Atheists and Anger

I want to talk about atheists and anger.

This has been a hard piece to write, and it may be a hard one to read. I'm not going to be as polite and good-tempered as I usually am in this blog; this piece is about anger, and for once I'm going to fucking well let myself be angry.

But I think it's important. One of the most common criticisms lobbed at the newly-vocal atheist community is, "Why do you have to be so angry?" So I want to talk about:

1. Why atheists are angry;

2. Why our anger is valid, valuable, and necessary;

And 3. Why it's completely fucked-up to try to take our anger away from us.

So let's start with why we're angry. Or rather -- because this is my blog and I don't presume to speak for all atheists -- why I'm angry.

*****

I'm angry that according to a recent Gallup poll, only 45 percent of Americans would vote for an atheist for President.

I'm angry that atheist conventions have to have extra security, including hand-held metal detectors and bag searches, because of fatwas and death threats.

I'm angry that atheist soldiers -- in the U.S. armed forces -- have had prayer ceremonies pressured on them and atheist meetings broken up by Christian superior officers, in direct violation of the First Amendment. I'm angry that evangelical Christian groups are being given exclusive access to proselytize on military bases -- again in the U.S. armed forces, again in direct violation of the First Amendment. I'm angry that atheist soldiers who are complaining about this are being harassed and are even getting death threats from Christian soldiers and superior officers -- yet again, in the U.S. armed forces. And I'm angry that Christians still say smug, sanctimonious things like, "there are no atheists in foxholes." You know why you're not seeing atheists in foxholes? Because believers are threatening to shoot them if they come out.

I'm angry that the 41st President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush, said of atheists, in my lifetime, "No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God." My President. No, I didn't vote for him, but he was still my President, and he still said that my lack of religious belief meant that I shouldn't be regarded as a citizen.

I'm angry that it took until 1961 for atheists to be guaranteed the right to serve on juries, testify in court, or hold public office in every state in the country.

I'm angry that almost half of Americans believe in creationism. And not a broad, "God had a hand in evolution" creationism, but a strict, young-earth, "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years" creationism.

And on that topic: I'm angry that school boards all across this country are still -- 82 years after the Scopes trial -- having to spend time and money and resources on the fight to have evolution taught in the schools. School boards are not exactly loaded with time and money and resources, and any of the time/ money/ resources that they're spending fighting this stupid fight is time/ money/ resources that they're not spending, you know, teaching.

I'm angry that women are dying of AIDS in Africa and South America because the Catholic Church has convinced them that using condoms makes baby Jesus cry.

I'm angry that women are having septic abortions -- or are being forced to have unwanted children who they resent and mistreat -- because religious organizations have gotten laws passed making abortion illegal or inaccessible.

I'm angry about what happened to Galileo. Still. And I'm angry that it took the Catholic Church until 1992 to apologize for it.

I get angry when advice columnists tell their troubled letter-writers to talk to their priest or minister or rabbi... when there is absolutely no legal requirement that a religious leader have any sort of training in counseling or therapy.

And I get angry when religious leaders offer counseling and advice to troubled people -- sex advice, relationship advice, advice on depression and stress, etc. -- not based on any evidence about what actually does and does not work in people's brains and lives, but on the basis of what their religious doctrine tells them God wants for us.

I'm angry at preachers who tell women in their flock to submit to their husbands because it's the will of God, even when their husbands are beating them within an inch of their lives.

I'm angry that so many believers treat prayer as a sort of cosmic shopping list for God. I'm angry that believers pray to win sporting events, poker hands, beauty pageants, and more. As if they were the center of the universe, as if God gives a shit about who wins the NCAA Final Four -- and as if the other teams/ players/ contestants weren't praying just as hard.

I'm especially angry that so many believers treat prayer as a cosmic shopping list when it comes to health and illness. I'm angry that this belief leads to the revolting conclusion that God deliberately makes people sick so they’ll pray to him to get better. And I'm angry that they foist this belief on sick and dying children -- in essence teaching them that, if they don't get better, it's their fault. That they didn't pray hard enough, or they didn't pray right, or God just doesn't love them enough.

And I get angry when other believers insist that the cosmic shopping list isn't what religion and prayer are really about; that their own sophisticated theology is the true understanding of God. I get angry when believers insist that the shopping list is a straw man, an outmoded form of religion and prayer that nobody takes seriously, and it's absurd for atheists to criticize it.

I get angry when believers use terrible, grief-soaked tragedies as either opportunities to toot their own horns and talk about how wonderful their God and their religion are... or as opportunities to attack and demonize atheists and secularism.

I'm angry at the Sunday school teacher who told comic artist Craig Thompson that he couldn't draw in heaven. And I'm angry that she said it with the complete conviction of authority... when in fact she had no basis whatsoever for that assertion. How the hell did she know what Heaven was like? How could she possibly know that you could sing in heaven but not draw? And why the hell would you say something that squelching and dismissive to a talented child?

I'm angry that Mother Teresa took her personal suffering and despair at her lost faith in God, and turned it into an obsession that led her to treat suffering as a beautiful gift from Christ to humanity, a beautiful offering from humanity to God, and a necessary part of spiritual salvation. And I'm angry that this obsession apparently led her to offer grotesquely inadequate medical care and pain relief at her hospitals and hospices, in essence taking her personal crisis of faith out on millions of desperately poor and helpless people.

