On Becoming a Bigot.

[varkam]

My girlfriend and I got into a fight a few weeks back at work. I was bashing religion, and she thought I was being too heavy-handed. Me, being the good little atheist that I am, thought different. "I have the data, the arguments, the examples - I'm not being heavy-handed! Religion is a blight upon humanity!" My girlfriend is Catholic, so she doesn't exactly agree with everything I say (not the least of which being the whole 'There is no God' thing). She said I was being a bigot. I'd never been called a bigot before, and so it knocked me a bit off kilter. I asked myself, was I being a bigot? I decided I wasn't and went on my merry way.

A little bit later that week, I started thinking about bigotry. I started thinking about the 'good' Christians I've met in my life. The Christians whom I aspire to be more like. The Christians who amazed me with their generosity, social feeling, and their compassion. I also thought about the Christians who also amazed me, but rather with their rancor, their hatred, and their rhetoric (e.g. Fred Phelps of www.godhatesfags.com fame). How was it that these two groups of people can both be Christians, and yet go about it so differently? How could Christianity be the outlet for such good and the cause for such evil at the same time? I decided that, while it was the common denominator, it wasn't the cause. I thought for a long time on the cause, and think I found an answer: certainty. Certainty was the difference. The real answer is probably more complex than that, but the Christians who've moved me have been ones who were never "certain" about moral or theological claims, but laid the faith of their entire being onto them. The Christians who repulsed me, were always certain. They were certain gays would burn in hell. Certain they were righteous. Certain about everything. This is not to say the 'good' Christians had any less faith at all, only that they were less certain. There is a distinction there, and I hope it's clear.

So how does this relate to me and my girlfriend? Well, I must have a pretty thick head, because it wasn't until this past weekend, somewhere between Birmingham and Memphis on I-65 N that I realized something. I've been guilty of the exact same fallacy. I've been just as certain as the parents who brought their kids to protest abortion clinics. Just as certain as Phelps et al. The only difference is that I've just been pressing it from the other side of the spectrum.

I've been ready and willing to cut people off at the knees to make my point. I've been ready and willing to insult and to dismiss. I've been ready and willing to fill in the blanks as soon as I heard the phrase "I am a Christian". I've been just the same as Phelps et. al. Just the same as those starry eyed missionaries that came into my home and told me I was going to burn. Just the same. I don't want to be the flip side of the same coin. I want to be a different coin entirely. If not already a bigot, I've certainly been becoming one. And I don't use that term loosely. People don't deserve to be treated that way. You deserve better, I deserve better, and we deserve it from one another.

I think a lot of this relates to my signature quote from my man Bertrand Russell. Only thing is, I figured I was a member of the 'wiser people' category.