Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - "Why do atheists get so outspoken and militant?" In this thread I do just that.

roachboy · 10-30-2006, 12:14 PM

this relation of atheism to christianity--protestant fundamentalist variant in particular, but across the board to one extent or another---is really strange to me. i think it follows from the fact that most more "militant" atheists are like recent converts--they are rejecting both the belief system and the role it played in their upbringing and so find themselves in a way stuck in the mirror image of what they reject---i think it takes time to work your way out from under that and learn not to care about it. that folk believed in this god business really irked me when i was in my early 20s---and i used to take some glee in those tiresome conversations that would erupt when someone would try to convert me.

fundamentalist protestants like to set up an image of atheism as the inverse of their own system mostly out of vanity i think. according to the usual schema, atheists are just the mirror image of themselves, and it is flattering at some level to imagine others as obsessed with fundamentalist protestantism as the fundamentalist protestants are. this image is really about reinforcing a sense of clear boundary that separates inside from outside, and is built around the mythological symmetry between heaven and hell. so it is little more than a projection of the logic of their worldview. which is why i find it strange that there are atheists who co-operate with this by continuing to take christianity SO SERIOUSLY.

i dont know when i stopped caring about all this....at some point i realized that i didnt really. which is nice because you can see what there is that can be therapeutic about these rituals--funerals for example are nice simply because they give you a structure to walk through when your are greiving, and having a structure at that time can be useful. and if i am around a cathederal, i might go to mass for the theater of it, because it looks and sounds cool.

one advantage of this distance is that it lets you see just how strange christianity really is.
but if you live in a community dominated by it, this may not be the happiest place to land.
but it is interesting.

10-30-2006, 12:14 PM	#12 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	this relation of atheism to christianity--protestant fundamentalist variant in particular, but across the board to one extent or another---is really strange to me. i think it follows from the fact that most more "militant" atheists are like recent converts--they are rejecting both the belief system and the role it played in their upbringing and so find themselves in a way stuck in the mirror image of what they reject---i think it takes time to work your way out from under that and learn not to care about it. that folk believed in this god business really irked me when i was in my early 20s---and i used to take some glee in those tiresome conversations that would erupt when someone would try to convert me. fundamentalist protestants like to set up an image of atheism as the inverse of their own system mostly out of vanity i think. according to the usual schema, atheists are just the mirror image of themselves, and it is flattering at some level to imagine others as obsessed with fundamentalist protestantism as the fundamentalist protestants are. this image is really about reinforcing a sense of clear boundary that separates inside from outside, and is built around the mythological symmetry between heaven and hell. so it is little more than a projection of the logic of their worldview. which is why i find it strange that there are atheists who co-operate with this by continuing to take christianity SO SERIOUSLY. i dont know when i stopped caring about all this....at some point i realized that i didnt really. which is nice because you can see what there is that can be therapeutic about these rituals--funerals for example are nice simply because they give you a structure to walk through when your are greiving, and having a structure at that time can be useful. and if i am around a cathederal, i might go to mass for the theater of it, because it looks and sounds cool. one advantage of this distance is that it lets you see just how strange christianity really is. but if you live in a community dominated by it, this may not be the happiest place to land. but it is interesting. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite