The failing and ineffectual atheist movement. What Gays need to do instead.
We need to stop having atheism be a parlor discussion, but instead mobilize and have a systematic approach to defeat Christianity.
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Why is this important and urgent?
The homophobia of the world is enabled and made powerful by two Abrahamic faiths, Islam and Christianity. The negative impact of Islam is confined to majority Muslim nations in the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia. Christianity on the other hand is more extensively global in its harmful impact on the lives of Gays, both North and South America, East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Australia, Sub-Sahara Africa, Europe and European and Asiatic Russia.
The amount of secular homophobia in the world and homophobia not of the Abrahamic faiths is minor and not very consequential as to any impact on the welfare of the Gay community. Christianity is nearly entirely the source of the persecution and problems the Gay community faces in most of the world.
Whereas not much can be done by the community regarding Islamic homophobia, much can be done about Christian homophobia.
If the influence of Christianity was terminated, the situation of the Gay community globally would improve dramatically. We could end the discriminations that we face as Gays. We could focus more on discovering what we might be and realizing what we might be. As much as Christianity can be opposed, restrained, and diminished the Gay community’s welfare will be improved.
In the modern world of the 21st century, Christianity finds itself vulnerable. Even with the ineffectual atheist movement that now exists, many segments are in steep decline on a historical time scale. Links to a couple of relevant essays about this is at the end of this post.
If we expect that the current atheist movement will do much to reduce Christianity and hence its ability to homophobically hurt the Gay community, we hope in vain. For much of the atheist community, dealing with Christianity is of no urgency, for much of the atheist community, their atheism is just an item for parlor discussions.
For straight people, Christianity isn’t a threat to their very existence, for Gays it is. In general, for straights, the urgency, or even the necessity of defeating Christianity simply isn’t there or. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work with the general atheist movement when it makes strategic sense, but we simply shouldn’t expect that in general they will see it as the urgent problem that Gay people do.
A mobilized and effective Gay atheist movement could do a lot to disable, defeat and demolish Christianity and its homophobic agenda. Just doing what the general ineffective atheist movement does will not accomplish much.
In discussing how the general atheist movement does and how it avoids effective measures and clings to failing strategies, we will realize what the Gay community’s atheist agenda should be.
Problems with the atheist “movement.”
Problem: Pre-occupation with the logical contradictions of Christianity.
Most of atheist activity is pointing out the logical inconsistencies of Christianity or how murderous and extreme much of the Bible is. This isn’t going to accomplish anything. They are called Christians, not Logicians or Aristoleans. If they thought logically, they wouldn’t be Christians in the first place. They think emotionally!
Also, nothing we might point out in the 21st century about the incoherence of Christianity hasn’t been pointed out in the last twenty centuries and the Christians have had an argument for each and every criticism for centuries. There is probably some limited use for pointing out logical inconsistencies, because there are logical people who are Christian mostly because they inherited the belief, so these arguments should be not be stopped entirely, but this shouldn’t be the only effort. [Link to a post on this at the end of this section.]
Tending to focus on logic is likely due to the fact that atheists aren’t religious because they are logical. The problem is that Christians think emotionally, they don’t think like atheists, so an argument that makes sense to an atheist, isn’t going to have any impact for a Christian, so it is not effective. Again, if they thought logically, they wouldn’t be Christians in the first place.
Pointing out the logical inconsistencies of Christianity are fairly easy. Coming up with effective strategies is hard and involved a lot of work and the ability to critically analyze Christians. The atheist movement is somewhat lazy and lacking critical abilities to analyze Christianity.
For a lot of atheists it is fairly apparent that they just want to feel smarter than a Christian. There are atheists who just want to debate Christians. Somehow, they think they might come up with some logical argument that hasn’t been thought of in the previous twenty centuries. Of course, even if there was a new argument, Christians would come up with some rationalization. A lot of atheists just want to debate and feel the intoxication of feeling smarter and more rational.
The Christians have realized that, and have developed a ministry specifically targeting atheists who just want to debate and they proudly report on how they got this or that atheist to become Christian. [Link to a report on this movement at the end of this section.]