I'm angry at the trustee of the local Presbyterian church who told his teenage daughter that he didn't actually believe in God or religion, but that it was important to keep up his work because without religion there would be no morality in the world.

I'm angry that so many parents and religious leaders terrorize children -- who (a) have brains that are hard-wired to trust adults and believe what they're told, and (b) are very literal-minded -- with vivid, traumatizing stories of eternal burning and torture to ensure that they'll be too frightened to even question religion.

I'm angrier when religious leaders explicitly tell children – and adults, for that matter -- that the very questioning of religion and the existence of hell is a dreadful sin, one that will guarantee them that hell is where they'll end up.

I'm angry that children get taught by religion to hate and fear their bodies and their sexuality. And I'm especially angry that female children get taught by religion to hate and fear their femaleness, and that queer children get taught by religion to hate and fear their queerness.

I'm angry about the Muslim girl in the public school who was told -- by her public-school, taxpayer-paid teacher -- that the red stripes on Christmas candy canes represented Christ's blood, that she had to believe in and be saved by Jesus Christ or she'd be condemned to hell, and that if she didn't, there was no place for her in his classroom. And I'm angry that he told her not to come back to his class when she didn't convert.

I'm angry -- enraged -- at the priests who molest children and tell them it's God's will. I'm enraged at the Catholic Church that consciously, deliberately, repeatedly, for years, acted to protect priests who molested children, and consciously and deliberately acted to keep it a secret, placing the Church's reputation as a higher priority than, for fuck's sake, children not being molested. And I'm enraged that the Church is now trying to argue, in court, that protecting child-molesting priests from prosecution, and shuffling those priests from diocese to diocese so they can molest kids in a whole new community that doesn't yet suspect them, is a Constitutionally protected form of free religious expression.

I'm angry about 9/11.

And I'm angry that Jerry Falwell blamed 9/11 on pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians, the ACLU, and the People For the American Way. I'm angry that the theology of a wrathful God exacting revenge against pagans and abortionists by sending radical Muslims to blow up a building full of secretaries and investment bankers... this was a theology held by a powerful, widely-respected religious leader with millions of followers.

I'm angry that, when my dad had a stroke and went into a nursing home, the staff asked my brother, "Is he a Baptist or a Catholic?" And I'm not just angry on behalf of my atheist dad. I'm angry on behalf of all the Jews, all the Buddhists, all the Muslims, all the neo-Pagans, whose families almost certainly got asked that same question. That question is enormously disrespectful, not just of my dad's atheism, but of everyone at that nursing home who wasn't a Baptist or a Catholic.

I'm angry about Ingrid's grandparents. I'm angry that their fundamentalism was such a huge source of strife and unhappiness in her family, that it alienated them so drastically from their children and grandchildren. I'm angry that they tried to cram it down Ingrid's throat, to the point that she's still traumatized by it. And I'm angry that their religion, which if nothing else should have been a comfort to them in their old age, was instead a source of anguish and despair -- because they knew their children and grandchildren were all going to be burned and tortured forever in Hell, and how could Heaven be Heaven if their children and grandchildren were being eternally burned and tortured in Hell?

I'm angry that Ingrid and I can't get legally married in this country -- or get legally married in another country and have it recognized by this one -- largely because religious leaders oppose it. And I'm angry that both religious and political leaders have discovered that they can score big points exploiting people's fears about sexuality in a changing world, fanning the flames of those fears... and giving people a religious excuse for why their fears are justified.

I'm angry that huge swaths of public policy in this country -- not just on same-sex marriage, but on abortion and stem-cell research and sex education in schools -- are being based, not on evidence of which policies do and don't work and what is and isn't true about the world, but on religious texts written hundreds or thousands of years ago, and on their own personal feelings about how those texts should be interpreted, with no supporting evidence whatsoever -- and no apparent concept of why any evidence should be needed.

I get angry when believers trumpet every good thing that's ever been done in the name of religion as a reason why religion is a force for good... and then, when confronted with the horrible evils done in religion's name, say that those evils weren't done because of religion, were done because of politics of greed or fear or whatever, would have been done anyway even without religion, and shouldn't be counted as religion's fault. (Of course, to be fair, I also get angry when atheists do the opposite: chalk up every evil thing done in the name of religion as a black mark on religion's record, but then insist that the good things were done for other reasons and would have been done anyway, etc. Neither side gets to have it both ways.)

I'm angry at the believers who put decals on their cars with a Faith fish eating a Darwin fish... and who think that's clever, who think that religious faith really should triumph over science and evidence. I'm angry at believers who have so little respect for the physical world their God supposedly created that they feel perfectly content to ignore the mountains of physical evidence piling up around them about that real world; perfectly content to see that world as somehow less real and true than their personal opinions about God.

(Note: The litany of specific grievances is now more than halfway over. Analysis of why anger is necessary and valuable is coming up soon. Promise.)

I get angry when religious leaders opportunistically use religion, and people's trust and faith in religion, to steal, cheat, lie, manipulate the political process, take sexual advantage of their followers, and generally behave like the scum of the earth. I get angry when it happens over and over and over again. And I get angry when people see this happening and still say that atheism is bad because, without religion, people would have no basis for morality or ethics, and no reason not to just do whatever they wanted.

