Christian OUT Campaign

First, The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science had their OUT campaign:

And now, there is a Christian OUT campaign:

That’s apparently a C.

Who knew.

(Notice that they actually write the word Christian to make it obvious what the letter stands for :))

Why is this needed?

Some may wonder why there is a need to ask Christians to “Come out”, for indeed there seems to be no short supply of television evangelists, churches on every corner, and religious activism across the nation, but real Christianity, true to the Scriptures Christianity, may not be as wide spread as we would hope or like to think it is. This is a call for personal individual Biblical conviction Christianity and not denominational and religious ideals. Are we failing by looking at the numbers of enrollment and loosing sight of the individual lives?

I know there are some Christians who don’t like telling anyone what they believe because of the negative stereotype many people associate with Christianity. Some. Not a lot (in my experience).

The rest have no problem telling me what they believe. Even when I don’t ask.

Is the letter really necessary for Christians?

There’s a reason to have the Scarlet A — or at least a reason for atheists to come out. The more open atheists we see around us, the more comfortable closeted atheists will feel about coming out themselves.

I don’t see that same problem associated with Christianity. Not at the same level.

(via RichardDawkins.net)

[tags]atheist, atheism, Christian, Jesus[/tags]

Siamang

Perhaps someday, in this country, a politician may actually be brave enough to come out as a Christian. Then we will know we’ve made great strides towards tolerance.

Fight on, Christians, fight on.
Cat’s Staff

Isn’t the Latin cross a little more identifiable as the symbol of Christendom? Changing well established logos is a bad marketing move. What if McDonalds decided to do away with the golden arches and the logo was a big blue McD’s in Helvetica.
Mriana

I thought Christians had a symbol- the fish. So what’s up with the “C” thing?
Gene

Maybe it’s actually started by atheists? meaning “christians (get) out!”;)
Joel Sax

I still think it’s rather mean of you to grab the A all to yourself.

We agnostics as well as Anabaptists have reason to be miffed.
Claire

We agnostics as well as Anabaptists have reason to be miffed.

Didn’t we steal it from adulterers? Feel free to steal it from us. Makes it kind of like Christmas….
MikeClawson

A White Elephant religious symbology exchange?
Richard Wade

In school I was taught that an A was a lot better than a C.
hoverFrog

This is getting silly. There are only 26 letters in the alphabet but many thousands of religions. If they all jump on the bandwagon and try to pinch the idea of a letter then we’re going to have religions arguing over who get the “B”. Buddhists, Baptists, Bahá’í. It’ll all end in tears.
Richard Wade

Getting silly? This has been silly for thousands of years. Silly to believe in spooks and silly to spend a lot of time arguing against spooks. Silly to get attached to symbols and letters with the same silly divisive tribal superiority as all the other silly blood stained flags, banners, coats of arms, emblems, talismans and magic boar’s teeth that silly people have rallied around in their silly, silly conflicts since time began. Run out of letters? Nah. They’ll just put numbers after the letters like A-2 or J-347. We’ll never run out of silly beliefs and silly reasons to hate, fear and kill each other over those silly beliefs. The M23’s will massacre the P-112’s. B-14’s will forbid their daughters to marry the sons of S-2’s and young forbidden lovers will commit suicide together amidst all the silly enmity. Silliness is eternal.
Jeff

Don’t forget accents and other letter annotations. People could add little dots or hyphens or hats above the letters just like in many non-English languages so different groups could share the same letter — the annotation distinguishing them. That might be a little amusing when the Buddhist symbol gets confused with the Baptist symbol. 😉
richard

Wait, maybe I could get on the t-shirt selling bandwagon TOO….

You know who needs to come out now?

HETEROSEXUALS…

I’ll make millions with the H shirts…
stogoe

Meh. They fall into the all-too-common trap of No True Christian. Sorry, you don’t get to disown the jerkwad christians, just like we don’t get to disown Hitchens’ nuttier ravings.
writerdd

Christians already have the fish and the cross/crucifix (depending if you’re Protestant or Catholic). Doh. They’re just mad that atheists are having the balls to speak OUT and not let ourselves be silenced any more. La-di-dah. We’re not going to shut up.
Vincent

richard said,
Wait, maybe I could get on the t-shirt selling bandwagon TOO….