There needs to be new strategies that target Christianity other than pointing out logical inconsistencies. One more meme showing a logical inconsistency isn’t going to do much of anything. The discussion club where atheists discuss the 179th illogical thing about Christianity is not going to do much if anything at all.
Part of the focus on logic is the failure or refusal to recognize that the motivations to believe in Christianity are often self-serving and self-indulgent. (Click on images for further discussions.)
Problem: Thinking that Christianity can be contained with some idea of modern liberalism.
First there is that suggestion that Christianity can be contained by taxing the churches. This is very illogical in that churches will only be taxed if they have already lost influence. So this strategy to defeat Christianity can only be done if Christianity is already defeated.
I think it is popular because maybe some people think that the trend against Christianity is inevitable, but I think mostly it is a way to think that you supporting the defeat of Christianity when you really aren’t doing anything.
A second, frequently expressed idea is that they don’t care what a religious person believes, as long as they don’t try to force it on others. Or it is framed as freedom from religion.
Built into Christianity is the demand that it be pushed onto others and that violence be used, if necessary, and that dissenting views and opposing views be exterminated including the persons refusing to give up those dissenting and opposing views. The New Testament makes this very clear. The historical record shows this clearly. Christians burned each other and others at the stake. They had religious wars.
There is an attempt to try to represent the historical records as some aberration or caused by factors outside Christianity with the application of certain ideas about progress in history, that people earlier were necessarily driven to be religiously intolerant. The fact that murderous intolerance is mostly confined to the historical periods and places with Abrahamic religions, and not elsewhere and in other times in the past is simply ignored. No historian wants to be on the university president’s bad list.
There is the refusal that Christians are Christians because of a logical error, and not some emotional motivations which are self-indulgent and self-serving and involves the intoxication of self-righteousness to avoid accepting any restrictions a secular society might have to achieve personal self-glorification.
You are not going to box in a raging psychopathic belief with slogans. Christianity will always be a danger.
If it seems that it might be boxed in with slogans in the past, but consider that perhaps it only seems to have been boxed in by slogans rather than the slogans were followed because of other factors. If you had a society with slavery, having whites divided by religion would a serious danger. If you were engaged in imperial conquest of non-European peoples, religious divisions would also be a danger. If you were in a community engaged with deadly warfare to deprive indigenous peoples of their land, religious division would be a disaster. If you were engaged in a global Cold War with communism, religious division would be a danger.
It is not accidental that the rise of Christian nationalism has proceeded as the threat of Communism has receded, to the point where now Christian nationalism is a real and present danger.
Observation of Christianity in Korea, which is outside Western history, shows what Christianity in the West likely will become in the 20th and 21st century. Korean Christianity engages in violent attacks on Gay community Pride events, arson of Buddhist temples, and was engaged in the wholesale destruction of the indigenous religion and its cultural legacy.
Christianity can’t be safely contained. It is always striving, a striving built into its theology, to exterminate all resistance to its being the dominating force in society.
The current atheistic movement has the sentimental idea that there can somehow be space for atheism, other religions and Christianity, despite the historical record of Christianity. It thinks that the liberal ideas of the modern secular state will contain it, despite it being obvious that Christianity in the Western world is headed in a theocratic direction.
There is no safety for the Gay community where Christianity has some strength. For the general atheist movement there is the belief that they can coexist with Christianity.
Problem: Trying to convert Christians to atheism.
We merely need to change them so that they aren’t effective as homophobic Christians. It doesn’t matter if they choose some other non-Christian religion, or non-specific spirituality, or some non-homophobic Christianity, atheism, or still be a homophobic Christian who is psychologically disabled from action.
It appears that some individuals will always want to believe in some religion. Beyond a certain point the atheist movement is just attempting to push a wet strand of spaghetti.
Evangelical atheists have needs to convert the world, maybe for self-validation or to affirm how smart they are. We merely need to change homophobic Christians to something else that won’t be actively homophobic.
Problem: Dogmatically going after all religions regardless.
