Don’t blanket the other side of belief

There has been a link circulating around Facebook that has caused blood to sear in my veins. The link takes you to an article entitled “Argument for the Existence of God.”

The article begins with the “atheist professor” forcing one of this students to stand so that the professor may tell him all that is wrong with that student’s beliefs. The professor continues to act as not only a horrible teacher, impressing his own views onto students, but also a terrible person in general as he implies that this student is naïve or an idiot.

Suddenly — not so suddenly, really — the tables turn as the cool, calm theist tears down his teacher. The student makes the professor’s so-called illogical disbelief in a deity seem to be the idiotic point of view.

This angers me tremendously. No, this is not because I am not a religious person. It is so tiring to see blatant, exaggerated and false characterizations of these two groups — the theists and the atheists. Just as when atheists make their own propaganda on how stupid they find theists to be, when theists place one horrid person as the representative of an entire group, only hatred breeds.

Have you ever noticed how much death has been caused by trying to impress one’s beliefs onto others? The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Ottoman Empire’s jihad against Europe, the fallout from the Protestant Reformation, the Irish civil war, the current Middle East conflict, Pakistan and India, the oppression of the religious in the USSR — the list goes on and on. From both sides of the never-ending conflict there is a desire to pick the worst of the group to generalize and characterize all the rest.

Has no one ever heard of coexistence? Spreading around propaganda such as that link enrages me not because it comforts those religious after they have dealt with the equally revolting atheist attacks, but because it serves only to perpetuate a stereotype that is simply not true.

Stop circling all the hateful propaganda, and just start accepting how others are — not like you.

Julie Heffler is a biochemistry freshman and may be reached at [email protected].

Tags: atheism, christianity, Facebook, religion