This should be a really long post because I have a lot to say, but I think it will be a really short one because I'm tired. Maybe I'll decide to write more in-depth on bits later, but I wanted to get this basic gist out.
People ask me, and I'm sure others wonder and don't ask, why I spend so much time and energy talking about, reading about, joking about, making fun of, mocking, and thinking about a God I don't believe exists.
I know many people think it's proof that I really do believe, and am just, I don't know, fighting it or something. Some probably figure I'm just trying to make others mad. Or that the devil is doing this through me to drag others down. (Yeah, I'm aware some of you think I somehow forcibly converted my husband.)
Look, "Why do you talk about God so much?" is a question most atheists get a lot of. The following is my answer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I talk about religion, and by extension, God, because religious beliefs, ones that aren't even mine, are a large part of my existence.
In fact, Christianity in particular affects me more today than it ever did when I believed, in an a more invasive way. (I am not going to do a long address to the question of why I 'only pick on' Christianity; just for now understand it's the one that affects me most of the time.)
Christianity worms its way into everything. Everything.
-Public schools.
-The pledge of allegiance, which is creepy enough without throwing a forced reference to one religion's deity in. (PS- you probably know, because you're smart, that there wasn't any God in the original pledge. Right?)
-Money. Do you know how ridiculous that is? I swear, someone should make one of those stamps, one that gives a veryshortform version of Jesus tossing the banking tables in the temple, and start stamping it on dollars. Seriously, you think that guy wants represented on your cash?
-Government. We have a national day of prayer. Our elected officials go out and hold prayer meetings, on the taxpayer dime. That means that the Jewish people in your town, the atheist people in your town, the Muslim people in your town- they're all FUNDING your religious ceremony. So not cool.
-Morality. Religion gets to hijack morality. People get to say that I can't be moral if I don't follow their God. "Well, where do you get your morals from, then?" People decide whether someone is moral based on his beliefs. Is he okay to date your daughter? "Well, he goes to church, he's a good Christian boy, he's fine."
-Sexuality. You think you get to tell me who I should be attracted to, who I should have sex with, how often, when, and why, based on your favorite book?
And there's more, but that's about all I have time to list tonight.
But let me give you an analogy, okay? Let's say that you don't believe in unicorns, but everyone else around you talks about unicorns basically nonstop. Let's say that your kids hear about unicorns at school, and get mocked or condemned for not believing in them. Let's say that when we have a presidential race, you hear people debating about what kind of unicorn the candidates have. People ask you about your pet unicorn. When you say you don't have a pet unicorn, your pregnancy care provider, of all the effing people, tries to sell you hers. You say you don't believe in unicorns, and she scolds you, and insists you come see her unicorn.
At some point, you start feeling kinda like you're being punked. How can so many people be so damned hung up on unicorns? I'm looking around, folks, I don't see any unicorns! So, you smile and try to just be nice about the unicorns. (Maybe you wonder if you're going crazy, until, thankfully, you meet some other aunicornists out in the world and learn you're not alone after all.)
But more and more, you find that other people's belief in unicorns is affecting your life.
Well, I kinda feel like you'd talk about unicorns, and probably kind of a lot.
The other motivation I see - not from you, necessarily, but in general - is that if you've been told about something all your life, this whole complex of interlocking ideas and beliefs that gets applied to everything, and you come to believe that it simply isn't true, well... You're not just going to go, "Huh. Guess I was wrong about that," and move on to something else. You're not going to leave a worldview behind without poking at it, exploring it, looking it over from your new perspective. And, since people are social animals, a lot of that exploration and consideration is going to be done in conversation with other people.
ReplyDeleteAs a general thing, the more important that world-view was to you, the more you relied on it, the more it was was part of how you defined yourself... well, the harder it is to just let it go. If you were really involved with a person, and you break up with them (or vice versa), you don't just walk away without a second thought; if you were really involved in a belief system, you don't just let it go overnight, either.
This is one of the reasons that I think the language of "choosing" to believe is inaccurate and misleading. It's not that atheists (or anyone else) lack volition, it's that what someone believes is the result of a much more complex process than just a simple decision.