your-god-is-too-small May. 2016 | Page 298

Meet The Monster By - Casper Rigsby A Healthy Dose of Reality For all the complaining theists do, you would think that atheists have taken to burning them at the stake. But the reality is that the majority of atheists are quiet and pacifistic, trying to indulge a "live and let live" position. Most atheists are not anti-theists like myself, and while they may detest the actions of the religious world at large, they do not speak. They embrace pacifism and the apathy associated with it. They would no more stand in defiance of the religions tearing civilization apart than they would stand in defiance of a tornado. Such has been the case for well over 2,000 years, and why shouldn't it be? I mean, in many instances even the act of speaking could get them imprisoned, or even murdered. But I have to tell you, and many won't like hearing this, that you're part of the problem, not part of the solution. The truth is that our continued apathy and pacifism is a more detrimental force against our freedom than any religion could perpetrate against us. Our silence is allowing us to be walked all over by them. Our "live and let live" approach has failed us miserably, because it isn't a position we share with the opposition. We are up against people willing to strap bombs to themselves to murder us and any others who do not follow their chosen delusion. We are up against people willing to murder their own children because a holy man says they're witches. And if you don't get this, then we are doomed to fail in gaining equal ground and true freedom. You may believe that by simply being an atheist you have escaped religion, but I assure you that this is not the case. You've escaped nothing as long as they still stand united and strong against all of us. Pacifism and Apathy Many people think of pacifism as just an embrace of nonviolence, and indeed most pacifists are nonviolent, but it goes deeper than that. You see, pacifism is truly the embrace of passivity or apathy. It is the idea that it's fine for you to do your thing and I'll just do mine. To indulge this idea in total means to allow those who wish to act in ways that are detrimental to you and then say, "It's cool bro. Just do your thing." Men such as Mahatma Gandhi are touted as pacifists, when in reality they are activists who used rational discourse as tools of war against oppression. Gandhi himself once said, "It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the P a g e | 298