Tags
atheists, Humor, life in the meadow, psychology, satire, writing
I got to thinking that I didn’t nearly get all the detritus from my skull yesterday. It does get clogged up a lot. Mostly when I get too busy to devote sufficient time to digging it out piece by piece and examining each linty item in detail. Only then can I feel refreshed. No doubt you understand.
I’ve been reading tons of blogs, and reading seemingly tons of books (4 at a time, last count). I’m getting word-logged (similar to waterlogged I suspect). Too many fact remnants skipping around, bumping into places they shouldn’t be, confusing me.
Now look. I’m not depressed. No, even though it is barely 40 degrees outside and the wind is howling, and we gotta cover the peppers and herbs tonight. AND there is no sun. And that’s just here. That’s to say nothing of the Gulf Coast, Tennessee, and Greece, the immigration issues, and the constant banter of lying lips throughout the mediocre media.
We were watching that “The History of Us” last night. It’s fairly lousy, too much flag waving, too little really new news. As I was watching the ladies in their long cotton dresses walk along side of wagons headed West, I said, “It all looks so peaceful and fun. Nice ambling walk across the grasslands. Except, I know it was freakishly hellish most of the way.” Mean and hard and cold and wet, and awful.
But they had one solace I don’t have: They didn’t have to have all this STUFF in their heads to think about. Nope, just put one foot in front of the other, and trust in God, and hope they made it to the next stop, and cook and sleep, and get up and do it all over again, day after day. Not a lot to clutter up the mind. Plenty of room to recite psalms and prayers.
Sometimes I reflect on the little lone scientist who studies African red scorpions and has for 25 years. He knows everything there is to know, is the expert the experts call up. He eats, breathes and sleeps ’em. Devotes every waking minute to thinking about them. He doesn’t know about anything else, and is perfectly happy in his created world. Sleeps like a baby.
I envy him for a second or two, before I return to sorting through the pile of papers before me that are my thoughts. By the by, do you have stacks of papers around? I do. A pamphlet here, a insert from Church, something I ran off from the Intertubes, a subscription I can’t afford, but can’t quite throw away yet, you know, junk, but not? In frustration, I pile through it sometimes, and give up and heave the whole mess in the trash. I seldom if ever discard anything I really wanted, for I seldom can’t find it later.
Atheists piss me off sometimes. I can get it if you can’t bring yourself to believe. Surely I can, for doubt is huge in belief, believe it or not. But if I was one of those agnostic types, and I was, so I know, I would be profoundly sad at the realization that THERE IS NO GOD. I surely would cuz I surely was. When God smacked me in the head one day, I was profoundly happy He did. And I was no longer sad.
So why do atheists take such glee in making fun of believers? I don’t get that. I suspect it’s because they are very afraid. Afraid they are wrong, and so they want lots of reinforcement. Other’s like themselves who are afraid but want to put on a brave front. And no braver front than to ridicule God. As if God can be reduced to a scientific proof.
If you are a non-believer, then why are you out there writing about it all day long? They say it’s because they view religion as dangerous and as the cause of most of humanities problems. But they only attack fundamentalist thinking and everybody knows they are right in that. So why don’t they admit it and leave the rest of us alone? We are the ones doing the “caring for the sick and the poor, and feeding the hungry, and tending to the incarcerated.”
They are busy trading silly insults with each other and pontificating on philosophical propositions that convince no one but themselves, prove zero, and serve only to impress themselves that they can tell a Spinoza from a Plantinga. Whoopdedoo! Go raise money for Haiti and do something worthwhile will ya?
Been having a blast reading Dorothy Parker in small servings. A short story or so at a time. Wonder wordsmith she was. Wonderful at dialogue. I can hear the high pitched voice of a society dame just yammering away, or the mournful lament of a man who can’t understand the cold correctness of his girl. I can hear the voices in stereo in my head. I always thought I would have been a good actor.
But then aren’t we all? Good actors I mean. Damn few of us are real. We snap on the facades faster than Marshall Dillon could whip out his shootin’ iron to put down the bad guy in Dodge. I switch from smarmy, smart mouth writer to wifey, to church lady with nary a loss of step ya know. I bet you do too, even when you say you don’t. Or is it just phases of a full personality?
So, if I have offended, well, I didn’t mean to, but if I did, well, I did. Go blow it out yer ear! And have a bloody happy day.
