Atheists oppress British Christians

Every Easter, with the media spotlight on religion, there's always a long line of apologists waiting in the wings to tell their tedious and often melodramatic story about how religion is great and noble, religious people are horribly oppressed by our tyrannical secular society, and that common, god-fearing Brits ought to rise up against these smug, vile atheist elites (BYOP - bring your own pitchforks). This piece by the Daily Mail does the hat trick and brings all three.

After an utterly uninteresting introduction and personal rumination, it finally cuts to the chase:

Like most educated people in Britain and Northern Europe (I was born in 1950), I have grown up in a culture that is overwhelmingly secular and anti-religious. The universities, broadcasters and media generally are not merely non-religious, they are positively anti.

As delicious as that may seem, I heartily doubt the truth of it. Christians in the US are always playing the same game, playing the victim and lamenting our "secular society" but the sad truth is that religion still plays a large role in society (and regrettably, our political policies) and that they disguise their privileged position as one of a downtrodden underdog to garner every drop of sympathy and support that they can get. And I shudder to imagine the rationale for the incessant painting of the secular voices as totalitarian overlords silencing the faithful (who inexplicably, manage to ceaselessly broadcast their tale of secular oppression from all the major media) .

But speaking of secular voices, the article holds nothing back to these atheist jerks (and noticeably fails to support exactly why they are jerks). In argumentum ad adjective fashion, it lamblasts Britain's atheists as "anti-God fanatics", "mockers", "scornful", "smug", "self-satisfied". The hatred just goes on and on, and I'm not entirely sure that it's the atheists who are the actual producers of it.

Apparently, Richard Dawkins thinks that religion is the source of all evil in the world (protip: just reading the titles of people's work isn't the same as knowing the arguments contained therein), Polly Toynbee spends her Sundays sneering at meek pew-sitters, and the tieless, foul-mouthed Jonathan Ross (who for some reason, is wearing a tie in the accompanying picture) is mean to Christians somehow.

Jeez. Even I'm starting to hate atheists!

An observant reader may remark, "Okay, we've had enough two minutes of hate, where's the case for faith?" Well, it turns out that part was mostly ditched in favor of hunting down pics of these vile atheists and the barrage of clever adjectives to demonize them with. It's there, sort of, but it's not really worth commenting on.

As a matter of fact, I am sure the opposite is the case and that materialist atheism is not merely an arid creed, but totally irrational.

Materialist atheism says we are just a collection of chemicals. It has no answer whatsoever to the question of how we should be capable of love or heroism or poetry if we are simply animated pieces of meat.

Take that, materialists!

I mean seriously, how could anything feel emotions or have deep thoughts if it's building blocks are just stupid cells? It's preposterous. It's like saying that a lovely painting could be "just" paint on a canvas or that the Eiffel Tower is "just" a hunk of metal. Obviously, it makes no logical sense to say that a wondrous thing could be made from building blocks that aren't themselves magical in any way.

The rest of the arguments are equally bad, including the not-so-subtle argument from popularity that most of the greatest thinkers of the past 1,500 years believed in Christian dogma.

How'd the thought process get this bad? Well, there's a clue in the author's journey to belief. Apparently, he drifted away from the faith because it struck him as "uncool" and found it again when he made the startling revelation that people often die while still believing in supernatural things.

Seems to me like the journey was merely from one poorly-reasoned position to another.

I'm reminded of this quote from Thomas Jefferson:

"Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind"