“Two guys break into an atheist’s
home. He has a little atheist wife and two little atheist daughters. Two guys
break into his home and tie him up in a chair and gag him.
"And then they take his two
daughters in front of him and rape both of them and then shoot 'em and they
take his wife and then decapitate her head off in front of him. And then they
can look at him and say, 'Isn't it great that I don’t have to worry about being
judged? Isn't it great that there's nothing wrong with this? There's no right
or wrong, now is it dude?'
“Then you take a sharp knife and
take his manhood and hold it in front of him and say, 'Wouldn't it be something
if this was something wrong with this? But you’re the one who says there is no
God, there’s no right, there’s no wrong, so we’re just having fun. We’re sick
in the head, have a nice day.
“If it happened to them, they would
probably say ‘Something about this just ain't right.'"
I’ll skip past the issue of the fact
that this little speech uses the suffering of the female characters as mere
props to teach the atheist man a lesson – others have written more eloquently and
knowledgeably on that point than I could - and just get right to the point of
my writing this. What the hell is wrong
with this man?! And why, oh why, does anyone think he’s some kind of hero?
Why does anyone pay him to speak in public? Who actually takes pleasure in
hearing this man spout deranged fantasies of horrific violence inflicted on
people to make a bullshit point?
And yes, I get that he thinks he has
a point. Of course, he only thinks he
has a point because he couldn’t tell one from a duck call in the first place. He
thinks he’s refuting the atheist position that “there’s nothing wrong with
this,” with the claim that “But you’d sure think it was wrong if it happened to
you.” Except that’s not the atheist
position in the first place! And what drives it farther out from even being
within shouting distance of a point, even
if you accept his implication that the lack of a god renders his scenario
more plausible than the presence of one, it has absolutely nothing to do with
whether one actually exists.
But let’s clear something up right
here, right now: he is damn right that atheists would think that situation
“ain’t right,” if it happened to them. Most of us also think that situation “ain’t right,” if it happened to anyone. You’d be hard pressed to find
the atheist who thinks the behavior of the attackers in Mister Robertson’s
story is in any way acceptable, that it shouldn’t be prevented, or that it
shouldn’t be punished if it does happen. And even if you could find that
atheist, I can guarantee you that their views would not be welcomed or shared
by the larger atheist community.
On the other hand, if you believe
this fellow’s holy book, the being he worships has ordered actions at least as horrific as the ones Mr. Robertson
describes. And the Bible lauds as heroes the men who carried them out, while
absolutely condemning the men who failed to commit fully to perpetrating such
crimes. Belief in Phil Robertson’s favorite fiction is no panacea against
horrific acts, as history has shown us time and time again.
But the fact that he makes
statements like these – and is applauded by certain segments of the population
for making them – raises once again the serious concerns that atheists have
about the outlook they evidence. Do Phil, and his coreligionists, really
envision themselves as people who would indulge in pointless violence, rape,
and murder if they didn’t have god beliefs restraining them? Is that why they
make these claims – because belief in eternal punishment really is the only
thing holding them in check? Or do they never seriously contemplate stooping to
such behavior, but for some reason they assume themselves to be the exception
while everyone outside their belief system may just be biding their time before
unleashing this kind of screaming depravity on them? I hope you can see why all
of those possibilities are unnerving to us on the outside.
Atheists do have moral beliefs. They
just have different reasons than religious people for holding them (and yes, in
many cases these do result in us reaching different moral conclusions, both
from each other and from the religious). I’ve spoken about them in other posts,
and no doubt I will speak of them again in the future. That’s not really the
issue of this post. The issue is that the kind of “othering,” evidenced by
these speeches – the treating of other people as if they were alien and
dangerous simply because they are “the other,” – is harmful and dishonest. For
all of our sakes, I hope that we can repudiate such views and remember that we’re
all in this life together.
No comments:
Post a Comment