I get angry when religious believers make arguments against atheism -- and make accusations against atheists -- without having bothered to talk to any atheists or read any atheist writing. I get angry when they trot out the same old "Atheism is a nihilistic philosophy, with no joy or meaning to life and no basis for morality or ethics"... when if they spent ten minutes in the atheist blogosphere, they would discover countless atheists who experience great joy and meaning in their lives, and are intensely concerned about right and wrong.

I get angry when believers use the phrase "atheist fundamentalist" without apparently knowing what the word "fundamentalist" means. Call people pig-headed, call them stubborn, call them snarky, call them intolerant even. But unless you can point to the text to which these "fundamentalist" atheists literally and strictly adhere without question, then please shut the hell up about us being fundamentalist.

I get angry when religious believers base their entire philosophy of life on what is, at best, a hunch; when they ignore or reject or rationalize any evidence that contradicts that hunch or calls it into question... and then accuse atheists of being close-minded and ignoring the obvious truth.

And I get angry when believers glorify religious faith without evidence as a positive virtue, a character trait that makes people good and noble... and then continue to accuse atheists of being close-minded and ignoring the obvious truth.

I get angry when believers say that they can know the truth -- the greatest truth of all about the nature of the universe, namely the source of all existence -- simply by sitting quietly and listening to their heart... and then accuse atheists of being arrogant. (This isn't just arrogant towards atheists and naturalists, either. It's arrogant towards people of other religions who have sat just as quietly, listened to their hearts with just as much sincerity, and come to completely opposite conclusions about God and the soul and the universe.)

And I get angry when believers say that the entire unimaginable enormity of the universe was made solely and specifically for the human race -- when atheists, by contrast, say that humanity is a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, an infinitesimal eyeblink in the vastness of time and space -- and yet again, believers accuse atheists of being arrogant.

I get angry when believers say things like, "Yes, of course, the human mind isn't perfect, we see what we expect to see, we see faces and patterns and intention when they aren't necessarily there... but that couldn't be happening with me. The patterns I see in my life... they couldn't possibly be coincidence or confirmation bias. I'm definitely seeing the hand of God." (And then, once again, those same believers accuse atheists of being close-minded and only seeing what we want to see.)

I get angry when believers treat the gaps in science and scientific knowledge as somehow proof of the existence of God. I get angry when, despite a thousands-of-years-old pattern of supernatural explanations being consistently and repeatedly replaced with natural ones, they still think every single unexplained phenomenon can be best explained by God. And I'm angry that, whenever a gap in our knowledge does get filled in, believers either try to suppress it (see above re: evolution in the schools), or else say, "Okay, that part of the world isn't supernatural... but what about this gap over here? Can you explain that, Mr. Smarty-Pants Scientist? You can't! It must be God!"

I get angry when believers say at the beginning of an argument that their belief is based on reason and evidence, and at the end of the argument say things like, "It just seems that way to me," or, "I feel it in my heart"... as if that were a clincher. I mean, couldn't they have said that at the beginning of the argument, and not wasted my fucking time? My time is valuable and increasingly limited, and I have better things to do with it than debating with people who pretend to care about evidence and reason but ultimately don't.

I'm angry that I have to know more about their fucking religion than the believers do. I get angry when believers say things about the tenets and texts of their religion that are flatly untrue, and I have to correct them on it.

I get angry when believers treat any criticism of their religion -- i.e., pointing out that their religion is a hypothesis about the world and a philosophy of it, and asking it to stand up on its own in the marketplace of ideas -- as insulting and intolerant. I get angry when believers accuse atheists of being intolerant for saying things like, "I don't agree with you," "I think you're mistaken about that," "That doesn't make any sense," "I think that position is morally indefensible," and "What evidence do you have to support that?"

And on that point: I get angry when Christians in the United States -- members of the single most powerful and influential religious group in the country, in the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world -- act like beleaguered victims, martyrs being thrown to the lions all over again, whenever anyone criticizes them or they don't get their way.

I get angry when believers respond to some or all of these offenses by saying, "Well, that's not the true faith. Hating queers/ rejecting science/ stifling questions and dissent... that's not the true faith. People who do that aren't real (Christians/ Jews/ Muslims/ Hindus/ etc.)." As if they had a fucking pipeline to God. As if they had any reason at all to think that they know for sure what God wants, and that the billions of others who disagree with them just obviously have it wrong. (Besides -- I'm an atheist. The "They just aren't doing religion right" argument is not going to cut it with me. I don't think any of you have it right. To me, it all looks like something that people just made up.)

On that topic: I get angry when religious believers insist that their interpretation of their religion and religious text is the right one, and that fellow believers with an opposite interpretation clearly have it wrong. I get angry when believers insist that the parts about Jesus's prompt return and all prayers being answered are obviously not meant literally... but the parts about hell and damnation and gay sex being an abomination, that's real. And I get angry when believers insist that the parts about hell and damnation and gay sex being an abomination aren't meant literally, but the parts about caring for the poor are really what God meant. How the hell do they know which parts of the Bible/ Torah/ Koran/ Bhagavad-Gita/ whatever God really meant, and which parts he didn't? And if they don't know, if they're just basing it on their own moral instincts and their own perceptions of the world, then on what basis are they thinking that God and their sacred texts have anything to do with it at all? What right do they have to act as if their opinion is the same as God's and he's totally backing them up on it?

