Atheist has somehow managed, in certain circles, to become a dirty word. In fact, in situations where I suspect I may be amongst believers I prefer to keep the term non-believer in my back pocket in case somebody should ever ask me where my spiritual allegiances lie. Not that this happens all too often, but on occasions in the past where it was sprung on me all of a sudden I was finding it difficult to call myself an atheist withour following it up with, “But I’m not against other people believing in whatever they want . . . “.
There have certainly been more publications and prominent voices in recent years willing to challenge the notion that personal and religious belief should not be called into question. Voices such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins ask people to consider that religion can actually be harmful and should be challenged when possible. The atheist conversation dubbed The Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on youtube and the genre of New Atheism sees books in this field sell consistently well.
There are those that would have you believe there is a growing army of militant atheists, not content with living their own meaningless existences, but devoted to destroying religion for everyone else, everywhere. The extremist voices on the topic seem to generate the most headlines, just as they do in religious communities.
Your evangelical Christians like the delightful folk from the Westboro Baptist Church in America do not appear to represent the views of the Christians that I know, or indeed the views I held when I would have called myself a Christian. That’s not to say my Church did not condemn homosexuality and other types of behaviour, I guess they just didn’t condemn it quite as much or persecute people to this extreme. The only thing I respect about these people is their ability to quote Bible passages to back up their crappy behaviour; most Christians from my childhood cherry picked a handful of Bible quotations they liked to remember but didn’t delve much deeper.
Your evangelical atheists are somewhat similar in my eyes as someone who fits into the same category. The people who hold Richard Dawkins or Charles Darwin in such high esteem it’s tantamount to worship. I might enjoy reading the same books and watching the same documentaries on religion as the militant crew but I found it to be a problem when I was reading or watching too much on the same topic.
I tended to get more than a little angry about the existence of religion and it’s intrusion into my family in even the smallest of ways. When religion and it’s downsides became the most important thing in my thinking I could see it everywhere and I would feel angry a lot of the time and desperate for the world around me to change. A part of me wanted to fit in and do what I was brought up to belive was right, and another part of me wanted to tell everyone spouting this crap that they were wrong. Look at the evidence! Think about what we’re all saying and doing here!
The main problem is that living life feeling pissed off most of the time is just not a fun way to exist. If a person is unable to shift their opinions on religion one way or the other, is it ever worth choosing to feel angry all of the time about anything? Maybe if the Westboro Baptist people took just a few days off to mentally relax and just do something fun for the hell of it without thinking about The Lord they might not be so completely consumed by saving their own souls and condemning others.
Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy a good atheist/believer debate and The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins will always be close to my heart as a book I really needed to read at the time I came across it. My vote will always go towards secular policies and I would like to see the influence and grip that religion has on most societies around the world greatly reduced.
Does that mean I’m trying to deconvert people? Nope. Believe what you want but don’t discriminate against others or set up any aspect of the state that would put pressure on peoople to choose to miss out on access to services if they don’t believe (i.e. weddings/faith schools/political parties etc.).
So I’m pasasionately atheist and in many ways I am absolutely anti-religion. So, considering the fact I know religion is not going to disappear from my society in my lifetime, no matter what I do, and as an atheist I think this life is all I have, how can I justify spending all my time alive sulking about it?
I remebered something that happened several years ago on a night out with some University friends in Manchester. Back in those days I was a chain smoker and for many reasons I wasn’t planning to quit any time soon (primarily I believed, and still do, that smoking had helped me control my tendency to abuse alcohol and at least I knew I would end up safely in my own bed at night). I was unconcerned about the health implications because I figured I’d just quit when I was older and I enjoyed the social side of it. When the ban on smoking indoors was introduced in the UK it had the surprisingly pleasent effect of creating smoking areas just outside every pub and bar.
Smoking areas were a place to get away from the music and actually talk to another human being. It felt cool to be there, with all the other cool peoole who were unconcerned with health statistics and wasting money. On this particualr night out I had gone outside to smoke with a close friend and one of her friends from back home, with a particularly judgemental and outspoken personality, joined us and spent the entire time telling me how bad smoking was for me. Did you know it’s bad for your health? Non smokers tend to absolutley hate the smell and they can smell it instantly on someone’s clothes or breath. Cigarettes are expensive! Why would you spend so much? It causes cancer you know. It’s really addictive and the sooner you quit, the better.
As a non-smoker these days I actually agree with all this, and I feel much healthier and wheeze a lot less during exercise than I used to. But, funnily enough her speech was not the thing that made me change. The fact is I already knew all of this when this girl gave her unsolicited advice and I had my own reasons why I wanted to continue smoking anyway. If anything, I mentally flipped her the finger and decided I would never be as boring and sactimonious as that. She may have had good intentions but people using that technique of lecturing others about things they already know and chose to ignore rarely win people round in a conversation.
I thought of that girl when I started getting the urge to point out how silly it was for a friend to baptise their child or when I wanted to point out moral issues I have with the story of the ten plagues to an enthusiactic Church playgroup volunteer. I was conflicted all the time about being preachy versus feeling like I should be honest with what I really thought. Constantly biting your tongue can leave you feeling like you want to scream.
I think I’m on a better path now. I’ve been trying for a while now to find more positive ways to engage with Atheism. I don’t want to switch off from caring but I don’t want to transfer my feelings on religion onto every individual I come across who has had different experiences to my own.
Postitve ways to engage with Atheism
1) Help others in your community just because, well, it’s nice to. And be honest about your lack of faith if it ever crops up in conversation. One of the most important ideas we have to challenge is that atheists are lacking morality or the desire to help others because they haven’y got a book telling them to do so.
2) Humanism. I like to describe myself as a humanist because it clarifies that I am not an atheist who hates all religious people out there or thinks they are stupid. Humanists are all about not harming others and encourage people to think for themselves rather than trying to tell them what they should or shouldn’t think.
3) Sunday Assembly. This organisation is growing fast and has a simple mission:
- We are a godless congregation that celebrates of life.
- We have an awesome motto: Live Better, Help Often and Wonder More.
- A super mission: to try to help everyone find and fulfil their full potential.
- An awesome vision: a godless congregation in every town city, or village that wants one.
This is as far as I’ve got with positive atheism but I’m far happier than when I was just angry and having a lot more fun in life with lots of different people. So does anyone else have any ideas or organisations to add to my list? How can we make atheism a positive life choice that doesn’t require us to fight the believers?
