Said It Better Than I Could
I just read this blog post and it nailed what I have always thought about when dealing with closed minded Christians (ie: all of them) and why I have been so vocal over the past few years. I am exhausted of being silent and putting up with the closed minded, ignorant and self righteous religious types. Even the so called "open minded" religious types that say they are tolerant end up saying things similar to what is stated in the blog post below. Mainly back handed crap that makes me want to pummel them for being purposely ignorant.
The excerpt below is from the blog ATHEIST OASIS by Ray Garton. Click the link below to read the whole post.
You can be a Grinch at Christmas time, or have no interest in baseball, or refuse to vote or salute the flag, or sneer at the mention of Mickey Mouse, or even hate apple pie, animals, children or your own mother, and while people might not agree with or understand you, they probably will shrug it off. “That’s just him,” they’ll say. “That’s just the way he is.” But if you don’t believe in god and/or you think religion is a bad thing, you’d better have a steel helmet, a bullet-proof vest and a bunker to hide in because a lot of people aren’t going to like it. Even the people in your life who claim they don’t care that you don’t believe in god may actually care very much. If they do, you’ll know, because they’ll get in a little dig every now and then, or when telling you they don’t care, they will word their statement in a way that reveals just how much they do care. A friend might say something like this.
“I don’t care what my friends believe. You have your beliefs and I have mine. I believe in god and because you’re an atheist, you have to believe there’s no god.”
This happens a lot. “I believe and you don’t believe” is too easy. It’s too cut and dried. It’s accurate, of course, but for some people, it’s just a little too accurate. Simply stating that I do not believe boards a train of thought that a lot of believers simply do not want to ride or even acknowledge. It means there is a choice. It means there is a viable alternative to believing in god. That opens the possibility that the decision to believe might be wrong. You don’t have to say it’s wrong or even imply that it’s wrong. To a lot of people, simply acknowledging the mere possibility is scary. One might be a thieving, alcoholic, child-beating adulterer, but if one at least believes in god, somehow all of that other stuff is softened. The mere act of believing is, to many, a redeeming quality, a virtue in and of itself. To suggest that belief could be in error is personally threatening. So it must be couched in terms that transform the lack of belief into an alternate belief. Then the atheist is also a believer — he just happens to believe in the wrong thing.
I can’t let that pass. I probably should because life would be a little easier and more comfortable. But I can’t. Letting it pass without comment would be allowing someone else to rewrite my thoughts for me, to characterize me in terms with which they are comfortable, but which are inaccurate. And I simply cannot do that. Well … not anymore. There was a time when I did nothing but that, and by doing it, I made myself feel … less than. I made myself feel that, because I did not fit into the mold approved of by those around me, I was somehow unworthy, somehow inferior, and I had to misrepresent myself in order to be accepted. I buried myself under a mountain of self-loathing doing that. I don’t do it anymore, even if it creates some tension. But that’s just me.
Instead of lying to fit in, or deceiving with silence, I try to explain the difference between “I don’t believe in god” and a statement like “As an atheist, you have to believe there’s no god.” And there is a difference — a rather large one. Roughly the size of a cruise ship. Actually, that’s probably a conservative estimate. The exchange can go something like this:
“No, I don’t have to believe anything. Atheism isn’t a dogmatic belief system. It doesn’t mean I believe something, it means I don’t believe something — specifically, the existence of god. If you’re Muslim, you have to believe in Muhammad, and if you’re Christian, you have to believe in Jesus Christ. Otherwise you’re not Muslim or Christian. Atheism isn’t a belief, it’s the rejection of a belief. And it’s not a club I decided to join one day, it was the eventual result of years of experience and careful contemplation and study.”
After a frustrated sigh: “Why does it matter? I mean, what difference does it make? You believe there’s no god, you don’t believe in god, it’s all the same thing. Why is it such a big deal to you?”
“It’s a big deal because there is a difference. A significant one. One is correct, one isn’t. I don’t believe there’s no god, I simply look at the evidence and, based on that, reject the belief in god.”
“I’m trying to say that I don’t care what you believe. I’m being open-minded and accepting. We all believe in something. You just believe there’s no god, big deal.”
There’s really no easy way out of this and if pursued, it often ends unpleasantly — or with cold silence. But it’s common. Sometimes the people who say they don’t care actually care a great deal — enough to insist on defining your thoughts on their terms while rejecting what you really think because it doesn’t work for them or they find it threatening. It gets tiresome. In fact, I’m exhausted.
It occurred to me recently that it would be nice if I could avoid the conversation altogether by directing the person to a thorough written explanation. He or she could read it and I wouldn’t have to go through the arduous song and dance about the difference between not believing and believing something different. That’s what this is — the thorough explanation.
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