Mocking Christians

In the last few years the left has become more hostile to Christians. They seem to be accepting the religious right’s view that Christian=Republican.

In some precincts of the left they call the American heartland “Jesusland.” I have seen them use the word “Jebus,” as if Christians were morons incapable of pronouncing the name right. The left likes to boast that it is the “reality based community.”

As an Objectivist (and an atheist), I agree with the left on many value-based issues such as abortion. And yet, their mockery manages to offend even me. The left seems to have forgotten that you can disagree with someone without calling him names. They have adopted as strategy Mark Twain’s aphorism, "The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter."

Ayn Rand was respectful to religious people. Sneering was not her style. She did not like laughing at serious values of other people, even mistaken values. She understood that the belief in God is not a breach of morality; it is an error of cognition. (For all of that, I do believe that her philosophy will prove to be Christianity’s greatest challenge.)

The left’s nastiness toward Christians strikes me as electoral suicide. Something like 80% of Americans are Christian. Without some Christians, the Democrat Party is dead. I don’t want to see the Democrats disappear. Really. We need them around to keep the religious right honest! So I’ll give the Dems some free advice: disagree with the religious right but do not mock Christians, however much you hate them. Somehow I don’t think the way to get people to vote for your side is to make fun of them as Bible-thumping hicks who are out of touch with reality.