There are plenty of beliefs worthy of nothing but disgust and/or ridicule, namely misogyny, racism, flat “earthers”, alien abductions, homeopathy, young earth creationism, faith/divine healing, hell fire fundamentalism, ancestral/ cultural worship, witchcraft and many cults too strange to entertain seriously like ISIS, Orthodox Judaism, and Scientology etc.
If I adopt the ridicule approach, I will be banished from promoting atheism and my goal of defeating superstitious beliefs would be thwarted. Christian’s beliefs are faith based and cannot withstand scrutiny. They know this and are therefore insecure and very sensitive to ridicule, whereby most would just clam up and shut down the interaction, like many do on mynews24. Sometimes even rational argumentation and sceptical critique tends to do the same as well. So how does one get through to a Christian?
Besides, who wants to have their cherished beliefs ridiculed? I don't want people ridiculing what I think and I don't normally ridicule what others think. If people have a right to believe whatever rubbish they want to, then atheists are also entitled to use ridicule and mockery, and/or intelligent argument when necessary.
Before Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire, they suffered derision, scoffing and mocking. After that anyone mocking Christianity did so at great risk to their lives. During the Middle Ages and until Darwin’s day, atheism and mockery was a serious offence and many were tortured on the rack and burnt at the stake for this blasphemous act of heresy.
Thankfully today the once mighty Christian juggernaut is derailing and the rabid snarling dog has been tamed by science, reason and brave secular humanists. Mockery and blasphemy are no longer serious crimes warranting the death sentence and Christianity is fair game once again.
Yet Christians shouldn't complain if their beliefs are mocked. Atheists are only being scriptural when we mock their false beliefs. Remember Elijah and the prophets of Baal, who mocked the false prophets? They shouted at them saying "Pray louder, maybe your god is sleeping, using the toilet, or away on a trip!"
Remember Apostle Paul who mocked the Athenians who worshipped Zeus by saying to them on Mars hill you should put up a statue when you pray with an inscription called to “the unknown god”.
The truth is, Christians just can't stand to have their precious beliefs questioned and not being given special ‘protected' status like Zuma enjoys in parliament. Christians can ridicule other beliefs and say all kinds of silly and offensive things about those who they don't agree with, yet their beliefs are Royal Game.
Rational people know that the genuine search for truth begins; the day faith-based answers are rejected and dumped, not before. Until this is done, there is no reliable method for knowing the truth; about existence, the nature of nature, or which religion is true if there is one, etc.
Therefore all faith-based answers are worthy of ridicule. Of course that doesn't mean one should just ridicule them all the time, it should be used sparingly, but it should be used on occasions, just so the undecided will know, what sceptics think of their faith:-
“A single belly-laugh is worth a thousand syllogisms” said H.L. Mencken.
Sign found in an episode of The Simpsons “Kill Fundamentalism laugh it to death”
You don't have to worry about fairness, since, as Poe’s Law famously notes, no satire can possibly be more absurd than the real thing. And that is true, come on …
You just can’t come up with anything more ridiculous than someone who honestly thinks that all human woes;
stem from an incident; in which a four legged talking snake, accosted an innocent, naïve, naked woman called Eve (made from Adam’s rib and he himself made from dust), in a primeval garden and deceived her, into eating a piece of forbidden fruit and thereby sinning against God’s instruction not to eat it and as a result of this disobedience caused the banishment of every single human being yet to be born, from the presence of God, unless they believe that Jesus Christ, is the way back to him.
I laugh almost daily when reading something written by one of the top Christian apologists, especially William lane Craig or Ken Ham etc. I laugh when I read the Bible. I laugh when I listen to preachers. They remind me of the story of the emperor who has no clothes on and let’s face it bru Christianity has no clothes on - it stands exposed and it’s very funny.
You see the use of ridicule can be justified pragmatically because we know Christianity is a delusion, and since deluded people cannot usually be argued out of their faith because they were never argued into it in the first place, the use of persuasion techniques like ridicule are rationally justifiable. So satire, ridicule and mockery are weapons that should be in our arsenal in this important cultural war of ideas.
Christians are not usually reasoned into their faith. They were persuaded to believe by the circumstances of their upbringing and/or the likability of a significant person in their lives or a dynamic preacher’s emotional evangelical sermon. In fact based on this human propensity of ours, mockery might actually be more effective than reason, for if they were persuaded into their faith then maybe they can also be persuaded out of it.
Science has spoken on matters of faith and told us that faith is an unreliable process for gaining knowledge; therefore Christianity is a delusion for childish people and doubt should be the adult attitude.
Someday in the future people will treat Christianity just like all of the other dead gods and religions are treated today. We mock them. In the future, anyone who learns about Christianity in a history book will mock it like all the other dead religions.
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