stated means:

 

Firstly:  recognizing who and what is God.

 

        Secondly:  making the best of the life that He has given one and doing what He wants of us.  This is mainly doing something for other people.

 

. . .  As steps towards gaining these two points and avoiding atheism, there are two things I would recommend you do.  [Read the Bible and read "The Book of Nature."]

 Check me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that a Christian encouraging children not to be atheists?  Isn’t it saying that atheists cannot be happy? 

Or what about this?

Human reason, unaided and unsupported by scriptures, cannot take man very far. He cannot pull himself in this world by his own bootstraps. He needs Divine grace, which is there always, but his foolishness does not raise the sails to receive it from God. Unless we are base ingrates, we should love God because we belong to Him. His, then, is the right to command us. Ours is the sacred duty to obey whether He speaks to us directly or makes His will conveyed to us through scriptures or His messengers. Some shrink from making an appeal to God for the fear that it may fall on unheeding ears. This is the danger of atheism.

Again, check me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this telling people they shouldn’t be atheists?

What about this, from a US  State Representative — a member of the Government:

It’s dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat!

Isn’t she saying children should not even be allowed to know that atheists exist?

I could fish the internet for weeks and come up with an endless supply of quotes from Christians, Muslims, and other theists — probably by the thousands or even tens of thousands — telling people how dangerous, sinister, and downright awful atheism and atheists are.  Christians are not shy at all about condemning us to hell, voting us down when we run for office, or shouting us down when we demand an equal playing field in any public or government endeavor.

Why, then, are we not allowed to fight back?

If it’s so scary that atheists are trying to win the hearts of our children in schools, why isn’t it scary that the religious have their own private schools, hundreds of thousands of churches, billboards, television ads, bibles in hotel rooms, and hundred foot high crucifixes in town squares?  Why is it not scary that we have the Vatican City… a literal city with the sole purpose of spreading Christianity?

I’m afraid the theists don’t get their double standard.  If they get to sell their version of reality, then we get to sell ours, and they don’t get to call us militant and sweep us under the rug.  Who’s militant when there’s a single student organization in England causing a stir while literally hundreds of thousands of religious organizations pass by the “militant filter”?  

A quick google search yielded almost 3 million hits for the phrase, “evangelical Christian,” while a similar search for “militant atheist” yielded slightly under two hundred thousand.   There were almost three million hits for “Christian Billboard,” while “Atheist Billboard” yielded a hundred and seventeen thousand.

Who’s being militant?