Obnoxious Bitch
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Embracing My Inner Atheist
Board Whore that I am, I spend quite a bit of time and energy in debate with religious people. Not only does it provide me with entertainment and a chance to write, it makes me think. So between arguing with Christians on Yahoo! and another board, and finding NormalBobSmith.com—where I read the Hate Mail from Christians over Bob’s creation Jesus Dress Up, and Bob’s awesome rebuttals—I’ve been thinking and talking about my own beliefs, as well as others’, quite often.
I’ve always been fascinated by religion, and the effects it has on adherents. The effects it has on our Laws and our rights. In the past I’ve identified myself as affiliated (if always rather loosely) with one or another of a variety of religions; one I was born into, and a few others I tried on for size. I’m even a minister!
But lately I’ve had a no-bullshit conversation with myself, and realized that in spite of reading so many books, going to church or participating in rituals, I’ve never REALLY believed in any of it. I must admit that I find the whole notion of some sort of independent, sentient being/s who give a tinker’s damn about life here on Earth to be utterly and completely impossible for me to accept as in any way true. I simply cannot suspend my disbelief enough to allow it to happen.
Dennis Miller, in his “Raw Feed” special, was talking about televangelists; but he could’ve been describing many “average” Christian Americans. He said something along the lines of, “It’s fun to see if you can tell who was raised a Christian, and who just did so much blow they had to convert before they blew their own heads off!” I almost pissed myself laughing, and thought, How true! So many of the Christian “testimonies” I see/hear include how Jesus “saved” people from their addictions… It’s not fucking salvation, it’s substitution! “I used to be addicted to drugs, but now I’m addicted to Scripture!” Unfortunately, the addiction extends to QUOTING it, and not just READING it, obsessively and obnoxiously.
Y’know, I partied my ever-lovin’ ass off between the ages of 17 and 23, and I did a fair bit of it up until 28 or so. With the exception of emotionally unavailable or otherwise fucked up men, there has been NOTHING that I allowed myself to become enslaved to. And I never even considered a need for Jesus to have the strength to walk away (not even from the men I loved, or thought I did), even as a good number of my loved ones embraced the Faith and begged me to follow.
On the one hand, I do admire strength of faith in believers - and of course I support their rights to believe and practice as they see fit - but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile that admiration with the feeling that I’m in some way enabling what I consider to be a handy political tool for the enslavement of Americans: more religion.
What I believe in is the power of the human mind, and the human will. We need no gods to fix things around this joint, what we need are people… smart, rational people who believe humanity’s worth saving IN THIS LIFE. What anyone does in the next one is their own damned business.
