Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless (9 page)

Quashing medicine and public health.
Ditto “Quashing science and education.” But with this addition:

Religion, and its unverifiability, promotes the idea that the invisible afterlife is more important than this life, the one we know exists. And it therefore promotes the idea that even if a medical treatment or health policy would reduce disease and death, it doesn’t matter. Even though condoms help prevent the spread of AIDS, even though immunizing girls against genital warts helps prevent cervical cancer, even though stem cell research could lead to great advances in medicine… it doesn’t matter. What matters isn’t disease and death in this life. What matters is the next life. What matters is God’s will.

Which, again, we have no way of verifying. And which therefore, by the horrible freakish paradox of the armor of God, gets priority.

Terrorizing children.
And again, we come to the matter of priorities.

If we prioritized this life, we would never terrorize children by telling them they’ll be tortured in fire forever if they don’t obey our rules. We would never tell them to imagine putting their hands in a fire, to imagine the crackling and burning and screaming pain… and then to imagine doing that for a minute. An hour. A day. A lifetime. Eternity.

Not unless we were horribly abusive.

But when people think that the next life is more important than this one — when people think that the infinite burning and torture is genuinely going to happen if their children don’t obey God’s word — they’ll gladly give their children nightmarish visions of pain and torture, dispensed by the fatherly god who supposedly created them and loves them. They’ll do it without a second thought. When people prioritize their belief in an afterlife that, by definition, is impossible to prove or disprove, they cut the reality check that’s telling them — no, that’s begging them — not to terrorize and emotionally abuse their own children.

Teaching children about Hell is child abuse. Nothing but the unverifiable promise of permanent bliss or torture in the afterlife would make loving, decent, non-abusive parents inflict it on their children.

I could go on, and on, and on. But I think you get the idea.

Now, many believers will argue that the harm done by religion isn’t religion’s fault. Many believers will point out all the wars, bigotry, fraud, oppression, quashing of science and medicine, and terrorizing of children done for reasons other than religion. Many will argue that, even when this horrible stuff is done in the name of religion, it isn’t inspired by religion at all. It’s inspired by greed, fear, selfishness, the hunger for power, the desire for control… all the things that lead people to do evil. And many will point out that not all religions are the extremist variety that leads people to commit atrocities and deny reality.

And again I’ll say: Yes, you have a point. It would be simplistic to argue that religion is the root of all evil, or to deny the role that money and power and tribalism and other human tendencies play in religious hatred and conflict. I know that the impulses driving evil are deeply rooted in human nature, and religion is far from the only thing to inspire it.

I’m saying that religion provides a uniquely stubborn justification for evil. I’m saying that religion is uniquely armored against criticism, questioning, and self-correction… and that this armor protects it against the reality checks that act, to a limited degree and in the long run, to keep evil in check. I’m saying that religion takes the human impulses towards evil, and cuts the brake line, and sends them careening down a hill and into the center of town.

Without religion, we would still have community. Charity. Social responsibility. Philosophy. Ethics. Comfort. Solace. Art. In countries where less than half the population believes in God, these qualities and activities are all flourishing. In fact, they’re flourishing far more than they are in countries with high rates of religious belief.

We don’t need religion to have any of these things.

And we’d be better off without it.

“But surely you don’t mean progressive and moderate religion! You’re talking about the fundamentalists, the extremists, the Taliban, the hard-core Religious Right. But that’s not true Christianity, true Judaism, true Islam, true whatever. Of course you’re angry about that stuff. But I’m a progressive believer! I support gay rights! I support separation of church and state! I support science — I don’t think it has to be in conflict with religion! I’m tolerant and accepting of other religions! When you talk about what makes atheists mad about religion… surely you don’t mean me?”

Actually — yes, I do mean you.

Okay. I’ll modify that a bit. I’m not
as
angry about progressive and moderate religion as I am about the extremist varieties. If all religion were moderate, ecumenical, separate from government, supportive of science, and accepting of non-belief… well, atheists would still disagree with it, but most of us wouldn’t much care.

But moderate and progressive religion still does harm. And it still pisses me off.

Moderate and progressive religion still encourages people to believe in invisible beings, inaudible voices, intangible entities, undetectable forces, and events and judgments that happen after we die. And therefore, it still disables reality checks… making people more vulnerable to oppression, fraud, and abuse.

And moderate and progressive religion still encourages the basic idea of faith: the idea that it’s acceptable, and even virtuous, to believe things you have no good reason to think are true. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard moderate and progressive believers say how wonderful it is to think with your heart and not your head; how we need religion to preserve the mystery of life; how an excessive concern with reason and evidence closes you off to the grander truths of the Universe. Moderate and progressive religion encourages the idea that it’s acceptable, even virtuous, to prioritize wishful thinking over reality. It encourages the idea that it’s acceptable, even virtuous, to give greater importance to the world inside your head than you do to the vast world outside of it. It encourages the idea that it’s acceptable, even virtuous, to ignore reality when we’re making important decisions that affect ourselves and others.

And that, in and of itself, is a disturbing and dangerous idea.

Let’s make an analogy. Let’s pretend there are people who are convinced that they get instructions on how to live, not from God, but from their hair dryer. Let’s say that Person 1 thinks their hair dryer is telling them to shoot every redhead who gets on the 9:04 train. And let’s say Person 2 thinks their hair dryer is telling them to volunteer twice a week at a homeless shelter.

