I’ve had enough!  The next person who gives me the anti-Christian tirade is going to get an earful – and beyond.  It’s getting so that you can’t go to any social function, no matter how innocuous, without some clown calling down Christianity.  I’m talking about everything from cocktail parties to backyard barbeques.  These anti-Christs are getting worse than the Jehovah Witnesses, for God’s sake!  And they won’t take yes for an answer.  They always have to tell you why Christianity is crap.  I’m not particularly religious; as a child of my generation, I was raised to believe in nothing, and I’ve still got most of that left.  However, the last time I looked, tolerance included all religions, not just the ones that don’t have Jesus in them.

It’s not that I mind people expressing their opinion about religion (or anything else for that matter.)  Knock yourself out!  However, there is a time and a place; not every Christian reference demands a pit bull response.  Sometimes, it’s not appropriate.  Besides, anybody with half a brain already realizes that Western spiritual values are based on mythology — Greek, Norse, Hebrew etc. etc.  They don’t need enlightenment.  Nor are they hearing your pronouncements for the first time.  It’s been open season on Christians since long before John Lennon imagined ten million dollars in record sales.

That’s the real problem.  Despite wholesale claims to the contrary, most anti-religious dissertations are not about religion at all: they’re about Christianity.  People tend to preface their remarks with a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about organized religion, but in the end, it’s only Christians who get a kicking.  I have yet to hear anybody tie into Buddha, for example, or Guru Nanak or the thousand and one African gods.  The very same people who would blow a gasket if you so much as smirk at the pantheon of deities some religions have on offer think nothing of ridiculing Christians — to their face.  To hell with tolerance; that’s just bad manners.

I’m way out of my depth here, but for my money, if we’re going to give spiritual room to any religion, we should give it to them all – including the one our grandparents had.  That’s why we call it Freedom of Religion.  There are people in this world who worship trees (I don’t want to get into it, but if I was going to choose a God, I wouldn’t pick one who’s afraid of termites and tent caterpillars.) and they get way less trouble than your average “I’ll-go-to-church-when-I-get-there” Christian.

There is no particular insight involved in denying Noah’s Ark, the Virgin Birth or Moses parting the Red Sea.  These are allegories which all religions use to try to explain our human self-aware existence.  Nor does it take intellectual prowess to question what cannot be proven; sceptical doesn’t automatically mean smart.   Actually, I find most of the anti-Christs quite ignorant about the Christianity they so fervently decry.  But mostly there is no honour is attacking another person’s beliefs.  If we are comforted by what we know in our heart to be true (whether it be eternal salvation or Mother Nature’s bounty or multiple reincarnations until you get enough points to get into Nirvana) does it really matter if it is true or not?

The burning need to discredit Christianity is simply bigotry and intolerance dressed up as an intellectual exercise — and I can prove it.  You never hear these anti-religious people bad mouthing Muhammad.  Is that because Moslems bite back?