More Gnu Atheist bullshit windstreaming Black Lives Matter for evangelism

Gnu-friendly Hemant  Mehta has the details, starting with his introduction.

If you’re driving through Atlanta this week, be on the lookout for two digital billboards from the group Black Nonbelievers urging other Black people to “liberate” themselves from Christianity, a faith the group says is responsible for “aiding and abetting White supremacy.”

He then quotes:

“Christianity was definitely a useful tool for enslavers,” says Black Nonbelievers Founder and President, Mandisa Thomas. “It conditioned us to accept harsh treatment and oppression and even gave us a way to view that acceptance as godly behavior. We were trained to ‘serve our earthly masters’ as a proxy of how earnestly we would serve our ‘heavenly master’ — all while we waited for justice and our reward in the next life.” …

“One major concern to many of us is how much the Black community still tightly holds on to Christianity in particular,” says Thomas. “While the general nonreligious demographic is on the rise in the U.S., the numbers in our communities are significantly lower in comparison. And as anti-racism work becomes a focal point, it is clear that something as foundational as faith could be predisposing us to more oppression, and for longer periods of time.

You can read more from there.

This is about as close to the truth as the 1619 Project, which gets the big picture half right, no more.

So, as I told Hemant, with some expansion here.

Sounds like Gnu Atheist type bullshit.

First, atheism is no guarantor of moral or intellectual superiority. First said on this site at least eight years ago. This is something I've long said to Gnu Athests.

Second, there are racist atheists. Jesus Mythicist Robert Price is some sort of racist. He belongs, or belonged, to some sort of white rights group on Facebook, and even outside of it, called regularly for Obama to be impeached. That call may have been just based on politics. Or it may have been based in part on racism.

In the past, notable atheist David Hume was a racist. And, yes, going Godwin's Law and you fill in the blank and no, he wasn't Catholic. Or neopagan. Nor, for that matter, was Uncle Joe, arguably also a racist, at least on antisemitism, and also an atheist. And, yes, I've heard Gnus make those claims time after time that Hitler and Stalin weren't atheist, and was refuting them nearly a decade ago. (Funny how they don't even try to touch Mao.)

Third, although they themselves were exploited by emerging European capitalism, the African tribespeople who enslaved other Africans for sale were either indigenously religious or Muslim. That doesn't say they were racist, just that the African slave trade wasn't all Christian.

Fourth, it ignores other Christians' role in abolition.

Fifth, it ignores that, speaking of Islam and of indigenous African religion, to the degree their African members were just capturing and selling slaves for money, and there were no racism issues, they could make the same argument as the Gnu Atheists are. In fact, that IS part of Farrakhan's argument, and that of the Nation of Islam.

Finally, this is yet another reason I prefer the term "secular humanist."It doesn't label me on what I don't believe in. Plus, I argue that it's LESS open to misinterpretation than "atheist."

First, people like Price claim to be "Christian atheists." Basically, they mean the same thing as Rome meant when it called Christians "atheist." Price et al reject the god of Christianity, but not necessarily all. I halfway think that Price believes Lovecraft's Cthulhu is a real being, for example.

Second, as I have said many a time, about as often as I have said about Gnus in the "no guarantor" comment above? There's millions of very atheistic — and very religious — Theravada Buddhists running around the world.

Third? Unlike many Gnus, I'm not here to evangelize anybody.

Finally, while I'm here? Hemant knows better than to uncritically post this BS.