Existential Ennui 
So why do atheists take such glee in making fun of believers? I don’t get that. I suspect it’s because they are very afraid. Afraid they are wrong, and so they want lots of reinforcement. Other’s like themselves who are afraid but want to put on a brave front. And no braver front than to ridicule God. As if God can be reduced to a scientific proof.
I think there are two main reasons.
In my younger atheist days, I was throughly offended by aggressive proselytizing by the hellfire and brimstone set. Not knowing that they represent God no more than did the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’ day, I responded to their arrogance and judgemental piety with hostility. I think many people do not realize that there is an authentic Christianity, separate from the gospel of war, hate, greed and racism preached by the GOP Supply-side Jesus set.
You have already nailed the second down. Belief in nothing is so counter-intuitive that atheism requires far more faith than theism, or in my case, deism.
I can see the sense in what you say Tom. I agree, if I were assaulted by fundies, I’d be pretty angry too.
I do find it odd that after reading a ton of philosophy, most thinkers suggest that there is no proof of God, but they mostly were believers of a sort. Deist or otherwise. They recognized faith as something beyond explanation of sorts I guess. And the atheists are constantly citing to philosphers for their “lack of empirical proof” argument, but never seeing that given all that, they believed in God in some way. it seems odd to me.
Sherry, how strange you should ponder atheism. Lately I’ve been mulling over something a friend said to me long ago, “There’s no such thing as a born atheist–it’s a learned, or un-learned, belief.” With all respect to my friends who are convinced no God exists, I like that explanation.
I also like the irony Tom points out–atheists still respond religiously. Their tone and tactics are no different than the proselytizers they vilify. The problem with their “counter-evangelism” of course is that there’s no reliable protocol for “un-learning.” They can’t teach their faith because learning is by nature an additive process. So they’re only option is to tear down. What’s a body to do?
Thanks for this!
Tim
Tim there is just something so disengenuous in their talk. They seem to take such perverse delight in ridicule. I can only think it stems from both fear and pain. And frankly the more I study philosophy, the more I realize they are trying to use it to justify what they simply don’t feel inside. I feel deep sorrow for them but admit to getting a bit testy with the continual referral to thinking of God and the tooth fairy as co-unreal beings.
Good one, Sherry!
You described my save almost everything Collector nature.
Fundies are the problem, and their non-thinking philisiphy is the cause of many of the few true atheists.
Atheists are a reclusive small group in general. I met one recently and he closed off, not wahting to talk when I asked where Everything came from: Trees, Ourselves, our brains.
Tony,
While I would agree Fundies’ “blind faith”–which is not quite the same as non-thinking philosophy; I know many Fundies who’ve given their beliefs a great deal of thought–contribute to many atheists’ resolve, I believe the “problem” goes deeper. Otherwise, atheism would simply be reactionary, which would make it an opinion and not a credo.
As Sherry and Tom have both pointed out, atheism is above all else a reliance on human logic over trust in the divine. If it can’t be proven, it doesn’t exist. That takes faith off the table, as we know from Scripture, “faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen.” Thus, atheism springs from a hardened, concrete–and hence inflexible–mindset. This is an acquired mentality that comes by sacrificing inquisitiveness by caving into empiricism. It’s a loss of innocence, an unnecessary one.
Since no one can prove God exists, evidently He doesn’t. Yet as the prosecutors, the atheist bears the burden of proof and as far as I know, no atheist has yet uncovered any substantive evidence God does NOT exist. Ergo, their credo collapses on its own pilings. They know this, too–as many of them who’ve given it any serious thought, that is. And without any proof, all they’re left with is playing the “smug” card by ridiculing others’ beliefs, which makes certain Fundies easy scapegoats.
That said, however, I know numerous atheists wise enough to grant their disbelief in God is indeed their belief. And they’re always extremely tolerant and gracious about other faiths.
Sherry, just a suggestion re: Dorothy Parker. “The Waltz” I think the monologue has made a trip through every woman’s brain at least once in a lifetime.
Shannon, I am eating it in such tiny doses. The Waltz is classic, but then so is the one about the telephone–the agony of waiting for a man to call, the constant and ever dissecting of every word spoken, the analysis, the promises, and prayers. Oh my. She is so right on. And her writing is so awfully painful too.