Some religions are harmless or nearly so regarding Gays. Buddhism and Taoism have little focus on Gays. Taoism even has a Gay God. Other religions have no specific built in homophobia. The enemy of these religions, Evangelical Christianity is our common enemy. For those individuals who have a need for religious belief, and are giving up Christianity, some of these religions represent a convenient endpoint in their trajectory of their beliefs.
These religions are potential allies in dealing with a common enemy.
Atheists really need only to be concerned with religions which would want to lock them up or push themselves on society and persecute dissenters. Going after the relatively harmless religions is a waste of resources and effort that could be directed against Christianity. It is going after religions that, unlike Christianity, the public sees as harmless and which are not viewed negatively by secular people and efforts to go after them will be negatively perceived. People may not be Buddhist, but excepting for Christians, the public doesn’t see them negatively and see them as interesting and positively.
The agenda of the dogmatic atheist isn’t the Gay agenda.
Problem: Using tactics that actually strengthen Christianity.
Christianity is about suffering opposition, denunciation, martyrdom, oppression as being glorious suffering for the true faith. Yell at them, mock them, insult them, express blasphemies, ridicule them, they feel they are heroes in their personal drama as standing for their faith against an evil world. When Christians get these attacks, it reaffirms to them that what they believe in must be powerful to provoke such attacks.
Christianity thrives under anti-Christian regimes. Church attendance is very low in France with religious tolerance, but was very high in Poland under the communist regime.
The Roman establishment fed them to the lions. For some in the audience watching the spectacle of feeding humans to lions, it made them sympathetic to the Christians and it made them wonder what was it that Christians were willing to die for. Though ferociously persecuted, Christianity ended up taking over the Roman Empire.
Stalin infamously mocked the Roman Catholic pope for not having any military resources, but the Catholic church is still here, whereas the Russian Communist state is no more.
The Christians have been persecuted in history and they have persecuted each other and survived. They certainly will survive what insults and ridicule that the atheist movement might throw at them.
One of the appeals of Christianity is that they get to be stars in their own personal drama as a hero for the true faith. Yet some in the atheist movement want to feed them lots of drama and to be the extras in the Christian’s dramatic production.
What needs to be done.
In general
One, the discussion of Christian homophobia must not be left to the Christian Gays. The Christian Gay approach to Christian homophobia needs to be criticized as to how it isn’t really a defense of the Gay community and undermines the Gay community.
Two, a systematic approach needs to be taken in which the Christian religious movement is analyzed as to how it operates and what are its weak points. With this analysis, tactics and strategies need to be designed to bring Christianity down. How well these tactics and strategies work to bring Christianity down need to be regularly reviewed as to their effectiveness to either continue them, improve them or discontinue or de-emphasize them.
Three, we need to get organized and organized for action. We need discussion about tactics, but we need to avoid just being a discussion club. There will be opportunities for individuals to do things as individuals, but many effective actions will require a group of people to execute them.
Four, we need to point out and rebut arguments that attempt to shutdown effective defenses against Christian homophobia and identify the individuals and groups making these arguments.
Five, we must not be inhibited or stopped by the various wishful sentiments or pieties prevalent in society. We need to take seriously our right to exist, our humanity, and be determined to do what is necessary to dispose of our enemies regardless of what name calling we might face.
Six, we need to publicly criticize, and not give a free pass, to those who enable or abet homophobia regardless of who they might be, and regardless whether they are homophobic or not, and especially those in the Gay community.
Seven, we need to be independent of other political movements and not an appendage of some social movement or political party. Being homophobic or aiding and abetting homophobia needs to be pointed out and criticized regardless of the persons political party or affiliation. We must not be partisan and criticize some homophobia when it is that of a person in one political party, but give a free pass to the same or similar homophobia in a favored political party.
Eight, we must not allow a homophobe to considered a moral voice or authority nor those who aid and abet homophobia. They need to be denounced.
Specific action items.
This list isn’t complete, there are likely other opportunities. This is just to get some activities going and to generally get Gay atheists to start thinking of specific activities to do.
