To be serious for a moment, I think there are several reasons why people are currently more openly questioning and mocking of religious orthodoxy than they were even a few years ago.
Religion has often been used by the ruling classes in many societies as a means of control and oppression.
In the Western world, this has slowly been changing since the Enlightenment, but even if the formal link between religion and state has been abandoned many years ago in favour of a notional secularism, it is only now that the majority, the non-religious, feel able to openly treat religious belief/opinion the same as they would any other aspect of non-rational speculative thought.
Basically, people will mock the religious because they now can, without fear of oppression, ostracism or death. It’s human nature to question, and within that spectrum of questioning behaviour will be mockery and abuse – it’s what we do as a species.
Secondly, as Western orthodox Christian theology looses its grip on the majority of the European population, it throws our own increasing secularism into ever sharper contrast to those societies where religious belief still holds sway: We can see where we’ve come from and the majority of us have no wish to go back there.
As someone who was brought up in a Catholic household (albeit with a strongly atheist father, whose beliefs I shared from childhood) and who attended Catholic educational establishments until the age of 18, the questioning (and yes, occasional mockery) of religious belief is more in the way of a release than an attack. I’m sorry if mockery offends, but it’s part of life in a secular society that promotes religious and (non-religious) tolerance.
nuff said!
