newsflash: you are not god
Over the last week, I got a good share of feedback from creationists and religious zealots that centers around their tried and true criticism of atheists and scientifically minded skeptics. Why do we spend so much time on fighting something we don’t even believe exists in the first place? Why even bother arguing with nothing more than a phantom? The people who ask this questions seem to exude the kind of confidence you expect from a general who just surrounded your forces and can taste his victory cigar as he awaits for you to capitulate your position as null and void. But there’s a problem with their arguments. They seem to have forgotten that we’re criticizing them and their methods, and last time I checked, none of them were fully fledged, certified deities.
The whole concept is actually pretty amazing. After saying something we know to be wrong, or using a circular argument spiced up with appeals to emotion or theological platitudes that have nothing to do with the facts in question, they find themselves on the receiving end of a critique and ask how we dare deny God. Note how finding a zealot’s mistake suddenly morphs into blasphemy and by finding the arguments insufficient, we’re in fact on a warpath against God himself. And that means either of two things happened. Either the creator of the universe descended to the comment section of our blogs and articles and decided to narrate an authoritative response to our ideas, or someone caught making terrible arguments is using the specter of his or her deity as a shield against criticism and a justification for ignorance.
Which seems more likely here? That the supernatural entity in charge of everything in existence is so vain, he has a universal Google alert to know every time someone might be badmouthing him and hordes of humans to use for arguing with skeptics, or there are a lot of very passionate people with very strong opinions about a whole range of topics they don’t understand because don’t care to understand them? Here’s a good example of the latter in action from a certain Cindy LeSieur…
I’d like to know why creationism is so wrong to you and scientific facts appear to you to be so right. I had ’science’ pushed down my throat as a kid, as well as black history, and then my parents took me to church… I would just like the people who don’t agree with what I believe to just shut up, and leave my beliefs alone, and what i want to teach my children, without interfering with their science hocus pocus.
That comment was so passionate, it was left on a post that had nothing to do with creationism or science. It’s actually not even a comment. It’s a mandate to shut up, let her believe whatever she wants and be allowed to spread her beliefs without having to be questioned on her rationale. Crank this attitude up another notch, and we get the invocations of God and accusations of denying the world of the deity. It’s incredibly self-serving and if there really is a God out there, incredibly disrespectful to him to shield yourself from criticism by invoking his name. You are not God. You don’t get to invoke his name when we take issue with your statements and claim divine privilege and infallibility. Those who do seem to have forgotten the role they advocate for humanity in the grand scope of things, the role of humble, fallible, imperfect servants who err by virtue of being only human.
