Despite the fact that the best and the brightest of the founding fathers were scoffchrists (Deists, mostly, who believed in God but thought the Bible was bollocks), it’s been hard, these past some 230 years, to be an American atheist.
But now the worm has turned. Not only do the bookshelves creak under the weight of beautifully written atheist attack tomes from the likes of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, but the war against the once all-powerful mumbojumblists has also spilled out all over the Internet. But there the weapon of choice is not logic but laughter.
After centuries in the closet, American atheists are now not only out and proud and kicking godbothering ass, but they’re also righteously mocking the faithful.
Thus we saw LOLtheist.com—a Christian-taunting spin on the LOLcats Internet phenom (cute pictures of cats with imbecilic nerd-speak bubbles saying things like “I can has cheezburger?”).
On the LOLtheist site, Jesus hugs some kids and says, “U come 2 my place? I has teh Halo.”
This isn’t because atheists are cruel; it’s because they’ve discovered that blasphemous satire—guaranteed to fly over the heads of the vast majority of Bible-bashers—is a great way to provoke religious insanity. And atheists just love kooky, quirky, crazy religious insanity. For the godless, puerile, inane and even bigoted pro-religious propaganda is like a cross between catnip and porn. They can’t get enough of the stuff. In fact, many of them are addicted, the poor wretches.
This was no doubt the motivation for an atheist troublemaking outfit called the Rational Response Squad when, in December 2006, they issued their Blasphemy Challenge.
They dared America’s millions of hidden unbelievers to out themselves by going on YouTube and denouncing the Holy Ghost (the one unforgivable sin, apparently). Then they roared their heads off as the Christians ran around, waving their arms, shouting incoherently and banging into things.
The most amusing result of the deranged response to Blasphemy Challenge has been the spawning of lots of super-kooky “Christian YouTubes”—weird corners of the web that host videos from the weird, the brainwashed, the talentless, the lonely, the hate-filled and the borderline insane—thus providing atheists with endless hours of free entertainment.
There’s xianz.com (“The Christian YouTube Alternative”), where Father Jeffrey has some paternal advice “before you have sex for the first time.” Plus an apocalyptic posting titled “His Will—Not everyone will be in Heaven.” (Spoiler—Father Jeffrey, being a Catholic, doesn’t make it.)
When we visited Godtube.com we were able to watch “A Prayer for Britney Spears” and “A Letter From Hell” (written by a now-remorseful dead teenager, presumably on stationery provided by the devil).
On GospelTube.com—“The World’s Newest Christian ‘YouTube’”—we sat awestruck though the appallingly amateurish and ill-conceived “Order My Steps Mime Ministry.”
But Christianclips.com offered competition with “Funny Puppet Camp Clips” (“Get right with these holy puppets”).
There’s also a Yaaway.com on the way, promising to bring “thousands of Jesus-centered videos from around the world.”
Including, one can only hope, more videos in which Christians “satirize” silly scientific ideas. Like evolution. And science. (In my favorite, an Australian fundamentalist proves that Darwin was wrong by showing how perfectly the banana fits into the human hand.)
America’s new out-and-proud atheists are hugging themselves in gleeful anticipation.