The Atheist Minority in Uganda

At the very least, he said “As the old saying goes”. It’s a step in the right direction; it’s just a saying, at least he’s not claiming it’s true.

I have quite a bit of personal knowledge about Uganda. My family founded and supports an orphanage that includes a school and a clinic. We lead missionary and medical trips there several times a year. It is through Grace International Children’s Foundation.

The main problem with Uganda is political strife caused by years of dictatorships following Britain’s departure. That along with the Aids epidemic that has decimated a generation and left almost 2 million orphans in the country.

Numerous Christian organizations are working in Uganda to provide relief, health care and education. These people come, like we did because they believe that it is our Christian calling to help widows and orphans. So to say that God hasn’t helped these wonderful people is simply not correct.

Despite their conditions the people are unbelievably happy, kind, giving and resourceful. Their faith plays a huge part in that. They see God’s blessings everyday.

Robert, I call that bullshit.

to say that God hasn’t helped these wonderful people is simply not correct.

It was people, their efforts, their actions. You can be damn sure nothing would have happened if not for the people. So, give your sky fairy credit if you want, but it doesn’t change the fact it’s people, not god who make things happen. If it was god there would be manna and books appearing in the desert, not people.

You say god sent the people I believe it was empathy and caring, you know those human emotions we have. To bad you have to devalue the contributions people make to creating a better world. The world would be much better if we gave credit where credit is due. This is called escapism for a god that does nothing.

Where is the manna from your god for the desperately hungry? Or does your god only provide for desert living goat herders? Oh wait, I mean desert living goat herders that are missing their foreskin?

Jerry,
I think you missed the part when he dropped in on the Indians of North America. Joseph told us all about it.

Richard,
Sorry about that, I guess I didn’t convey the attitude that obviously we’re the exception over here in America. “For god so loved a small part of the middle east and North America that he sent his only begotten son…”

Atheism is a minority belief in every country, not just Uganda.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#North_America (9%)

Thankfully we aren’t prosecuted (or stoned) for atheism in America. But to refer to Uganda as “a country where only a small percentage of people don’t believe in a god” is disingenuous. Every country qualifies as a country where only a small percentage of people don’t believe in a god.

In fact that whole anti-gay stuff has been instigated and supported all the way by American evangelicals. Chief among them Rick Warren.

I don’t know how many of Martin Ssempa’s views come from Warren, but his popularity? Oh yes, very much so. And there was Lou Engle, and “gay nazi” writer Scott Lively, and a host of ex-gay promoters quoting Paul Cameron. Not to mention the Catholic Church.

Of course there is also some witchcraft-related woo, due in part to the exchange of Pentecostal support and ideas with the US. At least Uganda has been spared from Helen Ukpabio (as far as I know).

And religious missions are a mixed bag. I have family who have just returned from mission work in South Africa. They have been part of an abstinence-only approach to HIV that claims (surprise, surprise) claims that condoms increase AIDS risk. They are some of the nicest people who have spread the kind of information that has lead to millions of deaths.

Richard,

Of course it is people who do the work and spend the money to help those in Uganda. We are the hands and feet of Christ. But those people are motivated by their faith and are called there by God. You can’t call their motivations bullshit because you don’t know them and simply because you don’t believe in God.

If you talk to those that go and do missionary work in Uganda they will tell you that it is God that makes it possible, that provides the resources and the motivation.

Axegirl,

Why is that those who are supportive of Gay rights discount all the good works Christians do? So when a Christian mission group goes and builds a home and provides food for a widow suffering from Aids with eight kids and whose husband committed suicide, that is negated because a couple of other Christians went out and preached against homosexuality.

So when a group of Christians from Houston spend several hundred thousand dollars of their own money to build an orphanage, school and clinic to house 130 orphans, that is negated because some other Christians preach about the sanctity of the heterosexual marriage?

So when three Catholic nuns start and run the only orphanage in the Eastern part of Uganda that can house children with Aids under the age of five, that is negated because the Catholic church has a position against homosexuality? (I’m not defending the Catholic church or its problem with pedophile priests )

So when Christian medical doctors at their own expense fly to Uganda and set up make shift hospitals, perform surgeries, see patients, pass out medicine, give away mosquito nets and fix contaminated wells, that is negated because some Christians are vocal about their opposition to homosexuality?

No I don’t see how that is rational or even justified. What I do see is the attempt by those who support Gay rights to frame the issue of Christianity as being all good or all bad based upon its position on homosexuality. That is simply wrong.

If the gay community wants to go out and build orphanages God love them. There are millions of orphans in Uganda that need taken care of.

As for the article, I do support the idea that marriage is between a man and a woman at least in the eyes of the church. I’m not taking a position on what the state should do. But I would never support preaching hate, nor would I support the bill that is pending in Uganda. I can see however, based upon what I know about the country and its culture why this backlash is happening.

Why is that those who are supportive of Gay rights discount all the good works Christians do?

Why is it that people who are complaining about generalizations about Christians, often make equally sweeping generalizations about supporters of gay rights? Why is it that we are expected to believe that Christians who do bad things are just a few bad eggs, but that Christians who do good things do so because God made them do so? I think saying that Christian charities do good things merely because they are Christian smells like post hoc ergo propter hoc. Can you tell how many of those people would be willing to do similar things if they weren’t Christian? Would some people be even more willing to help if they weren’t Christian and didn’t have that thought in the back of their minds, that God will just sort everything out one day? I don’t think there’s a ready way to find out.

