Recently, I've been listening to and reading about the ongoing debate (if you can even call it that) between the New Atheists (led by personalities like Sam Harris) and radical evangelical christians. These right-wingers--like extreme Republicans and Tea Baggers--are really good at dragging the continuum to their side. And now they've dragged it far enough to make centrists seem like delusional misanthropes. Lately, I keep hearing christians talking about how atheists are persecuting them and how atheists are against religious freedom. It makes me ask the question, "How can an essentially powerless minority persecute the empowered overwhelming majority?"
Someone needs to explain the difference between people not agreeing with you and being persecuted to these grousers. I guess in the lightest sense of persecution, being equal to harassment, a few could claim persecution, like maybe the political candidate who says they don't believe in evolution or don't believe that the earth is more than 6,000 years old and then receives hate mail or is heckled from the crowd at a rally; however, most of the religious right who are crying persecution don't meet even this mild definition of persecution. Most of them are just unhappy because someone spoke out against them or their beliefs or even just has an opposing viewpoint that is getting some public notice (finally). We should set a higher bar for what constitutes persecution.
As a non-believer, my views are challenged in the media every day. Am I persecuted because of this? No. Just annoyed. It's different.
