Ricky Gervais is currently in the midst of a heated argument with a number of fundamentalist Christians that are responding with hateful right-wing anti-gay; anti-semitic, creationist remarks to his posting.
Gervais, is an outspoken atheist, and is no stranger to controversy especially following his remarks at the Golden Globe Awards and his recent use of the word “mong” that some felt was an insult to people with Down’s Syndrome has obviously drawn public attention before.
However presently as he’s been holding the “12 Days of Rickmas,” jokingly inserting himself in for Jesus Christ while suggesting followers do something to save animals each day to raise awareness for animal rights organization PETA.
Gervais now though has become embroiled in arguments with Christian fundamentalists on Twitter.
One in particular, @GodsWordIsLaw, has engaged with Gervais. The Twitter user named Keith appears stridently anti-homosexual, a creationist, and disliking other faiths. On Tuesday, he tweeted “Happy Hanukkah to the pharisees…bah humbug #GenocideNow.”
Gervais has responded back with dialogue mocking Keith and appealling to more reasonable readers. One tweet from Gervais was “To all sane Christians. I know you’re not all like these evil fundamentalists. I don’t believe in your God but I believe in your kindness.”
Explaining his atheism Gervais said to one newspaper “I used to believe in God. The Christian one, that is ( I was born in a country where the dominant religion was Christianity so I believed in that one. Isn’t it weird how that always happens?)…Luckily I was also interested in science and nature. And reason and logic. And honesty and truth. And equality and fairness. By the age of eight I was an atheist.”
I think it’s a shame when the extreme minority are so outspoken because they create a skewed representation of the majority. I’m an atheist myself, but I am friends with many people who believe in God because it’s such a non-issue. Religion, just like race/gender/nationality and anything else, only matters if we choose to make it a problem. It doesn’t make anyone a better or worse person. It’s not a perk of religion, and I’m sure most people share this opinion. If I’m totally wrong and there turns out to be a God and some form of heaven/afterlife, I’m pretty confident I’ll get in regardless of my atheism because I’m a good person, and surely that’s all that matters?
Exactly. Couldn’t have put it better myself, I remember reading a article that Issac Asimov wrote called the “Reagan Doctrine” (I’ve put it in the files area under documents it’s called the roving mind”). In it he takes analyses the following remark that Ronald Reagan made:-
“No one who disbelieves in God and in an afterlife can possibly be trusted.”
Asimov goes onto say at the beginning of his critique of the statement :-
“…If this is true then people are just naturally dishonest and crooked and downright rotten. In order to keep them from lying and cheating every time they open their mouths, they must be bribed or scared out of doing so. They have to be told and made to believe that if they tell the truth and do the right thing and behave themselves, they will go to heaven and get to plunk a harp and wear the latest design in halos. They must also be told and made to believe that if they lie and steal and run around with the opposite sex, they are going to hell and will roast over a brimstone fire forever
“It’s a little depressing…there is no such thing as a person who keeps his word just because he has a sense of honor. No one tells the truth just because he thinks that it is the decent thing to do. No one is kind because he feels sympathy for others, or treats others decently because he likes the kind of world in which decency exists.
“Instead … anytime we meet someone who pays his debts, or hands in a wallet he found in the street, or stops to help a blind man cross the road, or tells a casual truth — he’s just buying himself a ticket to heaven, or else canceling out a demerit that might send him to hell. It’s all a matter of good, solid business practice; a matter of turning a spiritual profit and of responding prudently to spiritual blackmail.”
I find what you’ve said above mirrors the argument that being good and honest and obeying a code of moral conduct does not require religious belief.
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