After all, how can you struggle with something that was never really there? When you discover that the shadowy figure that has been intimidating you all these years is actually just a pile of paper bags, would you describe that moment as a struggle? I looked God in the eye and saw he was just a harmless puppy, and decided to no longer pay him any more mind: which worked for a while.
I’m a pretty upfront guy. If someone asks me a question, I’m going to honestly answer it to best of my ability, because that’s what we do in a society, we help each other and communicate. And because religion is such a huge part of most people’s lives, the topic of what you believe is going to come up. And when religious people find out you’re an atheist, they can’t seem to stop asking you questions.
Which is why I’m here, writing this blog post: because people keep bothering me about it and then getting increasingly upset at my answers, and this frustrates the Hell, Michigan out of me. Why does this keep happening? Because of the stereotype of the person who has ‘lost’ their faith. Because when the faithful find out about me, they are surprised that I am not the person they imagined, who sits alone at night, weeping and blubbering about ‘why couldn’t I just have been more faithful?’ That person does not exist outside of Sunday School indoctrination sessions. ‘Wait,’ you persons of faith out there may say, ‘That can’t possibly be true. I’ve heard first hand accounts of such things.’ I dare all of you to challenge that hand. Ask for specific details about this mysterious person, ask to meet them. Suddenly the hand will no doubt admit that it is not the first, but rather the second, or third hand, and that to arrange this would be terribly inexpedient and socially unacceptable. Go ahead, try it and come back, so that we’re all on the same page here.
So, a person of faith has just found out that you are a dirty heathen (side note: in the interest of correctness please encourage your religious friends to use this term in lieu of infidel or pagan, as we are not fooling around with some other god and we certainly aren’t polytheists) and you’ve just turned their world upside down by not being a sad sack of shit wallowing in some basement eating rat turds. First question: why did you abandon the faith you were raised in? There is absolutely no answer you can give that will satisfy them, and don’t bother stealing my paper bag analogy, because I know for a fact that doesn’t work. The reason for this is because this question is a trap in the sand. They don’t actually want to hear your view, they want to help you get back on the right path. They want you to raise some niggling concern, so they can say, ‘Pray about it,’ or ‘Just have faith.’ Even with all the bending over backwards they do to accommodate flawed logic, they can't see that neither of these is an adequate response to ‘Besides being incredibly unlikely, the concept of god is not the least bit useful to me.’
Religion is a train that travels all day in a tiny little circle. You can get on at whatever point appeals to you most, but once you do, you’ve got to follow the path all the way around again, over and over. And that moment of doubt is a cow that’s wandered onto the tracks. Everything grinds to a halt for several minutes while it gets sorted out. For me, it was the moment I decided that the train was stupid, and I could really do with a nice walk. For those committed to the train, this just annoys the crap out of them. And for most of them, this is where they get devious.
At this point, their honor is on the line, because you’ve just dismissed their entire belief system, which is not something I take pleasure in, it’s just the truth. And if you’re like me you’ve got some pretty strong statements to support your position, so they’ve taken a defensive position. This is where you will hear all the same pathetic arguments over and over, time and time again. ‘So you don’t believe in an afterlife? Isn’t that sad? What’s the point of being good if there’s no god? Isn’t it better to be wrong than spend an eternity in hell? You know, Hitler and Stalin were atheists. Every culture on Earth has some sort of religion, don’t you think there’s something to that?’
When those shriveled old chestnuts fail to impress you, they break out the testimonials. Talking about how they believe because they’ve felt Jesus or some such thing. At this point both of you are just going through the motions. I don’t even know why they do this, some sort of sense of duty or something, maybe? It’s not particularly convincing. If I don’t like asparagus, you could have thirty people come in and gush for hours about how asparagus is the best thing since sexual intercourse, and afterward I wouldn’t be any less convinced. You’re just wasting my time.
Finally, we come to the end. ‘Well, it works for me.’ Finally a sentiment I can get behind. Except that in this case, it’s full of shit. If you actually believed that was a valid statement, we wouldn’t have had the last two thirds of this conversation. This is a point I always make clear pretty early on, that I don’t give a shit what you believe. Sure, I think it’s great when people become atheists, and I’m a bit more likely to take your opinions seriously if you are; but as long as you’re not a twattering gasbag, I don’t care.
So from now on, I think I am going to carry around business cards with the permalink URL for this post written on the back, so that this has to be the last time I have this conversation. I really am that sick of it.
And for all those who are just skimming this article, a quick recap of my key points in answer to the question of my ‘loss’ of faith:
- I don’t believe in any god because there is need in this universe for a god.
- I have already seen, and rejected as weak every logical argument for the existence of god there is out there; and even if you think you’ve got a new one, it has been said before.
- Your own faith is not going to persuade me.
- You are free to believe what you like, so long as you afford me the same privilege. I will not think any less of you as long as you also respect me.