One, we need a program of education for Gay atheists to be effective opponents of Christianity. To understand the issues, tactics and strategies necessary and what and who are the obstacles.
Two, we need to review the motivations of Christians and the psychopathology that drives them to join homophobic religions. In particular the self-serving self-indulgent self-aggrandizing motivations. We need to start pointing out these motivations to the Christians and others. We need to point out that they are on fentanyl Jesus.
To Christians to psychologically disable them. To initiate a chain of thinking in them to realize what their behavior is, to either give up Christianity or demoralize them. We very likely won’t get an immediate response, but we can implant an idea in their head that can operate over time to breakdown their Christian behavior. Further, if they talk about it with another Christian, they spread the idea to other church members. We need conceptualize ideas that will act as computer viruses in their mind and hopefully spread to others in their church.
To others to increase popular negative perceptions of Christianity. The more negative Christianity is perceived, the less able they are to win new converts, the more social pressure there will be on them to quit.
Three, use emotional arguments. Arguments that put their emotional feelings in conflict with their religious emotions.
One time on social media, I casually remarked, “You are probably Christian because of an empire, Roman, Spanish, European.” I got a strenuous response from an African American Christian who strongly identifies as a Christian and as a social justice activist.
The Maoris recently had a cultural change in which they shifted from being Evangelical Christians to being atheists as Christianity became identified with colonization and the conquest of their ancestors. Christianity collided with their pride of being Maori.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1177083X.2024.2333544
Missionaries in Thailand complain that they have spent generations there and make no progress, Christianity there is seen as being un-Thai and the Thai are very proud of never experiencing colonial occupation.
Christianity has been a tool of brutal colonial conquests of much of the globe. There is abundant opportunity to identify Christianity with that history and show that it is contrary to the historical culture. People outside the Western world are already pointing this out. We don’t have to do all the historical work ourselves. For example:
The Bible, both Old and New Testament is consistently pro-slavery and Jesus uses slavery to explain his ideas. Christianity almost universally denies that the Bible justifies slavery, but the anti-slavery meaning of the Bible was undiscovered for the first eighteen centuries of Christianity. Certainly those groups which have suffered from slavery historically need to confront the pro-slavery meaning of the Bible. Some work has already been done by African Americans.
The near universal end of seeing the Bible as pro-slavery, is an opportunity to attack the general workings of theology as opportunistic. The author always says that the convolutions and contortions put mathematical topology to shame.
In opinion polls one of the major factors in the decline of Evangelical Christianity and Christianity in general, is that it is perceived as angry and hostile and homophobic. In response the Christians have worked to make their homophobia as nice as possible and also many bury their homophobia so it isn’t immediately part of their image. People emotionally don’t want to be haters, so they want their Christianity without hating Gays. Some will accept, “Love the sinner, hate the sin,” rationalization, others won’t, most don’t, hence the rapid decline of Christianity. Other Christian denominations drop their homophobia, hoping not to be pulled down by it.
We are more popular than Christianity in America, Canada and Western Europe and unpopular in other parts of the Christian world, hence denominations are fracturing one after another. These new homophobic fragments of major denominations don’t have the historical prestige. Smaller fragments have less resources to attack Gays. It is one of the unintended good things that Gay Christians and their allies have done. Again, the emotional need for many not to be haters is more powerful than the churches which it has fractured.
We need to work on identifying emotional arguments against Christianity. (Click on image below for further discussion.)
Three, we need to make sure every homophobic individual and organization is identified before the public and can’t escape the stigmatization of being homophobic. We need to make their stench of homophobia always upon them. Further, with their homophobia known we should challenge any claim to be a moral voice or authority. They should be known as bigots.
Individuals and organizations need to know that being homophobic will be used to diminish their reputations and always be a factor in anything they attempt to do. It will be brought up as an issue when any elected official, cultural leader or other prominent individuals decides to work with them.
We need to make sure that homophobia always carries with it a detriment to the individual or organization that is homophobic.
