I've been watching a lot of politically liberal and progressive shows on YouTube lately and I've noticed something. When talking about Christians criticizing homosexuality or Atheism the word bigotry comes up a lot. It almost seems that you're either pro-LGBT lifestyle or that you are bigoted and hateful. I think it's important, however, to define what that word actually means. According to the Oxford Dictionary, a Bigot is someone who has hatred or fear for a population whose appearance, beliefs or customs disagrees with his own. The disagreement itself isn't bigotry, but the way the disagreement affects someone. People disagree with each other's lifestyle choices all the time. For instance, Christians disagree with Islam. Christians believe Islam is immoral because it teaches a false god. Secular Humanists believe that both Christianity and Islam are immoral because they're morally opposed to their deities. Christians and Muslims obviously denounce Secular Humanism on the basis of it denying God himself.
The point is, is that we disagree with Humanism and Humanists disagree with Christianity. There's no reason, though, to believe that all Humanists are bigoted against us just because they don't agree with our religious beliefs. That is ridiculous and unfair. It's certainly possible to personally oppose something because you genuinely think it's harmful to society but to also defend one's right to practice it. Certainly, the Bible only legitimizes heterosexual marriages, but we have to remember that this country's laws are not subject to the tenants of a religious belief, even if it is the majority, and even if it is true. Banning same-sex marriages on religious grounds creates a slippery slope because the religious majority might not be the same for long. What happens if Christianity were no longer the majority religion? I don't see any reason why marriages we may disagree with from a Christian standpoint should remain unlawful under a secular government. I've said from the very beginning that from a personal standpoint, I'm not in favor of same-sex marriages, however, I support the right of a same-sex couple to legally be allowed to engage in one. Premarital sex is a sin in the Bible too, but no one is fighting for it to be illegal. It is un-biblical for a Muslim to marry a Christian as the two are unequally yoked, but nobody seems to have a problem with that remaining legal either.
A lot of my fellow Liberals are very quick to call anyone who denounces a lifestyle they support bigots. I find it odd that these people use such language when many books have been written criticizing the Christian and Islamic lifestyles. Why is it bigoted to attack the lifestyle choices of transgender people but it's perfectly OK for an Atheist to attack the religious lifestyle of Christians?
The truth is, is that criticism of your lifestyle should be fine with you. If you truly believe you are right, it shouldn't bother you. If you were giving to the poor and helping the sick, somebody bashing that lifestyle choice wouldn't bother you a bit, because you are completely confident that it is right. Just address the criticism. Don't suddenly call them bigots, try to censor them or shut them up. Address the criticism. Again, if you're right, it shouldn't be hard. Understand that there are lifestyle choices you oppose too, but it doesn't make you a bigot until you begin to hate the people who practice those lifestyles.
Christians are to hate the sin but love the sinner. Humanists are taught to love the Christian but hate his religious beliefs because they're supposedly bad for us and society. I'm fine with that. Obviously, I think Humanism is wrong in that regard but that's fine. We shouldn't adopt double-standards and preach principles only when they're convenient for us. We should preach these principles even when we're the ones on the receiving end of the criticism.
The debate that took place between creationist Ken Ham and popular television personality Bill Nye has gotten a lot of buzz lately. The general consensus is that Bill Nye "won" the debate while Ken Ham "lost". To be quite honest, I have to admit that I walked away feeling the same way. This, of course, has given the Atheist community on the internet a huge boost in confidence, and boy have they made it clear that Christianity has finally been proven to be unscientific and ridiculous, that the Bible is a book that should be thrown into the dustbin of history and that there is no god.
OK, I might be exaggerating some, but I'm trying to make a point. The mistake that I'm seeing from so many Atheists out there is that people have turned this debate into a Science vs. Religion debate. Now, granted, Young-Earth Creationism is primarily a worldview based on religion, but certainly Ken Ham's version of the Genesis account isn't the only religious worldview about the history of the world, life and the universe or even the only Christian account.
I want to show you a video of what the general reaction to this video looked like. Notice how the commentators review this debate. It starts off as a general and fair analysis of the actual debate, but about halfway through they begin to make the debate a complete referendum on the Bible itself and Christianity.
Notice as the video went further and further, the commentators made the debate itself more and more about religion in general than Ken Ham's views. This video was obviously not the only response to the debate, but I chose it because it represents a polite, but unfortunately, misinformed analysis of the debate. Atheists, as a result of this debate, have felt emboldened to do this but it isn't intellectually responsible to place the views of one movement onto all of religion or Christianity as a whole.
The truth is, is that Young Earth Creationism isn't what the Bible teaches. At least, not in my opinion. The problem though is that many Atheists believe that it is. They're making the same mistake Ken Ham is making and actually agree with him more than they would like to admit. Therefore, they've turned this into an attack not on Ken Ham's interpretation of Genesis, but rather, an attack on the Bible itself. As I've stated before, most Christians do not believe that a proper interpretation of Genesis calls for a recent creation. And this isn't even because of recent developments in science. St. Augustine of Hippo did not believe in a recent creation either and did not think that each "day" of Genesis should be taken as literal, 24-hour days and this was over a millennium before Darwin was even born! Therefore, the attack on the Bible's credibility in response to this debate is attacking a straw-man.
Another point that I want to make, and this one is interesting, is that just because Ken Ham lost doesn't mean that creationism itself has been dis-proven. It just means that Ken Ham failed in defending it. We have to remember something about debates: that winning doesn't mean that you are right. It just means that the other person didn't do as good of a job at defending his positions as the winner. Now I'm certainly not calling myself a Young Earth Creationist, but the fact is is that this debate hasn't done anything but provide us something to talk about for a few weeks.
Notice that I'm using the term "Young Earth Creationist", because that is the view that Ken Ham was defending. A creationist, technically, is somebody who rejects Evolution and believes the Genesis account. Creationism, however, doesn't have to mean believing in a Young Earth. Most creationists actually do not believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old nor do they believe in a world-wide flood. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that the Bible taught that the flood was a global one. Again, this was specifically Ken Ham and Answers-In-Genesis's version of Creationism and not the view that most professed Creationists or ID theorists hold. In fact, the Discovery Institute, an Intelligent Design advocacy group, was highly critical of the debate because they felt like not all views on the origin of life and the universe were represented.
I think it also needs to be noted that Evolution is a scientific theory and not a philosophical worldview. I find it odd that both Ken Ham and many of the Atheists that responded to the debate have conflated the theory of Evolution with Atheism. Evolution isn't a threat to religion as Ken Ham and the many Atheists who have responded to this debate have claimed. It's even odder to me that Bill Nye was one of the only few people to not have made the mistake of claiming this himself. I think Mr. Nye did a great job in this debate, not only because his arguments were fact-based. He didn't attack Ken Ham's religion, but only his arguments. This is why Mr. Nye was so effective in this debate, in my opinion. He could have easily sneaked in attacks on religion and faith and so-on but he knew this would detract from the topic at hand and ruin his credibility. He avoided doing that because he was actually trying to convince all people, Christians and other religious people alike, that Evolution is a scientifically plausible theory that is accepted almost universally by the scientific community and "here's why". He knew that attacking Christianity as a whole would only put every Christian in the room, the people he was most trying to win over, on defense. He was extremely careful to specify that Ken Ham's creationist view was Ken Ham's creationist view, and not what the Bible actually teaches. Good job, Mr. Ham. Good job. Now go tell all your Atheist fans to pipe down, lol.
The fact of the matter is this: Science won. Not Atheism. Many Christians actually sided with Bill Nye in response to the debate. Some even adamantly....like this one...
