I was exchanging comments with an atheist friend on FB the other night. he had posted a link to something about Bill Maher, former comedian and current naytheist, and had castigated Maher in his comments about the link. You see, apart from his atheism, Maher is a bigot, and my friend recognizes that easily. I asked him if Maher, a fellow atheist, made him feel the same way I do about some late night televangelists, my fellow Christians. He replied, "I don't know--how do they make you feel?" To which I replied, "Like I wish they were atheists."
When I see some of the negative, bigoted statements made about Christians (or those of other faiths, or Republicans, or Democrats, or Conservatives, or Liberals, or you name it) on Facebook, I always wonder just which particular Christian, or Republican, or whatever it is these people have in mind when they say these things. Invariably I know many people who fit under the same label but are not remotely like what the poster seems to have in mind. I often get the impression that the poster thinks ALL Christians are six-day Creationist, Fundamentalist Biblical literalists. And there I am, sometimes even on their friends list, reading the comment, a Christian myself, and not fitting their view at all.
How did we get to this point? All of these posters do in fact know people who are Christian and just ordinary nice folks, but invariably they think those Christians are an exception. Again, how did we get to this point? Maybe it's because the ordinary, nice folks Christians don't mention they are Christians enough? Maybe they don't because they can't articulate what their actual beliefs are?
At any rate, it is high time the atheists read C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity so they will at least know what it is most Christians actually believe. Unfortunately, it's also high time a lot of Christians read it to, and for the same reason.
UPDATE: Make sure you read the comments!
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When a group has fallen into the "group think" form of insanity, its members start stereotyping enemy groups. So, if someone insists that "All Christians are the same," or if they behave as if they obviously think that way ...then perhaps they're a member of a group which is dominated by the group-think phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteGo search on "symptoms of group think" and you'll see what I mean. For example those symptoms read like a list called "problems with Skeptic organizations."
Bill! Nice to hear from you. You're absolutely right, it is a form of group think and it tends to be self-reinforcing. When I catch myself categorizing people, I try to ask myself why I think they belong there--it's a good way to remind myself to treat them all as individuals.
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