You know who needs to come out now?

HETEROSEXUALS…

I’ll make millions with the H shirts…

Hmmm. If homosexuals have the rainbow, heterosexuals may just have to have a big black dot.
Sarah H.

Sigh. I don’t know if this idea misses the point entirely (that we’re a negatively-stereotyped minority and it takes courage for us to “come out”) or that it fully gets that point but once again brings out the victim complex so many Christians seem to have (as well as the strong belief that theirs is the ONLY TRUE religion and must therefore be propagated wherever possible, leading to weird competition). Either way – sigh.
NYCatheist

It’s a good thing they put the spelled out “Christian” label under that “C” otherwise I would have thought they were coming out as Coca Cola drinkers in our Pepsi dominated society.
richard

Well think about it… It must take Real Courage for a Christian to come out and admit that they believe in Jesus Christ as their personal saviour; something that they share with a MAJORITY of people in the United States, Canada, and much of Europe at least.

“We’re here! We believe in Jesus just like you do! Get used to it!”

Yeah, it does lose just a little something. Maybe my H shirts won’t do so well….
Scotty B

…next thing you know we’ll start seeing the Jews wearing yellow stars and the gays with pink triangles…
richard

Scotty B: that’s a bit of a non-sequitor, since nobody is suggesting mandatory labeling of minorities.
Psychodiva

looks less likea C than an L or E to me- I don’t get it- they are silly beyond silly, they already have a symbol
miller

I pretty much assume everyone I meet is Christian unless stated otherwise. On the other hand, I never assume someone is a devout Christian. Perhaps that is the group they are targeting?
hoverFrog

I assume that people are agnostic until I make up my mind about them. 😉
Jeff

I assume everybody I meet will eventually be eaten by worms unless they are cremated. 😉
J Sveda

> looks less likea C than an L or E to me- I don’t get it- they are silly beyond silly, they already have a symbol

OT, but some cursive capital letters used as symbols for sets in mathematics are precisely this unreadable. Too many curls spoil readability 🙂
YSTH

C=coo coo, and crazy. Yeah, they got it right…
Linda

Miller:
I pretty much assume everyone I meet is Christian unless stated otherwise.

hoverfrog:
I assume that people are agnostic until I make up my mind about them.

Jeff:
I assume everybody I meet will eventually be eaten by worms unless they are cremated.

Whenever I assume anything, I end up making an ass out of myself; so I try not to, if at all possible.

Jeff, what about the rapture? 😉

On a classier note, I found this post on Atheist Ethicist Journal through another Christian/atheist site ln Search of High Places:

This is a trend that makes me uneasy.

News from Friendly Atheist is that some Christians have developed a campaign modeled after Dawkins’ “Out” Campaign.

So, now we have two sides, each wearing their own flags and wearing their own uniforms, each defining themselves by their opposition to the other.

If people are not careful – if they do not make a conscious effort to see how this develops, it is a type of situation that could get out of hand. Humans have a psychological disposition towards tribalism, with a tendency to be hostile towards opposing tribes. Saying that atheists are immune from this disposition is saying that atheists are not human.

This type of tribalism has come to be extremely destructive in different times in human history. It is something we need to be careful about.

Yep.
Jen

This type of tribalism has come to be extremely destructive in different times in human history. It is something we need to be careful about.

But this wasn’t about tribalism. A group of people who are in a minority that tends to be looked down on thought about claiming a symbol to proclaim to the world, “You may not realize it because I look no different than you, but I am in fact a member of a maligned minority.”

Then the Christians said, “What! We want a symbol too. Just because we are a majority doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get a symbol!”

Meanwhile, the meek in the back started muttering about how it was a shame they would have to get rid of alll those cross necklaces.

Then the Christians used a fancy font and released a press release, to the stunned silence and eventually, to loud, loud laughter.
Rene Horn

Zebra-ists should make Scarlet Zs!!!! I wish all my Zebra-worshipping friends would just be brave enough to come out.

Seriously, the entire “true Christian” quotation was a blatantly obvious “true Scottsman” fallacy. Unbelievable.
vjack

That does it! I’ve been holding off for a variety of reasons, but I’m adding the scarlet A to Atheist Revolution right now!