Is it better to volunteer at a homeless shelter than it is to shoot every redhead who gets on the 9:04 train? Of course it is.

But you still have a basic problem — which is that you think your hair dryer is talking to you.

You are still getting your ethics from a hair dryer. You are still getting your perception of reality and your ideas about how to live your life, not from the core moral values that most human beings seem to share, not from any solid evidence about what decreases suffering and increases fairness and happiness, not from your own experience of what makes the world a better place… but from a household appliance.

And that’s a problem. It’s a problem for what I hope is an obvious reason: Hair dryers don’t talk to us. Thinking that they do is out of touch with reality. And I hope I don’t have to explain why we should care about reality, and about whether the things we believe are true.

But it’s also a problem because, if you think your hair dryer is a valid source of moral guidance… what do you do if it starts telling you something different? Something less noble than “volunteer at the homeless shelter twice a week”? Something absurd (and not in a good way); something self-destructive; something grossly immoral?

What do you do if your hair dryer starts telling you to go to your blind date wearing a wedding dress and a hat made from a rubber chicken? What do you do if your hair dryer starts telling you, not just to volunteer at the homeless shelter twice a week, but to donate your entire paycheck to the homeless shelter, every week, to the point where you become homeless yourself? What do you do if your hair dryer starts telling you to shoot every redhead who gets on the 9:04 train?

If you don’t have a better reason for what you do than, “The hair dryer told me to,” you’re in trouble. You have no reality check on your perceptions or ideas or decisions. And if you do have a better reason for what you do than, “The hair dryer told me to”… then why do you need the hair dryer?

So yes. If you’re volunteering at a homeless shelter twice a week, you’re doing better than the person who shoots every redhead on the 9:04 train. But if you’re getting your ideas about reality and morality from a household appliance… then you’ve got a problem.

And if you’re getting your ideas about reality and morality from an invisible being who nobody can agree about and who you have no good reason to think even exists… then you’ve got a problem.

Faith without evidence is a bad idea. It’s a bad idea to believe things you have no good reason to think are true. Even if it sometimes leads to good conclusions; even if it’s moderate and tolerant… it’s still a bad idea. Period.

What’s more: Moderate religion is in the minority. The oppressive, intolerant, reality-denying forms of religion are far more common, and far better at perpetuating themselves. And moderate religion gives these ugly forms credibility. It gives credibility to the idea that faith — i.e., believing in things you have no good reason to think are true — is valid, and indeed virtuous. It gives credibility to the idea that invisible worlds are real: not only real, but more real, and more important, than the visible world. It gives credibility to the idea that our profoundly biased intuition is more trustworthy than logic or verifiable evidence. It gives credibility to the idea that religious beliefs, alone among all other ideas, should be beyond criticism, and that the very act of questioning religion is inherently intolerant. (And when questioned even a little by non-believers, its adherents tend to get decidedly hostile and un-moderate.)

As for that whole “they’re not true Christians” thing…

Progressive Christians love to say that extremist bigotry and hateful hellfire isn’t Christian. “The true message of Jesus is compassion and tolerance,” they’ll say. “The true message of Jesus is loving your neighbor. What the Christian Right does and says — that’s not true Christianity.”

And they’re just as full of it as the Christian Right.

I obviously agree with them about the actual issues. Bigoted theocracy — boo. Love and tolerance and being nice to gay people — yay. The progressive view of Christ’s message is a better one. It’s just not a more Christian one.

Of course the progressives and moderates can quote chapter and verse to support their flavor of Christianity. But the Christian Right can do that, too. It’s easy to find
hellfire and intolerant judgment
in the Bible, even in the Gospels. There are, by my count,
thirty-seven places in the Gospels
where the Jesus character explicitly refers to the concept of Hell. And that doesn’t count the more indirect implications and allusions. The references aren’t out of context, either: they’re woven throughout the text, with several consistent themes emerging, such as people being damned to Hell for hearing Jesus and still not believing. It’s not a tangential concept — it’s front and center.

And yes, the Christian Right cherry-picks the parts of Scripture that support their vision, and ignores the parts that don’t. Which is exactly what progressive Christians do when they ignore the “wrath and damnation” stuff. Both sides have Scriptural support for their version of Christianity. And neither side has any better evidence for why the cherries they picked are the ones Jesus wants us to eat. When Christians of any stripe look at other Christians and say, “They’re not true Christians,” the question I always want to ask is, “How do you know?”

I’ll tell you how they know. They don’t. When you ask progressive Christians why they believe their Christianity is the true one, all they can ultimately say is, “That’s just what I believe,” or, “I feel it in my heart.” Like all believers, their belief that they’re accurately perceiving God’s message comes down to the conviction of faith. But the Christian Right has just as much conviction. They feel it in their hearts just as powerfully. Their faith in a pissy, bigoted, judgmental Christ who’s obsessed with who’s fucking who and how… it’s every bit as strong as liberal Christians’ faith in a gentle, forgiving Christ who wants us to treat one another with compassion.

And it’s not like the Christian Right is some obscure sect that believes Jesus is a space alien or something. They’re the largest, most politically powerful religious group in the United States. The hellfire version of Christianity is a huge part of the reality and history of the faith.