A Critique Of Christian "Persecution"

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Waka waka waka waka....

It's nice when someone writes a blog post that strikes so close to home, you feel like you're writing a post just by linking to it.

My buddy Eugene at A Life In Juxtaposition has brilliantly tackled one of my pet peeves - the constant crying by fundamentalist Christians who feel that they are being persecuted for their beliefs in one form or another. Intelligent Design blocked from being taught in the public school science classroom? Persecution. Someone disagrees with a Christian on a religious matter in a discussion forum? Persecution. Someone says "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas"? Persecution. Someone wants to put a non-Christian holiday display next to a Nativity scene? Persecution.

I see this all the time on Topix. Lately, I've been dealing with a fundamentalist who calls himself "pop quiz" (I call him "poop whizz" just for fun). Basically, the guy is just a Christian forum troll - he hangs around the forum for the sole purpose of condemning everyone who he sees as un-Christian as a hell-bound atheist. He's totally obsessed and delighted with the prospect of his fellow human beings burning in eternal torment.  He's obviously quite uneducated, has no compassion whatsoever, and has never contributed anything of value to the discussion. When another hardcore fundie joins the discussion, he'll immediately scamper over like a puppy, warmly greet him, and "earnestly" warn him of the terrible persecution he is about to encounter.

Of course, he is not being persecuted because of his faith. He's being persecuted because he gleefully wishes eternal agony on people, contributes nothing to the topic, and generally runs around like an idiot. And, he lies. Every time he opens his mouth, a lie slithers out. We've caught him in a zillion lies, the most recent (and memorable) being his claim that he is a doctor who runs a practice with 15,000 patients. Um, OK... you can't spell, you can't even post a cogent argument, you sit around on Topix all day spewing hatred, and you want everyone to believe you are a doctor with an impossibly large number of patients... hee hee hee.

Naturally, when we refute his fairy tales with damning evidence from his very own posts, he plays the standard forum troll evasion games, adding a twist of Christian persecution as a garnish ("You just can't handle the fact you're an atheist who's going to burn, so you attack a Christian by lying and smearing him with false accusations!!!").

Eugene calls the common fundie tactic of feigning religious persecution  "Persecution Envy". Read the article, because it's Eugene at his best. Here's a snippet:

It’s really not hard to tell those suffering from Persecution Envy from those who suffer from Actual Persecution – those suffering from Actual Persecution tend to be marked by a complete lack of whining over trivialities. Freedom of expression is something they long for, not something they wish didn’t exist. For some reason those who actually have their life and livelihood threatened due to their religious convictions hardly ever complain about people saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”. Imagine that!

Eugene correctly traces a large part of this faux persecution complex to Matthew 5:10 - Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I guess feeling persecuted for nothing at all is better than actually being persecuted. You can play the persecuted martyr without all the inconvenience of actually suffering.  This utterly callous, selfish and whiny indifference to real religious persecution reminds me of the utterly callous, selfish and whiny indifference of the infamous (but non-existent, according to Snopes) statement wrongly attributed to Mariah Carey - "When I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean, I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff."

Great post, Eugene. Oh, and Eugene, I stole your graphic as well. Try not to feel overly persecuted.