John Cedars has posted his latest blog "The Trouble with Apostates (and why it shouldn't put you off becoming one)"
I was put off by some of the comments that he has made on his blog. I acknowledge that he is entitled to his opionin just as we are ours but I am disappointed in some of his comments.
At this stage I'll try to be objective about it. He is defending his own position after all.
What bothers me most is his comments about athiests and christians which he seems to identify as being in conflict with each other. These are some of his observations
He identifies a second spectrum of Activists - the Evangelical Activist and the Athiest Activist.
He states this is his attitude in regards to religionists
I understand that some people need religion in their lives, and though I find it both obsolete and in most cases repulsive,
Neither of these statements are true. Religion is not obsolete, it is very much a part of our culture and structure today, it affects nearly all of us in one way or another. As to whether religion is in most cases, repulisive, is a bold claim and one that has caused much division and serious difficulties within society, both in the past and continues today. Rather than viewing it as repulsive, aren't many of us trying to encourage a confined level of tolerance?
JWsurvey has, and always will have, a “religious neutrality” policy displayed in our comments section...though I try to be as respectful and accommodating as possible towards believers, there is an evangelical Christian faction within the ex-JW movement, and it does not play by the same rules. While some Christians jumped to my defense over last year’s aggressive activism debacle, rightly acknowledging that harassing cult victims is anything but loving and Christlike, they were worryingly few in number. Aggressive activism and evangelical Christianity, it seems, usually go hand in hand.
He is making an assumption that evangelical Christians are generally aggressive activists. This is extremely offensive and I believe baseless. Why has he jumped to this conclusion? Simply because he seems to have few friends that are evangelical Christians. He seems to not even consider that not all ex JWs want to be friends with him, christian or otherwise.
as of this moment I can probably count on one hand the number of friends I have who are both Christian and genuinely respectful of my lack of belief
There appears to be no such conflict on this forum. If anything, there is less tolerence for anyone who chooses to 'push' their views on others, whether they be atheists or christians.
The strange thing about this is that many discussions take place here where we don't know if the poster is Christian or Atheist. A lot of the time it is not important in our goal to help and support others who are victims of the JW cult. This suggests that Cedars is either going around and asking people what their position is or they are all volunteering that information to him, but surely in being Activists, is that important? He seems to think so and he believes it is a basis for causing a division.
for some time now the evangelical Christian faction has adopted a troubling new approach: stamping out the fledgling ex-JW atheist faction wherever it manifests itself.
This is truelly alarming if this is true but I haven't seen evidence of it and I do fear that Cedars has infected his own mind with these thoughts. If he sees a problem personally, then I think he is looking in the wrong area. But it is an offensive statement. Unfortunately, he uses this idea to explain away attacks that are made on him, calling them 'acts of war', underhanded', 'barely tolerable of unbelievers' and so on. Then it gets worse
The Christian evangelical faction has, to my knowledge, always been mostly populated by demonstrably-eccentric conspiracy theorists, obsessed with freemasonry, subliminal images and the illuminati, who are almost a parody of themselves.
To him, there is a serious problem that apparently exists but all this name calling and labelling is not normally a part of Cedars more journalistic type reports. It is far from balanced.
the elephant in the room. Whether I like it or not, a bitter war between the evangelical and atheist factions in the ex-JW community is raging – and it has just escalated.How can a problem escalate when it doesn't exist, to the proportions claimed, in the first place? If anything, it would be isolated to the people that he knows and has had personal dealings with.
He has chosen to deal with it by the following means
I wanted to let my readers and YouTube subscribers know that, from now on, I will be more open than ever about my atheism, and my channel will feature more videos specifically on that subject
I don't understand why he would do this on his YouTube Chanel but not his blog but that's his choice and he must see some benefit in it.
Well done Cedars, adding fuel to the fire and encouraging this hate is not good. It only proves that being an Evangelical Activist rather than the Atheist Activist has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
How many more leads are we likely to see from Cedars in the future, will those who have previously leaked information to him still have the same measure of confidence in him?