Tonight I was driving to church
when I saw a car with a group of bumper stickers. I love trying to figure out what someone is
telling me about themselves through bumper stickers. It’s like Sherlock Holmes sizing someone up
in 30 seconds or less.
This one had a newer version of
the old Coexist bumper sticker – you know – the one with various religious
symbols used to spell out the word? This
version uses the word Teach with a peace symbol at the end. The point remains the same: religious people
need to get along. While my suspicion is
that a person with such a sticker is either (a) a hopeless utopian or (b) more presumptuous
than any religious person, it’s difficult to decide. This car, however, careened into (b) with
verve, based on one of its other bumper stickers:
The car had a Christian fish with
legs with Darwin written inside the fish.
Irony, anyone?
So, let me get this straight,
Teach peace bumper sticker person: as a Christian I need to coexist with
others, which, most likely in your mind means I keep my mouth shut about my
beliefs, then, you bash my beliefs on the very same bumper with your
ultra-funny (and extremely oh so original)
fishlegs Darwin sticker? Do you not see the
absolute, hypocritical inconsistency in such a proclamation?
Over the years I have tried to
engage atheists on-line through various websites. One of the constant refrains I get is that
atheists are the rational and logical ones, who are only interested in
following reason and evidence. Yet,
fishlegs sticker obviously doesn’t care about logical or rational
consistency. Essentially what fishlegs
is telling anyone who cares to review her stickers is do as I say, not as I do,
which is completely at odds with her alleged belief in people coexisting. I can bash Christians because (I guess she’s
saying) they’re stupid.
I can come to other reasoned
conclusions about fishlegs, as well. She
does not go to church anywhere. She
almost certainly has only a rudimentary knowledge of Christianity and probably
doesn’t actually know any real Christians.
Very likely she hasn’t been on the waterfront in downtown Louisville,
Kentucky on Sundays at 8:00 AM to see all those nasty, non-coexisting, creation
believing Christians engaged in the utter villainy of, dare I speak it, feeding
the homeless (SHHHHHHHH). No doubt
fishlegs missed out on all the many occasions when Christians have done nice
things for others with no thought for themselves and no expectation of
acknowledgement or return. Oh, yeah, then
there’s the Southern Baptist Convention’s disaster relief arm (which is
routinely asked, yes asked, by governments to come in and help at disaster
sites). No coexistence there – nothing
to see – just move on. Let’s not forget that
many Christians go to work, teach at schools, raise children, and pay their
taxes, all without creating a fuss or causing anyone any problems for anyone. I sort of think that is coexisting . . . I think.
So, channeling my inner Sherlock Holmes,
I must conclude that fishlegs thinks Christians are numbskulls who need the
help of the more enlightened, which, of course, means her and her friends. Now you might suggest that fishlegs isn’t
specifically targeting Christians, because, after all the coexist bumper
sticker also uses pagan symbols.
Perhaps, but then where is the Wicca symbol with a Bunsen burner inside
it, for instance? No, fishlegs is
pointedly smirking at Christians.
Finally, fishlegs thinks that she’s
actually helping the world. She’s making
a statement. She’s proclaiming something
that needs to be said. The beauty of it,
she doesn’t have to ever defend herself intellectually because it’s all on her
car, with no way for anyone to rebut her.
As a result, that tells me it’s likely fishlegs probably isn’t nearly as
confident in her beliefs as her bumper stickers suggest. Most people won’t confront someone about
their bumper stickers because (a) it’s impossible while you’re in your car (b)
it would be stalking to follow fishlegs home (c) when you see the car parked in
a lot somewhere, it’s a rare chance that fishlegs happens to be there with the
car. So fishlegs gets to be an
inconsistent hypocrite without having to defend her so-called enlightened
thinking. Yes, she’ll mouth off with her
friends but she wouldn’t dare actually engage a Christian in any sort of
discussion one on one; that might mean she’d actually have to coexist. We can’t have that now, can we?
Of course, I could have it all
wrong. I’m not Sherlock Holmes.
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