But of course, there are atheist doctors flying to other countries too, and atheists engaging in disaster relief (and agnostics and apatheists and members of other religions and deist/pantheists…). What I believe most people here think is that you can lose the dangerous or bigoted Christian beliefs without sacrificing the charity (which churches hardly have a monopoly on).

And after all, we simply think that Christianity is not true. If it’s not true, surely we should try to find a way to get along without it? Bigotry is not really the reason most of us are atheists, but it does provide strong motivation to consider fundamentalism a bad source of morality, even dangerous. It’s not “You’re wrong because you’re hurting people.” It’s “You’re wrong, and we can’t turn a blind eye to that if you’re hurting people.”

By the way, why is it that when you mention homophobia, so many apologists try to change the subject? I hate to generalize, but it’s almost always the exact same deflections. “We don’t hate gays and we’re such nice people overall. Look at all the other good things we do.” This faux empathy rarely leads to significant action on the subject. It’s little consolation to be told “I don’t hate you” from someone who seems to be giving a CYA speech, doesn’t show any sign of taking the issue seriously (in fact, doesn’t show any sign of even acknowledging the magnitude of the problem), and appears much more comfortable around homophobes than gay people.

I mean, being openly gay is a death sentence in many parts of the world, and it seems to be that way in Uganda now too (whether or not the bill passes; people are being lynched of course). Doesn’t that deserve a bit more than “Oh, but look at this other thing I’d rather talk about”? Wouldn’t it be nice if prominent voices of Christianity such as Rick Warren, instead of having to be badgered into denouncing anti-gay violence as a CYA move, actually started, on their own initiative, to try to pull some strings to fight the “kill the gays” bill and other such nonsense?

I don’t hold out much hope for that. Usually, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” really means “Hate the sin, turn a blind eye to anything bad that happens to the sinners because I don’t want to support them.”

Of course, those people who don’t think that homosexuality is a sin are somewhat better about this (I think they are even less intellectually honest, but at least they are less dangerous and more sympathetic). But the people who seem so loudly proud of Christianity rarely fall into that category.

So when three Catholic nuns start and run the only orphanage in the Eastern part of Uganda that can house children with Aids under the age of five, that is negated because the Catholic church has a position against homosexuality?

Maybe not, but given that far fewer people would have AIDS in the first place if the Vatican and other Christian organizations did not oppose condom use and openly spread lies about condoms’ efficacy, I’m hardly going to give the Catholic Church as a whole a pat on the back over it.

If I held up some nice Muslims as examples, would they make you feel any better about the way Muslim theocracy treats women? Would a Scientologist-created orphanage make you feel all warm and fuzzy about that cult?

Robert —

In essence what the gay community is asking Christians to do is accept this sin and make it okay because they want it that way.

In essence, what the Christian community is asking gays to do is accept that what they do is a sin, and what makes it not okay is that Christians want it that way.

Or otherwise put, Christians expect gays (and all the people who support them) to *facepalm* and say, “Oh, DARN! It’s a SIN! Yeah, of course you’re right! We’ll stop!” Even if said gays and supporters are not Christians themselves.

We will certainly call people, Christian or not, dangerous if they insist on the state enacting or enforcing laws against homosexuals and their supporters or encourage violence against them. This is what is happening in Uganda.

Note people are as free to consider homosexuals as greater sinners than themselves (even if they don’t advocate violence) as we are free to consider them bigots for doing so. They are also free to consider us bigots for considering them bigots. Freedom of speech allows this. BTW as a conservative Christian you might find the recent Internet Monk article of interest (the writer is an evangelical Christian not liberal).

BTW Uganda has several schools run by humanists.

Robert —

Actually, I don’t particularly mind if churches do or don’t permit gays to get married there. As a denomination or as an individual congregation, a church can decide what it will permit within its own organization. (America was settled by European religious dissenters, after all.) If you want to say that gay people or Asian people or blue-eyed people or blue-eyed Asian gays can’t get married in your church, that’s okay with me.

Where I have a very big problem is when a religious organization decides that it wants to export parts of its belief system into the secular society. In the U.S., marriage is at its core a *legal* commitment, not a religious one, all those fancy church weddings notwithstanding. If your church decides that you won’t allow gays to get married there, fine, but don’t then interfere with the right of persons *outside your church* to get legally married.

But the point of many of the comments is that in Uganda, people have been and are being killed because of their homosexuality. Is that OK, because they’re sinners anyway?

Killing gays, as the law proposes to do in Uganda, should be considered unChristian. American evangelists with connections to Ugandan evangelists should be at the forefront of condemning this law and making sure that it is never enacted.

Yes, I agree with Robert W. that Christians have done a lot of good in the third world, but they can do more by using their considerable influence positively to make sure that human rights are respected — including those of homosexuals.

Why did Ugandan politicians feel that they could get away with such a stupid law anyways?

actually one of those few ugandan who do not believe in the so-called  God…the situation here in education institutions(such as the universty I’m in) is worse…prayer is everywhere people have to pray even before tutorial session!!
BUT ONE VERY INTERESTING BIT IS THAT MANY PEOPLE HAVE NEVE
R HEARD OF THE PROSPECT THAT NON BELIEVERS DO EXIST!