(And we’re surprised he became a stated enemy of intellectualism…)

In People Magazine recently, Kirk Cameron defended his decision to promote the vandalized version of Origin of the Species (original story here) by saying, “Atheism has been on the rise for years now, and the Bible of the atheists is ‘The Origin of Species.’ (sic) We have a situation in our country where young people are entering college with a belief in God and exiting with that faith being stripped and shredded. What we want to do is have students make an informed, educated decision before they chuck their faith.”

I can tell you, atheists really appreciate when you try to create analogues between them and Christians. Origin of the Species is a science text Christians take issue with, so it has to be the atheist bible, a book we put blind faith in because there is no possible way of proving its validity. Cameron may be the homecoming queen of scumbags, but he’s not an idiot. He knows that the fundamental idea of atheism is non-association; that is, atheists do not latch on to texts and ideas permanently, but rather look for meaningful truths whether or not they end up discrediting another idea they had. So the best way to attack a growing number of non-believers is to assign them a belief system.

Merely applying an -ism to non-belief is a way of classifying atheists in the Christians’ own idiom.  Assigning atheists a “bible” they never claimed brings them down to the believer’s level, because it means we are holding fast to something we cannot prove is true, just as believers do. Non-believers never really wanted to have to organize, because there is nothing to organize behind or for, but evangelicals are trying to force us to be a unified group rather than people who did their homework and have a basic understanding of science. Atheists hold nothing sacred, so how can they have a holy book analagous to the Holy Bible?

This is not to mention that Cameron took a bold step even mentioning the bible. If he can desecrate the “atheist bible” by frontloading it with a chapter by one of his cronies, and then hand it out at places of learning, that pretty much opens the door for atheists to frontload HIS bible with chapters comparing American Christians to Nazis, and handing them out at places of worship. He must know that rational people would not even think of doing that, because most of us don’t have that level of genius, scumbag creativity.

Atheists don’t have a bible or belief system, and calling Origin of the Species the atheist bible is straight insulting, as is the implication that atheists have not moved beyond the one dimensional way of thinking that promotes belief. Check out the language: Asexual reproduction happens without even a thought of sexual congress, so the very vernacular of sex is never applied to them. Noone ever says, “The flagella of this asexual organism is the asexual penis.” Think about it.

Again, it would be really sweet if, when the day comes, everyone on one of the 100 major college campuses in the US could intercept these spoiled copies of Origin, have a good laugh at its expense, and try to keep this from going to far. Like I said in my earlier post, book burning is the greatest evil any one person can advocate, but we can help people to understand the underlying motive behind comparing Darwin to Hitler, and maybe do some guided reading exercises. If Cameron wants to treat participants in higher education like 2nd graders, then we are just going to have to be better 2nd grade teachers.

(Gay little aside: you know you are in love when after 6 years you can have intelligent conversations with your lady friend that end up inspiring writing the next day. Dani helped me coagulate my ideas into something more than angry jabberings, and she deserves most of the credit for this one.)