Four, when homophobic Christian groups complain about human rights violations against them in other nations, we should point out that as organizations with a homophobic agenda against human rights and often a past history against the human rights of Gays, their complain is hypocritical. We should point out that for them, it is not a matter of human rights, but the fact that they don’t control the agenda of repression and persecution, and worse for them they are the targets of repression and persecution. They can’t have it both ways, be for a human rights agenda for themselves, and against it for Gays.
Further we should challenge granting refugee status and the importing of homophobic Christians, we already have too many already. The United States government wouldn’t grant refugee status to a racist church or an anti-Semitic church.
Further, Christians can be disrespectful and antagonizing to societies, and often don’t seem to realize that there are no colonial gunboats to back up their behaviors. We should point out that they needlessly cause trouble and further they threaten to antagonize U.S. relations with important allies.
Again, we need to make sure that homophobia always carries with it a detriment to the individual or organization that is homophobic.
Five, we should emphasize that they have disordered thinking and are a source for public disorder. This will be a theme in multiple plans of action.
Six, we should assist any conflicts between denominations. With social media and it not being controlled, many of the old divisions within Christianity are opening expressed. Catholics on X denigrate Protestantism, and Protestants on X denigrate Catholicism. In both cases it is the homophobic Protestants and Catholics engaged in this.
When Christians are fighting each, other they have less of an ability to go after Gays. They are less able to form coalitions against Gays since they will not trust each other and have animosities with each other.
However, what will be most damaging to homophobic Christians engaged in these sectarian conflicts, is the public disgust and horror that a terrible part of European and American history might surface again. It will also demolish the belief that somehow historical progress has locked these terrors of the Inquisition, Pogroms, and religious wars in the past, and make many realize that murderous intolerance is always a potential in Christian theology. (Click on image below for a further discussion.)
Seven, we should publicize all church scandals on social media. We should have a strike force to share across social media as individuals any lurid scandals. We should be public about it. Some Christians will refuse to learn from the scandals to spite us, and hence not reform and in the future behave badly and continue to damage their reputations.
Eight, we need to promote cultural trends and entertainment which works against homophobic Christianity. It might not be possible to have a Gay Straight club in a high school, but is possible to have a fan base for the East Asian phenomenon of same-sex romances called BL in Japanese English. The “His Dark Materials,” trilogy series and the television series has as the villains the Magisterium which fairly clearly is a representation of autocratic religious authority. Did the Gay community work to promote it when it came out, I don’t know. Cultural trends and phenomenon which work against dogmatic religion is something that should be promoted and might be somewhat fun to do so.
The advantage of novels and dramas is that they aren’t obviously didactic. That is, they are lecturing, and are more subtle. The person simply enjoys the entertainment and the lessons about dogmatic religious authority are absorbed.
In other cultural phenomenon, there is the acceptance of same-sex romance also without being didactic.
Nine, we need to critically analyze Christianity, not for its lack of logic, but what its true nature is, and how it is a danger. We need to point out some of its grosser aspects. We need to target Christianity itself. Communion is ritual cannibalism should be emphasized. Whether Mary could really consent at the age of 12 to 14 to be impregnated needs to be discussed. We don’t discuss these in terms of logic, but in terms of exposing the grosser elements in Christianity and make them palpable, that is to make them an emotional issue. When Lot offered his daughters, how many men would be raping them each?
Ten, we should show how limited and minimal and slow the acceptance of liberal Christianity has been regarding Gays.
Summary
This review of the failings of the current atheist movement and a set of strategies and tactics is written to start thinking about what can be done and to mobilize a movement to systematically act to defeat homophobic Christianity effectively.
There are likely more strategies and tactics to be used that aren’t mentioned in this essay, and some of the strategies and tactics proposed in this essay might not work that well. The point is to do more than just focus on the illogic in Christianity.
We need to stop playing games, and understand that our goal is to neutralize Christianity and do what is necessary. It is them or us.
Homophobic Christianity is overwhelmingly the problem that Gays face in the world. To think that happy talk is going to change them is foolish. We need to mobilize and act.
Additional reading.
