Musings of a puzzled atheist
I was born an atheist. In the Soviet Union, religion was not outlawed, but it was greatly frowned upon, so most people didn’t bother, unless they had very passionate feelings about it. My family didn’t, beyond my grandmother’s histrionic appeals to God to witness the outrage of me, age six, refusing to finish my soup. When we immigrated to the United States in 1980, I looked into getting some religion but nothing struck my fancy, mainly because I couldn’t grasp the concept of making a leap of faith across the gaping abyss of logic. Still can’t. My atheism is what it is. I don’t feel what Salman Rushdie called “a religion-shaped hole” in my modern life.
That’s why American atheist activists freak me out. The belligerence of the atheist groups that make it into the news seems to me disturbingly immature. Stories like the recent one about atheists in Olympia, Washington, erecting an antireligious sign next to the Nativity scene and complaining when their vandalism got counter-vandalised leave me stunned. Among other reasonable and logical things, the sign said: “Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.” I actually agree with the part about enslaving minds — not so sure about hardening hearts; maybe in some cases, not across the board — but erecting it next to a Nativity scene is just . . . rude. Was it meant as a disclaimer, which the Nativity scene was, in the opinion of the Olympia atheists, sorely lacking? A necessary balance, like a warning on a pack of smokes? Is a sign like this going to change anybody’s mind about religion? Is anybody who believes in God really stupid, while anybody who doesn’t is really smart? How about C. S. Lewis? He was no dummy.
Apparently, it wasn’t about educating the mind-enslaved throngs of dullards but about being heard. Things get a lot more interesting when one considers that Dan Barker, a co-founder of the group, who made a number of statements about the importance of seeing atheists’ viewpoints validated along with everybody else’s, is a former evangelical preacher. This is how Barker interpreted the Nativity display: “If there can be a Nativity scene saying that we are all going to hell if we don’t bow down to Jesus . . . we kind of feel that the Christian message is the hate message. On that Nativity scene, there is this threat of internal violence if we don’t submit to that master.”
Seriously? I wonder what happened to that evangelical preacher to make him lose his religion and start an atheistic crusade. When I look at a Nativity scene, I usually think of hope and rebirth that come with every New Year, as they always have with Winter Solstice, when after the darkest, coldest, shortest days of winter the day starts getting just a little longer, promising that things will look up again. If Christianity symbolizes it literally in a birth of a baby, so be it. There’s nothing in the Nativity scene that suggests the Crusades, forcible conversions of pagans, and the Great Inquisition to come in the name of that baby. That came later and had nothing to do with the hopes people originally pinned on him. Other winter holidays’ symbols don’t tap into the old, pagan celebrations of rebirth as well as an actual birth does, which may be why they are less prevalent this time of year.
Why is militant atheists’ need to have their nothing-new arguments heard so strong that they would huff and puff carrying a 50-pound sign just to stick it to all those people who enjoy the Nativity scene as part of the season? Are they still rebelling against their parents who forced them to go to church while failing to practice Jesus’ teachings at home? Against hypocritical priests and preachers? Are they torn between the need to feel hip and intelligent and the need to fill that religion-shaped hole with antireligious zealotry? Do they believe, against all reason and evidence, that intolerance is best fought with intolerance and disrespect with disrespect (then, against all logic, feel outraged when their disrespect is countered with — gasp! — cleanup of their vandalism)? Sure, some religious people are extremely nasty about any views other than their own. There are also a lot of believers who try their best to practice virtue and find comfort in religion.
Is it really necessary to dump on their comfort?
Is it really necessary to dehumanize them by summarily denouncing them all as mind-slaves?
Is it really necessary to exercise publicly what should be exorcised privately, in a therapist’s office, during the very days when we all look forward to a new year, hoping that things will brighten up?
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As a godless heathen myself, I can almost empathize with these wack jobs.
Almost.
There is something inherently creepy and untrustworthy about someone who bases his or her life on the teachings of an invisible friend, and the holiday season just brings home the secular power wielded by these cults.
If you are like those in your article, someone with low self-esteem, who feels threatened and is seeking attention, the holiday season is tailor made for your outbursts!
While it sounds like fun, just to see people get upset, I have to admit that I cannot be bothered. I am way too lazy and too self-centered to waste my time with displays like that when I can sit at home, sipping egg-nogg by the fire, and sneer in comfort.
I honestly think some people just have nothing better to do with their time.