And I get angry when believers act as if these offenses aren't important, because "Not all believers act like that. I don't act like that." As if that fucking matters. This stuff is a major way that religion plays out in our world, and it makes me furious to hear religious believers try to minimize it because it's not how it happens to play out for them. It's like a white person responding to an African-American describing their experience of racism by saying, "But I'm not a racist." If you're not a racist, then can you shut the hell up for ten seconds and listen to the black people talk? And if you’re not bigoted against atheists and are sympathetic to us, then can you shut the hell up for ten seconds and let us tell you about what the world is like for us, without getting all defensive about how it's not your fault? When did this international conversation about atheism and religious oppression become all about you and your hurt feelings?

But perhaps most of all, I get angry -- sputteringly, inarticulately, pulse-racingly angry -- when believers chide atheists for being so angry. "Why do you have to be so angry all the time?" "All that anger is so off-putting." "If atheism is so great, then why are so many of you so angry?"

Which brings me to the other part of this little rant: Why atheist anger is not only valid, but valuable and necessary.

*****

There's actually a simple, straightforward answer to this question:

Because anger is always necessary.

Because anger has driven every major movement for social change in this country, and probably in the world. The labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women's suffrage movement, the modern feminist movement, the gay rights movement, the anti-war movement in the Sixties, the anti-war movement today, you name it... all of them have had, as a major driving force, a tremendous amount of anger. Anger over injustice, anger over mistreatment and brutality, anger over helplessness.

I mean, why the hell else would people bother to mobilize social movements? Social movements are hard. They take time, they take energy, they sometimes take serious risk of life and limb, community and career. Nobody would fucking bother if they weren't furious about something.

So when you tell an atheist (or for that matter, a woman or a queer or a person of color or whatever) not to be so angry, you are, in essence, telling us to disempower ourselves. You're telling us to lay down one of the single most powerful tools we have at our disposal. You're telling us to lay down a tool that no social change movement has ever been able to do without. You're telling us to be polite and diplomatic, when history shows that polite diplomacy in a social change movement works far, far better when it's coupled with passionate anger. In a battle between David and Goliath, you're telling David to put down his slingshot and just... I don't know. Gnaw Goliath on the ankles or something.

I'll acknowledge that anger is a difficult tool in a social movement. A dangerous one even. It can make people act rashly; it can make it harder to think clearly; it can make people treat potential allies as enemies. In the worst-case scenario, it can even lead to violence. Anger is valid, it's valuable, it's necessary... but it can also misfire, and badly.

But unless we're actually endangering or harming somebody, it is not up to believers to tell atheists when we should and should not use this tool. It is not up to believers to tell atheists that we're going too far with the anger and need to calm down. Any more than it's up to white people to say it to black people, or men to say it to women, or straights to say it to queers. When it comes from believers, it's not helpful. It's patronizing. It comes across as another attempt to defang us and shut us up. And it's just going to make us angrier.

And when believers tell passionate, angry atheists that extremism is never right and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle, they're making a big, big mistake. Not just because they're making us want to spit in their eye. They're making a mistake because they're simply mistaken. Read this piece from Daylight Atheism on The Golden Mean. Read the quotes from the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the American Revolution. And then come tell me that the moderate position is usually the right one.

And you know what else? I think we need to have some goddamn perspective about this anger business. I mean, I look at organized Christianity in this country -- not just the religious right, but some more "moderate" churches as well -- interfering with AIDS prevention efforts, trying to get their theology into the public schools, actively trying to prevent me and Ingrid from getting legally married, and pulling all the other shit I talk about in this piece.

And I look at atheists sometimes being mean-spirited and snarky in blogs and books and magazines.

And I think, Can we please have some goddamn perspective?

Because the other thing I'm angry about is the fact that, in this piece, I've touched on -- maybe -- a hundredth of everything that angers me about religion. This piece barely scratches the surface. I know, almost without a doubt, that within five minutes of hitting "Post" and putting this piece on my blog, I'll think of six different things that I'd wished I'd put in. I could write an entire book about everything that angers me about religion -- other people certainly have -- and still not be finished.

Are you really looking at all of this shit I'm talking about, a millennia-old history of abuse and injustice, deceit and willful ignorance -- and then on the other hand, looking at a couple of years of atheists being snarky on the Internet -- and seeing the two as somehow equivalent? Or worse, seeing the snarky atheists as the greater problem?

If you're doing that, then with all due respect, you can blow me.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled attempts at civility.


Addendum: If you're having trouble commenting, seeing your comment, or reading the other comments on this post, please read this. Thanks.

Addendum 2: I've written a reply to the most common themes that are coming up in the comments here. If you're going to comment on this post, you might want to check it out first.

Comments

[Billy]

Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.

[Peter Marreck]

Changing your own worldview is the hardest thing to do. Whether you're a member of a certain faith, or an atheist.

A lot of the discord revolves around unanswered questions and ignorance of opposing viewpoints. We should all keep in mind that there is only one objective truth, however... out there, somewhere.

[Linus' helpermonkey]

Fantastic post. Got me all pissed off (and I'm not even an atheist) - it's a good thing that most of the office is out this week or they'd find me all ranty in the kitchen.

You're absolutely right that no civil rights movement has ever gotten anywhere without some good, articulate rage to fuel it.

[Ryan Boughter]

Let me just lay some things out: I'm religious, I'm obviously on your anger list (at first I thought I wasn't, but you effectively lumped EVERY single religious Christian (at the least) into your list by the end). And I'm a bit concerned.

