An Unbelieving Life, Part 2: The Temptation

I realize that in the first half of this post, I committed what may be a grave mistake. Many religious people stereotype atheists as "angry against God", and certainly I was a very angry person as a child. However, my atheism is mostly as a result of an excellent education which involved a great deal of training in critical thinking; also, the fact that both my parents are very nebulously deistic and did not steep me for very long in any religious tradition. I am certainly angry about unreason, and bigotry, and I resent conservative Christian dogma because it turned my uncle into a monster, my ex-boyfriend into an unloving automaton, and my father into an angry, bitter old man. I have no such sentiments toward Judaism, however, and I even admire some belief systems such as Buddhism or Jainism.

With that being said, allow me to move on to the rest of the story.

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I am in awe of the myth of Christ's sacrifice.

Yes, you heard me correctly. The idea that some special person in the long-distant past laid down his priceless life out of unconditional love for all humanity makes my spine tingle and my eyes fill with tears of awe and grief. When I was twenty-one, a useless college dropout with no job and seemingly no future, I turned to Christ in desperation because I couldn't stand feeling so bad anymore. What I found wasn't God's love for me, though; it was my own love, for myself and for the world in which I have the great fortune to exist. From the day I awoke from my god-soaked stupor and realized the true nature of my epiphany, I swore that I would dedicate my life to love and harmlessness.

I also developed a great tolerance for Christians. I finally understood what the big deal was, and I admired them for opening their hearts to unconditional love and acceptance of their brethren. Alas, if only it were true! The day that a group of my Christian coworkers gathered near my desk and began slandering homosexuals and unbelievers, I felt the fires of anger stir again in my mind. This was a different anger, though, one that blamed the ideas and not the people espousing them. Now, I am teaching myself to win arguments with Christians, to show them the hypocrisy of the dogma they are taught by their preachers and hopefully to lead them to a kinder, gentler, more informed practice of their beliefs. Like PZ Myers said in Expelled - I don't want to take away anyone's faith. I just don't want to see it ruining their lives and their minds.