Atheism as Rebellion & Pride: Are Atheists Just Rebelling Against God
Friday May 9, 2008
There are many popular myths about atheism and atheists which claim that people are atheists on account of some sort of rebellion (against god, religion, church, families, fathers, etc.) or pride. These myths come primarily from Christians whose religious mythology gives an important place to rebellion against divine rules as the origin of evil in the world (Satan is depicted as having rebelled against God). At most, these myths might be true of some but not all or even most atheists; even if true, however, none of these myths would have any implications for the truth or reasonableness of atheism itself.
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I’m currently doing some discussions about children’s literature and skeptical messages. One that struck me strongly was Dumbo (and his magic feather). The idea is an old one. If a person lacks confidence, you give him the “magic feather” and tell him that he can’t fail as long as he has his lucky charm.
Religion does this. First it undercuts people’s confidence in themselves, by taking children and teaching them that they’re bad and wicked–inherently. They’re told that only through god can they be moral, happy, and acceptable (and, most importantly, eligible for salvation).
These children need salvation because they’re wicked, flawed, nasty little children. And also, they are directly responsible for forcing god to send Jesus down to be a gruesome human sacrifice. They were so wicked and awful that to good, baby Jesus had to die a horrid death to make up for their rotten, filthy crimes in this life/world.
After a decade and a half of that message, the kids are lucky to have a whisp of self-esteem left. But more likely, if they’ve really internalized it (and since it’s mom, dad, and every authority figure they’ve ever seen for the most part shoving this down their brains…?), they can only be worthy via their relationship with god. God deems them worthy despite the fact they are undeserving of his mercy. And this is all that redeems them from utter worthlessness.
So, first, the self-esteem is beaten out of them. Then it’s handed back to them as “god”–the magic feather.
It’s no mystery why many of these people are emotional cripples once they’re released into the world if they don’t lean on the Xianity of their mentors/parents. How can I make good decisions when I’ve been taught to follow blindly and not to think critically? So, I go off into the world, unsure of whether or not I believe, but I make a mess of my life, and find that it all works much better if I follow a predefined divine course.
In other words, I’m not equipped to think for myself, due to my upbringing, and I just do a whole lot better in a system that does the thinking for me now.
Then I credit religion for making my life much better than it was when I was trying to run it on my own (clumsily, since nobody ever encouraged me to question what I was told–since that is bad).
How this ties into your column is that when an atheist “questions”–that’s arrogant. I’ve been called arrogant and told I was wrong to think that I can live a life without god. I’ve been told I’ll go to hell for that attitude.
Imagine what such messages do to the mind of a 3-year-old.
Recently I had a brief exchange with a Lutheran who said that we should give religion credit where credit is due–that it really helps a lot of people who can’t get their lives together.
I replied that I can’t credit a man who robs me for generosity just because he gives me back some portion of my money. He understood and agreed that there is a potential in the message of salvation (salvation from WHAT? From ourselves and our flawed evil nature) to wreck self-esteem, but that any system has its good and bad points.
I said I agree that systems often have good and bad points, but that in the court of public opinion, it is nearly always considered to be a bad thing to do things to a child that impact his self-esteem in a negative way. While I agreed with him that there are a number of other ways to destroy or damage a child’s self-esteem, I pointed out that it’s rare that something that does this receives _praise_ in the court of public opinion. And that religion is rare in that it promotes as “good,” a system that, at its very core, teaches a doctrine of “salvation” that requires that a person accept he’s inherently worthless and corrupt, and that only this system can provide him any real worth. (And further, that by rejecting the idea of his utter worthlessness, he’s WAY out of line–pompous, arrogant, and rebellious.)
That’s what I can’t fathom.