You're totally right though. I'm concerned more with the way religion is going (and has been going, since, well, before Galileo, but pointedly since then) than with you and like minded 'angry' atheists. But I'm curious: you point out every quibble you have with religion, yet you say you hate people that do that. You lump all religious people into one category and then say if we disagree with your lumping, how dare we interpret God's word that way. You make note of the "God-of-the-gaps" ideology as if it were gospel, yet make no note of the alternative religious views on the subject of science/religion.

My question to you is: why, instead of writing such a long blog post, don't you just say "I am angry with (bold, underline, font size HUGE) EVERYTHING that religion does, and ALL religious people. Because, I would like to have a dialogue with you, one that doesn't involve hate, perpetuation of old stereotypes, or old, hashed out arguments (on both sides), but you effectively put me at odds with you, and I find that disheartening. I hope that in time your anger will subside, like many of the great movements before you mentioned, but until that time comes the thing I learned from you is: I will never, ever, tell my atheist friends (or any atheist for that matter) to calm the F down.

[jeremy]

HOLY.

SHIT.

I swear there would be something smarter here in this comment section right now if I wasn't completely reeling.

Amen.
Exactly.
Right on.
Yes.
GO.
Etc.

Easily the best blog post I've read this year - and you're in high company there. :)

[Kyleaxe]

I'm not atheist but i'm angry as FUCK. I am shaman and their is room for interpretation. REFORM,REDEFINE! Jesus was a pot smoking mushroom eating hippy!
All praise money, the antichrist and slavery! Hail king of north america Bush. Gay la douche.

[another angry atheist]

here's some angry atheist music...

http://www.ijigg.com/search?s=+atheism

- Belief in god Never Cured Stupidity

- charlatan bastard jesus

- Tax The Churches For Unwanted Pregnancies

- kiss my ass, jesus

- jesus gave me head

- xtians are gay for jesus

[Susie Bright]

I'm angry because I spent the first years of my life actually BELIEVING that there was this place called Hell and I was going to BURN forever in it because I didn't wash the dishes properly, because I read books too much, because I "had bad thoughts," because Sister WhatTheFuck told me so, because I liked John Lennon better than Jesus, because I touched a Ouija board, etc etc etc. And when you're six and seven years old you have faith. It's just too sickening.

[Dave Noonan]

Fucking beautiful. Thank you so much.

[Scott]

While I happen to share many of your views, I don't share the view that writing a log blog post bitching and moaning about how angry you are, is going to affect any useful change what-so-ever.

Especially since you're basically "preaching to the choir." (Funny analogy given the topic of your post, I know.)

Stop wasting so much time being angry and writing blog posts about the hundreds of reasons why you're angry and start working to actually educate and inform more people in a constructive way.

Unless you're like most bloggers who just like to spew words in the hope of receiving piles of meaningless praise.

[Pamela]

Good post. I certainly hope religious people would be angry about all these as well.

[zachariah skylab]

Nice rant. Sorry about all that. I'm religious to my bones but I find atheism gives me a fresh perspective on things.

Unrelatedly, the foregoing rant smacked heavily of theism.

[Kelly]

This was incredible, Greta. Thank you.

Betalife, I commend you. My husband and I are trying to conceive, and we've been getting nothing but crap from people about choosing to raise a child without faith-based beliefs. I can tell it won't be easy—not because of our abilities or my child's capabilities, but because there is a society out there who unethically or ignorantly tries to pass off faith for fact, that believe it’s moral and ethical to inhibit a child’s natural curiosity and critical thinking for something faith-based.

Perhaps that, Greta, is something to add. I’m angry (today, anyway) because people “of faith” are telling me that because I once worked at an women’s clinic as a counselor for women considering abortion, God’s “made me barren” because I haven’t conceived in the three months that I’ve been actively trying. I’m angry because people would prefer to confuse cause and effect and accept appeals as empirical evidence. That comfort trumps truth. That people prefer to be anesthetized to rather than wrestle with the natural existential anxiety inherent in the human condition, and then they claim this is a virtue, something honorable, something to be glorified. That people who accept a blood sacrifice for their “salvation” are, by default, moral people.

Actually, I think all this would fall under all your categorical points above.

[Joe M]

Wow, just... wow.

Excellent post!

[Jeff]

Trust me, the God you don't believe in...doesn't exist.

[Alex]

Wonderful Brilliant. Could not have said it better myself. Ironically, if you were an actual goddess, I'd totally base a religion around you....

[James]

Excellent article, I agree with most of your points and share your frustration. I'm not atheistic, I'm agnostic, but I'm extremely skeptical in any capacity towards a supreme being. With that being said, I loath organized religion with a passion that is unparalleled.

Thank you for this write up, and keep up the work.

I'm not trying to spam, but visit imminst.org. As atheist/agnostic who doubt an afterlife, all we can hope for is life-extension from a scientific/technological aspect, and seeing how this is the 21st century, it would be naive to think it's not possible.

Remember, this life we live here is our own heaven, and I'm equally disgusted when religious nutjobs try to taint our lives.

[secret asian man]

I love this post, but yet I'm going to have to disagree.

We *need* religion. I say this as the atheist son of atheist scientists. I'm a kuffar, an infidel, an unbeliever, and I say we need religion.

I used to be angrier. I thought that religion was a trick by which the powerful gave people some good ideas, "thou shalt not kill" to trick them into believing some spiritual BS that benefitted the powerful.

