Faith of the Faithless

Years ago I was in a discussion with a person of strong religious beliefs, and mentioned that I was an Atheist. She looked at me with an expression of disbelief and disgust, and said (nearly shouted) "You say that as if you were proud of it!"

"I am."

And just what, you might well ask, is my point? Well, I’m getting to that.

Today something was posted to a mailing list I’m on, something that I found offensive. Now, if you’ve been reading this list you’ll know that I have wrestled with this particular demon in the past (read this if you don’t remember) and I am genuinely trying not to be so thin skinned. This guy, however, just happened to push the button connected to the raw nerve in my pet peeve. (Shall I throw another metaphor into the mix? No? Ok, then...)

Here’s what happened.

A person of strong conservative feelings posted a long quote from pundit Dr. Jack Wheeler, posted on many web sites (here’s the original article on Wheeler’s own site) and to blogs and mailing lists everywhere (just do a Google search on "Jack Wheeler" and see for yourself). Now, I don’t think much of Jack Wheeler or anything he says; according to him, not only should Obama be drug tested (see for yourself) but McCain is "clinically nuts" (yes, he said that too) and cooperated with the Viet Cong in exchange for a Hanoi apartment and a couple of hookers. If anyone is "clinically nuts" it seems to me that it’s Wheeler. But this particular quote from Wheeler contained the following:

"Thank heavens that the voting majority of Americans remain Christian and are in no desperate need of a phony savior."

My response: "As an atheist I find this statement extremely offensive. Religiously offensive. Shame on Jack Wheeler...and shame on you for quoting him."

I later expanded on this:

"Why did this bother me? Well, suppose that this wasn’t a question of religion but one of race; suppose that he had made the same statement but with equally offensive terms, and the quote had read:

"’Thank heavens that the voting majority of Americans remain white and are in no desperate need of a phony Martin Luther King.’

"Do you get it now?"

I honestly don’t think he did get it, but I’ll never really know, since this showed every sign if degenerating into yet another pointless political/religious argument through email that no one really wanted clogging up their mailbox, so I just blocked his mail and went away to stew for a while. And write this article.

It got me thinking about Atheism. It got me asking myself why I was so offended. Here’s the answer I came up with: I got offended because no one seems to think I should be.

We live in a very sensitive (some would say over sensitive) society. If someone makes anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, anti-Methodist comments they are ostracized, and rightly so. And while anti-Moslem comments are somewhat tolerated, they shouldn’t be, and there are plenty of people who will stand up for Moslem religious rights as well. In fact, for nearly all religious groups of any size there are also networks of support organizations, youth groups, clubs and teams and meetings and prayer groups by the score.

But Atheists have no advocates; no support network, no churches, no community centers. It is in our nature to be decentralized and disorganized. We’re fair game. You can safely make anti-Atheist comments with no fear from anybody (well, there is Madalyn Murray O’Hare’s organization but even Atheists seldom listen to them).

This isn’t a call for Atheists United; such an organization would be against our natures, as I said. This is a plea for America’s famous religious tolerance (which ain’t been all that tolerant lately) to be extended to those of us who profess no religion; who have no faith in supreme beings or Holy Ghosts or Great Spirits or whatever.

And a plea for you to recognize this: That we are not people who do not believe, not people who have no faith.

It always seemed to me that the appeal of divine beings is that they can never really let you down; if they seem not to come through, you can always say it’s your fault and still believe in their perfect love. There are things that I believe in; people, institutions, the laws of physics, and the U.S. Constitution among them.

(The Constitution is particularly important to me; I hold it in the same regard as many hold the Bible, as a document penned by fallible and imperfect men that somehow manages to transcend its framers, that I can look to often and find new truths in it each time. If I could hold any book holy, it would be the U.S. Constitution. And like the Bible, no two interpretations of the Constitution exactly agree, and some are wildly divergent. But I digress.)

The problem with these "non-divine" objects of faith is that they can let you down; often do, in fact; institutions can fail you, the laws of physics are imperfectly understood, the Constitution gets used as toilet paper by the very people sworn to defend it, and people in general are no damn good. And in spite of all of this, my faith remains unshaken; does that sound much like religious devotion to you?

Anyway, that’s what I believe, and what I believe in. I need to get a bumper sticker that says "Atheist - and proud of it."

The Blues Viking

The opinions here expressed are mine and if you don’t like them you can get your own damn blog.