Ignore the Bamyan Atheists

I was a skeptic at 5, an agnostic at 13 and a full-fledged atheist at 18. Being a Libertarian, I never went through the “Bamyan” stage of atheism that seems to be the current rage and a highlight, maybe lowlight, of the Obama years.

For those of you with short memories of such things the Bamyan refers to the Buddhas of Bamyan which were two 6th century monumental statues of standing Buddhas carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan Valley in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan. Built in 507 the statues represented the classic blended style of Gandhara art. ¹

Gandhara art is the distinctive Gandhara style of Buddhist art, which developed out of a merger of Greek, Syrian, Persian, and other Indian artistic influence. This development began during the Parthian period (50 BC – AD 75). Ghandaran style flourished and achieved its peak during the Kushan period, from the 1st to the 5th century. ²

In 2001 the Taliban earned world-wide condemnation for their ignorant and intolerant approach to these works of art.

They were intentionally dynamited and destroyed by the Taliban, on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, after the Taliban government declared that they were “idols” (which are forbidden under Sharia law.) International opinion strongly condemned the destruction of the Buddhas, which was viewed as an example of the intolerance of the Taliban and of Islamism. ³

Today, in the United States, we are experiencing another type of intolerance and ignorance manifesting itself in the form of some atheists, agnostics, non-believers and others of their ilk, many of whom also, ironically, condemned the actions of the Taliban at the time, who insist that all Christian art and reference must be removed from public view especially when they are located on United States property and buildings.

Such actions betray them for the ignorant, small-minded and mean-spirited people that they are.
They will henceforth be known as the Bamyan Atheists.

The United States of America is the result of the intellectual and physical efforts of a Christian-Judeo society that saw individual freedoms as the key to a better life for all. That these early citizens wanted to express their ideas using mostly Christian themes is representative of their culture at the time.

As a freedom loving atheist I see absolutely no harm in these themes and actually find them to be a wonderful part of our early culture, filled with idealism, optimism, and ethics. I like to see “In God We Trust” on our money and inscribed on our buildings, I like to see the Ten Commandments chiseled into government buildings across our great nation.

I enjoy the nativity scenes at the county courthouse and I love singing Christmas carols at Christmastime. Christmas, not Winter Solstice you Bamyans!

These are part of our early history and culture and are not to be disparaged by little minds that somehow think they are intellectually above such things. They are actually intellectually challenged for being unable to see the beauty of our country’s cultural history.

To all of the Bamyan Atheists I urge you to drop this childish pettiness and get to work on the real issues, the loss of personal freedoms and the rampant growth of bureaucracy, that face our country. To waste your time, and ours, with fighting a monument set in the California Mojave desert as a memorial to those who gave their lives for our country in a past war is incomprehensible. A better cause would be to volunteer your time and money to advocating more personal freedoms and less government.





¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamyan

² http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandhara

³ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamyan


© 2010 by Bruce J. Cameron