I had it all backwards.

When my father died, my (atheist all her life) mother said "at least he's gone to a better place".

Why? Because she needed to believe that.

Most people are irrational. They need to believe these things:
- Good will prevail and evil will be punished
- The universe is not mechanistic, but actually cares about them in a deeply personal way.
- Death is not final.
- We are members of a nearly unbreakable community that will take care of us.
- Someone else will take responsibility for your actions.
- There are simple, comprehensible explanations for natural phenomena.

Now, all these things are false. Comforting, but false. If your powers of logic or will are weak, you will find some way to believe the above.

When my father died? My mother spontaneously came up with some bogus stuff. What happens when kids with no facility for logic rebel against Christianity? They usually walk right into another, equally irrational and empirically false religion or "spiritualism". What happens when people get shipwrecked somewhere? They come up with religion.

Most people *want* to be irrational. They feel this need at an uncontrollable, heroin-addiction level. They desperately want to believe certain things that are emotionally comforting but false, and they will come up with complex systems in order to justify these beliefs. These systems of rationalization are religions.

Religion, at least, piggybacks on these desires and sneaks in a little good stuff, like "thou shalt not kill"

When I realized this, I realized I had the causal arrow backwards.

It wasn't

People believe "thou shalt not kill" and get tricked into believing in imaginary bearded friends in the sky.

It was:

People want to believe in imaginary friends. We might as well use this belief to trick them into not killing.

Atheism, like dunking a basketball or higher mathematics, is a skill accessible only to people of specific talents and training.

Let me put it another way:

Newtonian mechanics is false. However, it's reasonably capable to comprehend. Relativistic mechanics is significantly better, but harder to comprehend.

Why do we teach (false) Newtonian mechanics? Because in the overwhelming majority of situations, it is almost perfect in accuracy, and yet can be understood.

Similarly, religion teaches people to form communities, observe reciprocity, save money, and understand the natural world.

Without religion, these people would be worse. Far worse.

Take away Creationism from these people and they'll find something even more stupid.

Take away the ancient religions from these people and they'll find something even more stupid. (This process is already happening, with new-age religions that are even more irrational than the garden variety Abrahamic ones)

Taking away religion from these people is like mandating we teach relativity in fourth grade. Sure, I could handle it, and you could handle it, but what about those who can't?

What about those people who need religion to keep them psychologically together.

[Ashley]

JY,

The reason the term fundamentalist is still wrong is because atheists don't hold to a set of beliefs. There is no equivalent of a denomination.

Atheism in and of itself is a lack of belief. No one is getting together and saying "here's how to be a *real* atheist".

[Ts ila]

You have a right to your anger, and to express it, but holding onto it is bondage. But you really don't know what a True Christian is like. I am sorry you have had experience with un-Christian-like people. But not everyone who calls themself a Christian actually is one. Christians walk in love and forgiveness. We are kind, gentle and humble. To condemn us all for a few is unjust. But to be judged by you or anyone, to me, is a small thing. God is the One Judge. He will judge us all for the things we have done on this earth, there is nothing that will not be brought to light. He is the only One I care to please. I hope you find peace.

[Elizabeth]

I am angry too, but I am not an avowed atheist. If you're not angry, you're not paying attention...

[Bill]

Christian religion speaks of the End Times, or Judgement Day. As an agnostic, I believe/hope the time is near since it will not be all doom and gloom/end of the world stuff, but rather an end to religion. People will realize that it does not make sense and equate with reality especially as communication and "voice" continues to grow globally. Information is the key and the world is a much bigger information source now as compared to past generations. With each new generation, I believe less of the population buys into religion. The Catholic church has taken major hits over the years, and will likely not recover, especially to its glory years during the Dark Ages. Other flavors of Christianity as well as most other dominant religions also will likely suffer from the spread of information and concept of choice.

Religion's "End Times" are coming and there will hopefully be lasting peace once this comes, but it will not be at the hand of Jesus, but rather the spread of real time information and the human species realizing that all this religious dogma does not make sense, and "I" am not going to devote my life to the nonsense.

[Kevin]

I was angry at the twit next to me in an airplane. He made the sign of the cross and prayed before landing.

It fucking works every time! If it lands he validates god's service to him, ensuring safe landing.

If the plane crashes into a firey inferno then it does not matter anyway.

Win-win. That's why I hate religion.

[looneymoonbat]

Great piece Greta.

As Margaret Cho says, "Sometimes I just want to 'go there'" too.

I am angry that my brother has been crippled by MS and our government actively blocks research into technology and science that could help him walk or cure him entirely. Rather than utilize embryonic material that would have been discarded anyway, they, upon their religious belief, impute this as gods will - and value a cluster of cells higher than a live, suffering human.

