My wife was listening to the radio the other day. The afternoon host was doing an open forum call-in for the question of “what is your biggest pet peeve.” There were the expected calls about slow drivers in the fast lane, folks that don’t use their blinkers, people that drink the coffee pot empty but don’t make another pot, etc. However, then one of the callers said that her pet peeve was: “All those church goers! They think they are so high and mighty and can’t do any wrong”

She was stunned, as was I when she told me. Not so much that this woman would say this, but that it would get on the air down here in the heart of Dixie.

But it did prompt some interesting questions for me:

-What exactly are “church goers”? Do they include any/all people that go to church?

-If you go to church, do you get a badge that says you’re now “high and mighty”?

-Does Church give you special powers so you don’t make any mistakes?

But it also broached a more disturbing subject that I’ve increasingly encountered in my time blogging. There is a very determined, very persistent, very vocal group of people that have, in my view, become extremely hostile against religion and more specifically in America, against Christianity.

While all of these people are not “religion haters” or anything quite as vicious, that in itself makes the point even more clear. If supposed “moderate” voice can make comments this discriminatory, what do the even more radical elements of the this movement think?

“If anyone is entitled to a little revenge at this point in history, it would be the atheists taking revenge against all these irrational religious people who are intent on ending this planet.”

-Comment on “Unclaimed Territory”

“The difference between science and religion is that science looks at the evidence to find an answer. Religion looks at the (so-called) answer first, and then looks for evidence to back it up.”

-Comment on “Martian Anthropologist”

“Don’t you guys know that logic and religion don’t mix?”

“The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: Those with brains, but no religion, And those with religion, but no brains.”

-Comment on “Martian Anthropologist”

“Now, I know that Nazi comparisons are too easy to draw when it comes to the R(eligious) R(ight), but this was like a punch to the gut.”

-Guest Post on “Martian Anthropologist”

“Part of the answer to that is organized religion preys on the mentally ill, and/or weak, and sick…”

“You are REALLY f[xx]ed up - not to mention a damn liar and a hypocrite!!

F[xx] YOU, JESUS FREAK TERRORIST!!”

-Post on “The Future Is Yesterday”

“fundamentalists posing as nothing but what they are: hate filled creatures of destruction…”

Post on “The Future Is Yesterday”

“I continue to give such an abnormal amount of publicity to just two of millions of Hatred Filled Jesus Freaks”

-Post on “The Future Is Yesterday”

“I agree it is a form of child abuse; what is gained by filling their minds with fear and damnation…”

-Post Thread at “Raving Atheist Forums”

“You'll notice all opponents of progress are ultra-religious.”

-Comment on “Life’s Journey”

“Religion is the ultimate incitement leading humans to be selfish. It holds its adherents in a delusional state where reality is contorted leaving them open to the acceptance of being a part of producing pain, suffering and death without remorse. It supplants a normal compassionate conscience with one that is in a state of unease if certain ‘givens’ are not adhered to, no matter what the consequences.”

-Opening Paragraph at “Religion Equals Selfishness”

All quotes I’ve listed have been in open forum discussion via either blog, comments to a blog, or forum discussion. None were refuted or condemned by anyone else other than Christians. Justified or not, I take that as agreement and assent by all others who read them.

Now note the similarity of some other quotes:

"White folks was in caves while we was building empires... We taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it."

- Rev. Al Sharpton in a 1994 speech at Kean College, NJ, cited in "Democrats Do the Dumbest Things"

"...I have had such lamentable experiences with negroes that have been put through the form of a higher education (the result being simply to spoil men that would have been more useful in ordinary walks of life) that I am led to watch very critically the work of higher education among the Negroes."

-841. Ogden, Robert Curtis, 1836-1913. Typed Letter, Signed, Dated May 15, 1901. To Rev. William Hayes Ward, D. D., editor of The Independent

“I recognized the Jew as the cold-hearted, shameless and calculating director of this revolting vice traffic in the scum of the big city, a cold shudder ran down my back...”

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

“They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets.”

-President Ahmadinejad of Iran

While this is not an all encompassing list, admittedly not even that well researched, I put up some that I hope would relate the same idea of innate supremacy over another group, stereotypical ignorance and dismissal of individuals within a larger group, and bias towards specific ideas proven or unproven.

Dictionary.com:

Discrimination:

n 1: unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice

Prejudice:

n 1: An adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts

2: A preconceived preference or idea

3: The act or state of holding unreasonable preconceived judgments or convictions

4: Irrational suspicion or hatred of a particular group, race, or religion.

Has the new fad of anti-religion, and more specifically in America anti-Christian, taken over as the racism of this generation? Our kids are more exposed to racial and cultural tolerance than ever before. The old lines that used to define our society are melting. But a new monster is raising it’s head in the vacuum being created.

At one time statements like those made above by bloggers and commenters would have been condemned by the same types of people that are making them. At one time those people stood against discrimination and unjustified hatred (actually, all hatred in general). Now they voice it and proclaim it to the new enlightenment of society.

All religion has a similar dark past of discrimination, but that doesn’t excuse this vitriol that has manifested itself in our current day society.

Many of these people attempt to stand on the basis that the “Religious Right” has screwed up this country. That they are some how responsible for all things wrong in our current society. This attitude ignores that there are many other influential factors in the development of our society, and harks back to the days of Hitler using the Jews as a scapegoat for all ills of society.

Exactly who is acting the Nazi in this scenario?