Many believers have never spent time talking honestly and openly with an atheist. Especially here in the Bible Belt. One of the most common observations I've made since becoming an "open atheist" is that lots of believers honestly have no idea what I believe and what I do not believe. Misconceptions abound. (I've been asked if I believe in Satan since I'm an atheist. Really?!)
Among the most common misconceptions is the belief that lots of us are atheists because of the bad things religion has done and continues to do. Certainly, a lot of us are mad. We're mad at the Pope for saying condoms cause AIDS. We're mad at the American Theocrats for trying to legislate Christianity and rewrite American history. We're mad at all the friends and family we lost when we admitted we don't believe in Jesus.
But that's not why we're atheists. Not most of us, anyway.
A surprising number of liberal theists have tried to court my affection over the years. They've told me about how much they hate what the Pope is doing. They despise Sarah Palin and Focus on the Family. They apologize for what theists have done to me personally. They assure me that even though we disagree over God's existence, we are in lock step when it comes to humanitarianism, egalitarianism, women's rights, etc.
If the conversation ends there, things are usually fine. In fact, I try to end it there in polite company because I know the bad place things will go to if I voice my true feelings. You see, I know something they don't know: I am not an atheist because religion does bad things. I am an atheist because I believe religion -- all religion -- is wrong. Factually wrong. Ethically wrong. Completely wrong. And while I give liberal theists high marks for being good people in spite of their religious belief, I do not approve of their religious convictions any more than those of Muslim terrorists or Christian abortion clinic bombers.
And herein lies a problem. Lots of atheists agree with me on this. We believe that all religion -- fluffy liberal metaphysical hippy Christianity included -- is part of the larger problem. We believe that accepting just one thing based on the "virtue of faith" gives permission to accept anything on faith. If you can have faith that God is a hippie, then Rick Santorum can believe in a misogynist dictator who hates you for... pretty much anything fun you ever do. And there's no way for either of you to prove the other wrong.
We are not atheists because Christians do bad things. We are atheists because we trust the evidence, not our gut feelings, or dopamine rushes during church services, or the story of some guy who knows another guy whose great aunt died on the table and saw heaven firsthand before coming back. We believe you are all wrong about god, no matter whether your god is loving and pluralistic, evil and sadistic, or deistic and uninvolved. We think it's all fantasy.
Once I bring up this uncomfortable point, liberal theists seem far less likely to want to court my approval or friendship. And I don't blame them. I wouldn't want to be my friend either if I was in their shoes. But "I calls 'em like I sees em," as the saying goes. In my experience, liberal theists are hoping for a thumbs up and pat on the back for being nice and tolerant of us atheists. And they can have that for sure. I'd love it if America was primarily populated by Unitarian Universalists and Episcopalians. But I'd still think they were wrong. And nobody likes knowing their friends think they're wrong about something so intrinsic to our personal identities.
And therein lies one of the most serious splits between liberal theism and atheism. Regardless of how the religious sentiment around us blows in the political wind, we'll still disagree with the foundation of theists' belief. We'll still think they're wrong, and we'll still think their belief is a catalyst just waiting for a sufficiently evil meme to unleash a new Crusade or Inquisition. We'll still wish they weren't believers.
In fact, liberal theists are the ones I'm most interested in "de-converting" to atheism. They're the ones who have already made most of the leaps: They don't necessarily believe in a literal hell (or even heaven). They don't always believe in a literal "original sin," since they often accept evolution. They think scripture is a thing to be interpreted, not taken literally. They're just a baby step away from realizing that God is a concept that shouldn't be taken literally. And if we could somehow recruit all the non-fundamentalist Christians and encourage them to renounce faith as a virtue... what a blow that would be to the Far Right Theocratic Machine!
So in the long run, I don't think there will be much philosophical love between us. I'll congratulate liberal theists for voting progressive. I'll commend them for being good people. But I'll not pat them on the back for believing in their wacky, illogical god just because it's not as sadistic as the fundamentalists' god.
Comments