There are two things in the world that piss me off to no end. They are hypocrisy and arrogance.
For all their Internet bitching, fundamentalists and atheists have this in common: they are the biggest exhibitors of these traits.
Arrogance
Fundamentalists and atheists are both arrogant because both claim to understand or know something that no person can ever possibly know. The fundamentalist is sure that their god(s) not only exists, but that everyone who makes some claim to the contrary is absolutely wrong, in every sense of the word. The atheist is sure that not only this particular god(s), but every single other one, or spiritualist understandings of the world, are wrong, in every sense of the word.
What is really happening is that both groups of people are supposing, guessing, inferring, hoping. You can put forward all the logical arguments in the world that prove or disprove the notion of a god, but at the end of the month (when everyone has finally fucking shut up), we’re no closer to that knowledge at all. I accept that some of the arguments put forward by certain individuals and groups are absurd, but that does not make them wrong. Why? Because no one has died and come back to life to tell us what Heaven/Hell/reincarnation/Valhalla is like, or that nothing actually happens when we are placed in the bye-bye box. No one has traipsed every corner of the Universe to look for God, and even if it were possible, maybe s/he’s just awesome at hide and seek.
Humans have a maximum level of cosmic understanding. We don’t know why we exist, or if there is even a reason at all. We don’t know who/what created us, if any-one/thing did at all. For all I know or care, we’re simply the daydream of a super beetle in an alternate universe.
There are only two things we know with certainty. Firstly, that existence is either completely meaningless, or it has purpose. Secondly, that we will never work out which one it is.
So everyone should stop trying. Especially you, /r/atheism
Hypocrisy
On Facebook I am friends with a diverse bunch of people, as I hope we all are. This means I get a bunch of views from a range of perspectives. Some posts make me laugh, some make me sad, some make me think, some make me angry, most I just ignore. Very few make me hate humanity. But these very few tend to come from the two types of people I am addressing in this post.
There are about three people who I can rely on to post in groups like ‘Shit Fundies Say’ on a daily basis, and about the same number of people who reliably post about how awesome prayer group was. Now I have no problem with these things in themselves. If you are an anti-religious atheist, that’s fine. Equally, you’re allowed to go to as many prayer groups as you can shake a stick at. I don’t care. Unless you get boring, in which case I will hide all of your posts. But these posts do start to get to me when I bother to read them. Today, for example, I came across this post on ‘Shit Fundies Say’ (I don’t ‘like’ the group, but I’m Facebook friends with someone who posts on every one of their photos — the group’s premise is to find silly things (apparently) fundamentalist Christians have said, screen capture them, and abuse them for having a religion — and then they appear on my News Feed… which is something I wish Facebook would stop universally):
I’m trying to teach my two-year old whenever he hears “millions of years ago” he should say, “No, that’s a lie.” Howe ever I’m thinking I’ve thoroughly confused him. He was watching a cartoon the other day and it said something like “there are millions of fish in the ocean” and he shouted at the TV, “No., that’s a lie!”
My translation: “I have particular and non-mainstream religious beliefs that feel threatened by a secular society and scientific understanding. I accept my faith blindly, and will raise my children in the same fashion, as that is what I see as being the best way to raise my children.”
Now this person is stupid, but they also have every right to raise their child as they see fit. Contrary to the comments on SFS, she is not damaging her child, just doing what she sees as best for her child. If you don’t agree with it, cool, raise your children with the (correct, as far as I care) understanding that the earth is approximately 6.5 billion years old… But just what the fuck do you think a person who believes that is going to do? Raise their child on Darwin?
But anyway, back to the comments on this post. I’ll quote some, and offer translations beneath them.
“How is it this is not considered child abuse by the authorities and that poor child not taken into custody???????? [sic] Some people should not be allowed to breed.”
“This person should have their children taken away and go to jail for mentally abusing them.”
Why does the government not criminalise the practice of Christianity, and confiscate the children of Christians? Better yet, we should forcibly sterilise anyone who has the audacity to be baptised. The Romans had it right.
“Either [he becomes] the next Dawkins or he goes on a murderous rampage, killing high school science teachers everywhere.”
The only two possible outcomes are that he comes to his senses and accepts atheism, or he becomes a murderer.
“Total indoctrination. Something that should be illegal. A child trusts their parents and the people around them to tell them the truth. Keep your beliefs to yourself and let the child grow up to figure out what they want to believe. Sigh.”
“It is incomprehensible that people willfully choose to be ignorant. Why are their delusions so important to them?”
I have such an inflated sense of self importance that I simply cannot envisage that anybody else does not think in the same manner as me. Why is their system of belief – their very way of life – so important to them?
At this point there are two things. One is that I have yet to demonstrate hypocrisy. I’m getting there. The other is that I feel I must state that I understand that the Internet is a vile cesspool of hyperbole, grandstanding, repercussion-less anonymity, nasty attempts at humour, and so on. I understand that these comments are probably not representative of most atheists; but my problem is that they are emerging from self-identified atheists to begin with. Take one trip to /r/atheism and this is what you tend to find in about 50% of the posts. I find it disturbing, to say the least. But I also find it hypocritical.
Atheists seem to spend so much time sparring with religious bogeymen. They threaten everything, from the planet to the sanity of children. This in itself is contrary to my own experience in a Catholic/Scottish Presbyterian household, and through 13 years of Catholic school. But that’s beside the point. What I’m trying to say is that for all the bitching and moaning that goes on, the atheist who criticises a Christian for raising their child unthinkingly as a Christian, and then raises them unquestioningly as an atheist, is a hypocrite. So is the atheist who ‘demonises’ the followers of any religion. So is the atheist who calls the religious ‘stupid’ and moral voids. So is the atheist who calls for greater respect for the rights of homosexual people (that’s cool, btw), but then — even in jest — demands that we prevent children being raised by and as Christians. So is the atheist who claims to follow a strict diet of reason and logic, but fails to see the consequences of mocking, belittling, and abusing the members of particular faiths for no other reason but sheer arrogance and hatred.
What the fuck was the point of this post again?
I’m an agnostic theist (technically, a Christian Humanist, of Catholic predisposition). That is, I choose to believe that there is a God, but I have absolutely no problem saying that ‘I’m not sure’ whether s/he exists. It means that I think proselytism is horrible and a violation of people’s free will. It means that I am not an arrogant hypocrite, because I’m perfectly able to accept that almost everybody thinks differently to me, and that I’m glad they have made their own choices. I’m willing to leave them to it, as I hope they’d do for me.
It means your discussions about God’s existence are not only meaningless, but absolutely boring.
It means that your critiques of religion are not only misguided, biased and unfair, but full of hatred and a lack of tolerance for people who are different from you.
It means you should all shut up and get along.
Science develops best when its concepts and conclusions are integrated into the broader human culture and its concerns for ultimate meaning and value. Scientists cannot, therefore, hold themselves entirely aloof from the sorts of issues dealt with by philosophers and theologians. By devoting to these issues something of the energy and care they give to their research in science, they can help others realize more fully the human potentialities of their discoveries. They can also come to appreciate for themselves that these discoveries cannot be a genuine substitute for knowledge of the truly ultimate. Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.
- Pope John Paul II, in a letter to the Vatican Observatory