I am angry when violence against doctors and employees of family planning clinics is committed by religious zealots, and the rest of the religious communities do not do more to self-police these groups. I am angry that Teri Schaivo was used as a prop in a charade of faux piety when the spark of anything that made her uniquely definable as a human being had long departed. I am angry when the bible and religious belief is used to attempt to explain or justify hate crimes against gays. I am angry when gay kids kill themselves because they are raised in households filled with religious intolerance for gays. I am angry that Mathew Shepard was killed, because the root cause of all this homophobia, and the ultimate justification for it, is based in religion. I am angry that the church asks queers to sacrifice their sexuality on the alter of celibacy in order to "enter the kingdom of heaven" - that is essentially what "love the sinner, hate the sin" means. I am angry that this god of theirs always demands being approached on ones knees. I am angry that their god plays a "zero-sum" game when everything else in the natural world testifies to the multiplicity , variety, and diversity of the universe. I am angry that atheists are called immoral when it is the christians who are afraid to do the moral heavy lifting of finding meaning and purpose in their lives without the aid of some vast supernatural entity - or having it spoon fed to them. I am angry that christians would presume to know anything whatsoever about my inner life and moral character when they can't bother themselves to know anything about atheism. I am angry that Jesus and Mahammoud and the pope are held up as figures above reproach and criticism and that the lives of anyone who dares question their moral authority will be in jeopardy. I am angry that the natural world, with all of its wonders that can be seen, and felt, and tasted, and smelled, and heard, and is in itself awe inspiring and amazing, with mysteries still to be discovered and explored, is dismissed based purely on a "feeling" - the inability of human limited minds to think beyond themselves. I am angry that all of this universe is still not enough to fill someone with respect and reverence for life and everything else in it that people had to go invent god to explain it all, and that even as we begin to understand the universe people STILL cling to fables and fantasy. I am angry that christians can not see that from an atheists point of view their beliefs are as equally valid as believing in Zeus, Thor, Shiva, or the Goddess - how does one chose between one supernatural agency over another? Is it all luck of the draw depending on the age and culture you are born into?

One thing I've said about anger is that anger tells us something about ourselves if we are willing to listen. Anger tells us where our boundaries lie. Sometimes we don't know a boundary within ourselves until we are angry about something. Our anger stands up for us when we would otherwise be cowed, or bullied, or oppressed.

Good piece. I enjoyed reading it.

[Kris]

Wow. Great post! I want more snarky atheists in my life if they're going to be as smart and articulate as you.

[Emily]

A-fucking-men.

[Ranger Joe]

From an atheist that used to be in a foxhole I give you a great big, "Hooah!"

[Kagehi]

"If Christians acted like Christians, you wouldn't be angry."

Bard gets it even less that you said. This is standard, "My far better understanding of what Christians are trumps your arguments about how they actually act!", excuse that is already mentioned in the article. Its bullshit. The number of assholes in Christianity, even *before* the Nicene Creed, when they decided what was "acceptable" stories, so they could better figure out which "false" Christians to kill, has outnumbered the *true* Christians Brad is babbling about by at least 100:1, if not worse. Its like arguing that Stalin wasn't a true "communist". It might even be an accurate description, if you want to nitpick to that silly an extent, but its not a valid argument when 99.9% of the governments that call themselves communist have been based on Stalin's model, and not on the gloriously pure version a "true" communist would want to argue for. Same for Christianity. 99.9% of Christian churhes, and their attitudes/beliefs towards "everyone else" have been based on the same, "We are better than everyone else, and since we are, we will talk a lot about loving our neighbors and hating sin but not the sinners, but when push comes to shove, if you are one of the later you are, at minimum, going to get thrown out the door, and you should feel lucky we don't also light you on fire as you leave."

We are not angry about the imaginary "perfect" Christains you are talking about Brad. I have seen not one scrap of evidence that they are any more real for the most part than Unicorns or Pixies, unless you count the various fictional accounts of all three you can find in made up books, TV shows and movies.

Now, a note on Unitarians and Annie Sprinkle's post... Give me a break. Statistics on them show that like 18% or something *of* Universal Unitarians, when asked, say they don't believe in God any more than any hard line atheist, despite being members of a "church". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism And you won't find a single atheist denying love, charity, or anything else that gets labeled "spiritual". What you will find is some that are rather irritated by using a word that implies supernatural forces of some sort, which contradict the total lack of evidence for such things, or some who don't have that big a problem with the term, but are real tired of some people waving it around like it means something more than the sum of their emotional reactions to the world around them, and that therefor they "deny" its existence. The question of "if" such things exist is, honestly, as up in the air as anything else that *may* be imaginary, but where you can't disprove it. The difference of course being that we tend to place the supernatural rather low on the list of possible things because nothing anyone has ever come up with suggest that such a thing "does" or "must" exist. This is in contrast with something like say, extraterrestrial life, for which we *at least* know the laws of physics, the age of the universe and the shear number of places such a thing might be, makes is "likely" that such a thing exists some place.

In other words, atheists don't deny spirituality. They deny it special categorization outside the realm of reality and/or that the term, which carries with it the implication that they lie outside the real world, means anything in the first place, instead of talking about the "real" things that people arbitrarily toss into the "spiritual" basket, so they don't have to actually think about what they really mean/are or how they happen.

[Guy Warner]

Thanks awesome post!! I shared it with who I could. And our struggle is just starting to come to light. We will do great things if we can come together.

[eponymous coward]

bleh... TLDR

[torotech]

Don't you feel like your Luke Skywalker stuck in a Star Wars Movie? You must channel your anger. May the force be with you. Great Blog.

PEACE,
Brian

[CHADMAC]

Very nice article. Apart from my being a heterosexual male, you pretty much captured my thoughts on this matter. I will now do my part and forward this on to my loyal base of readers..... all ten of them.

Cheers

[PuckishOne]

I agree that this is a wonderful post and that our anger is understandable, organic, and justifiable - thank you, Greta Christina, for saying what I want to say nearly on a daily basis.

