Is Mike Stahl really a pastor of a place called "The Living Water Church" in Miramar, Florida, or is he a parody of a deranged Christian? It's hard to tell these days -- there doesn't seem to be anything too extreme or bizarre for some Christians to adopt, making genuine parodies difficult to create. So the question becomes: why would any Christian seriously think it appropriate or moral to create a "national registry" for atheists?
Mike Stahl writes (via: Pharyngula):
Brothers and Sisters , I have been seriously considering forming a ( Christian ) grassroots type of organization to be named "The Christian National Registry of Atheists" or something similar . I mean , think about it . There are already National Registrys for convicted sex offenders , ex-convicts , terrorist cells , hate groups like the KKK , skinheads , radical Islamists , etc..
This type of "National Registry" would merely be for information purposes . To inform the public of KNOWN ( i.e., self-admitted) atheists . For example , let's say you live in Colorado Springs , Colorado , you could simply scroll down ( from the I-Net site /Blog ) I would have , to the State of Colorado , and then when you see "Colorado Springs" , you will see the names of all the self-admitted atheist(s) who live there ( e.g., if an atheist's name happened to be "Phil Small" ) . The individual's physical address , and other known personal information would NOT be disclosed ( though , perhaps a photo could be ) .
Now , many (especially the atheists ) , may ask "Why do this , what's the purpose ?" Duhhh , Mr. Atheist , for the same purpose many States put the names and photos of convicted sex offenders and other ex-felons on the I-Net - to INFORM the public ! I mean , in the City of Miramar , Florida , where I live , the population is approx. 109,000 . My family and I would sure like to know how many of those 109,000 are ADMITTED atheists !
Perhaps we may actually know some . In which case we could begin to witness to them and warn them of the dangers of atheism . Or perhaps they are radical atheists , whose hearts are as hard as Pharaoh's , in that case , if they are business owners , we would encourage all our Christian friends , as well as the various churches and their congregations NOT to patronize them as we would only be "feeding" Satan .
Frankly , I don't see why anyone would oppose this idea - including the atheists themselves ( unless of course , they're actually ashamed of their atheist religion , and would prefer to stay in the 'closet.' ) .
So let me get this straight... Mike Stahl thinks that a national registry for atheists might be a good idea because atheists are somehow comparable to sex offenders who are on registries... but atheists' personal information and addresses won't be published, as they are with sex offenders? That's incoherent. If you're going to use sex offenders as an example and model, then of course personal information and addresses would have to be included.
So why would Mike Stahl go out of his way to assure people that personal information and addresses would not be included? I mean, let's ignore for the moment the contradiction in not doing it -- why wouldn't he want that information included?
It seems to me that the only reason to say this, whether it's meant sincerely or not, is due to a recognition that such information would lead to harassment and possibly violence. But of course, that's a problem with having the list at all -- including information like addresses merely exacerbates that.
So if Mike Stahl recognizes including personal information and addresses on a national list of atheists would lead to problems, then he recognizes that any sort of list at all would lead to the same problems. Yet he still seems to think that the list would be a good idea. This leads to the conclusion that he at least doesn't object to the harassment and violence which atheists would endure and possibly that he supports it.
In that case, his assurance that no personal information would be included is not sincere. This conclusion is reinforced by his statement that he'd organize boycotts and protests -- after all, such activities would not keep personal information and addresses private, would they?
Mike Stahl considers atheism a religion. He knows that atheists are a minority. So, from his perspective, atheists are a religious minority. When was the last time a Christian majority forced a religious minority to register for a national database of their identities and location? Hmmmm.....
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