I also want to reinforce what commenter JJ Ramsey said: We cannot descend into our own forms of revisionism, our own quote-mining contests...in other words, we can't stoop to the level of those we are trying to fight, even if being snarky is one of the things we're really, really good at. It sucks to have to take the high ground, but ultimately I believe that's what's going to get the atheist "agenda" (such as it is) accepted into the mainstream. If anger provides the fuel for this, I say bring it on.

[Cynic the Infotainer]

Say it loud "I'm godless and proud!"

I believe atheism is the new "Gay!"

More on atheism (if you're interested):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTGQss54mhY

[Nick]

I'm angry that religionists think the world can only be beautiful as God's creation and can't be beautiful otherwise. I'm angry with original sin, what chance does that give us? I'm angry that they claim all human spiritual progress as their own and take the credit away from the humans who made the actual progress.
Stay angry dude.

[annoDomini]

In reading the litany of religion's offenses, I am reminded of a historical figure with an equal measure of anger: John Calvin, famous (infamous?) merchant and theologian. As a result of his anger and his writing, the Protestant Reformation was strengthened and the power of the (Roman) Catholic Church was curtailed. During his lifetime, he inspired tens of thousands to question various dogma pronounced by the Pope and other Catholic leaders. Since his death, his writing has influenced millions to grapple with tough moral questions.

In a similar fashion, Greta's ideas posted here may have a profound affect on our world and on human beliefs, even well beyond the immediate recognition received on this site.

But let me offer this warning about the power of an "angry pen": Late in Calvin's life, when he had become famous, a small group of people claiming to be his "followers" proceeded to convict several of Calvin's detractors of heresy. The sentence was to be burned alive. Neither the trials nor the punishment was dictated or even approved by Calvin. His readers were simply determined to act on Calvin's anger. He is purported to have been despondent when informed of those deeds. To this day, many people attribute those deaths to Calvin.

Be angry; let your anger lead to redress the injustices you perceive and can influence. But know that the antecedent of anger is often hatred and the result of hatred is often violence. The unintended consequence of your success could be that 200 years hence, the same offenses that you have laid at the feet of "religion" will instead be attributed to "atheism".

To turn a famous quote:
Never underestimate the power of a large group of ignorant people to destroy the goodness begun by a small group of believers in a just cause.

[T.T]

This is a beautiful post, and sums up exactly how I feel.

Old fashioned bigotry still exists - not towards any race or class - but toward those who don't believe in fairy tales.

[Ken Hagler]

H/T to Calladus Blog for the link and thank you for your writing. I'm just not sure saying thank you is the right thing to say but it maybe all I can say.

I'm sorry too. Your words and anger and emotions were well written and if they didn't break anyone else's heart, they broke mine.

BTW, I haven't bothered to read what anyone else wrote and don't really care to. Your words were enough.

[Reed Braden]

If this weren't the Internet, I'd hug you.

[Ken Hagler]

H/T to Calladus Blog for the link and thank you for your writing. I'm just not sure saying thank you is the right thing to say but it maybe all I can say.

I'm sorry too. Your words and anger and emotions were well written and if they didn't break anyone else's heart, they broke mine.

BTW, I haven't bothered to read what anyone else wrote and don't really care to. Your words were enough.

[Thanny]

"unimaginable enormity of the universe"

I know pedantry is perhaps the second most annoying thing in the world (first is proselytizing), but "enormity" is not a synonym for "enormousness".

I know it's used like that all the time in the popular (and not-so-popular) media, but they're all wrong. Someone, somewhere wanted a word that means "enormousness", but rolled off the tongue more smoothly. Said person moved right past correctly using "immensity", and settled on the archaic word "enormity", which actually means depraved abnormality.

Sure, eventually, the dictionaries (being descriptive, not prescriptive) will move the newly-added corrupt definition to the head of the entry. But I can still complain about some journalist who didn't know how to use a dictionary resurrecting a dead word with the wrong meaning because he/she thought it sounded better.

I'll close with that, before I get started on "moot".

[Al Shaw]

Wow.

Why don't you come over to England?

It's a lot more easy going over here.

[Ben]

Amen!

Arg! Did I say that!?! I totally agree with you. You've given me a few more points to bitch about... on top of the already huge "why I hate christianity" list. Kudos!

Now to go do my own ranting...

[susie Bright]

More angry-emo-atheist-woman rants, please! I didn't even know it was a genre.

[Michelle]

An athiest friend sent this to me. I find it funny and sad - sad for all you people who don't have faith and are so angry. I don't meet too many believers who suffer from this kind of rage and anger. seriously, get a life. My take on atheists - you folks are scared of 'faith', cos you do not have it, do not understand it, maybe wish you did, at some level, and are damn scared!
You might want to use your anger at helping the world - stop trying to be angry for the mis-guidance( if there is such a word) that happens to those who have faith. trust me, we can take care of ourselves. we have faith, dude.

[Monument]

You know what makes me angry? People who censor posts that disagree with their point of view.

Atheism is a religion.

[Musicguy]

This is an incredible post!!! I'm giving you a standing ovation. Thank you for speaking your mind and articulating so many of my feelings. Keep up the good work!

[Jen]

Huh. I never even had a faint idea that I should be angry about anything. Now I feel stupid.

[Marcus Ranum]

((applause))

[Jen]

Huh. I never even had a faint idea that I should be angry about anything. Now I feel stupid.