Pabulum

Answers for Creationists, Part I

This will be the first in an entirely unoriginal series of postings giving answers for common creationist questions. As far as I'm aware, hundreds of people out there already do this. If you can confirm that it is, in fact, thousands, please do so and I will amend accordingly.

In fact, there already are smarter people who do this. There already are more eloquent people who do this. There are funnier people who do this. There are more well-read and experienced people who do this. There are more convincing, charismatic, charitable, persuasive people who do this. So, then, why do this, you ask? Well, in an effort to carve out my own little niche, I will attempt to be the pithiest person to do this. This has the doublegoodthink bonus of not having to type too much.

Answer for Creationists #1:

Q: If you don't believe in the afterlife, what do you think happens after you die?

A: Remember what it was like before you were born? It's pretty much just like that.

Update: And I promise next time, I'll try to answer, you know, a creationist question, rather than just a plain old religious one. Oy.

We're all in this together.

So I've heard a few comments (not that you'd know, as there are no published comments) on my initial atheism post below. I'm being told that my initial "atheism is like homosexuality" statement is offputting and gives an impression that I'm positing homosexuality as a negative from the beginning. And it's been recommended to me that I rephrase the initial point to something more along the lines of, "Atheism and homosexuality are perceived/misconstrued/viewed in much the same way," yada yada yada.

To respond first to the complaints: I don't get it. My opening paragraph clearly identifies me as an atheist and discusses some of the issues I deal with as such. When I then go on to say atheism is like homosexuality, I just don't understand where the negative gut reaction comes from. Since I've established myself as an atheist, it doesn't make sense that I would equate something else to atheism as an insult to that something else. So that leaves me with one interpretation: That the perceived insult to homosexuality is in comparing it to atheism, as if atheism itself is something bad. This is a problem on the part of the reader, and something I will not edit my post in order to avoid. I want that reader to have that reaction and hopefully examine it once he recognizes it for what it is.

Now, clearly, there are many and varied differences between atheism and homosexuality. Atheism is an all volunteer force, homosexuality holds a draft. Atheism has scant (if any) civil rights hurdles to overcome, homosexuality has many. And, of course and most importantly, the two operate in entirely different spheres of our being.

There are, however, also many similarities, not the least of which is that embracing either of these self-identifications involves the rejection of some of our more "traditional" constructs, which I think goes a long way towards explaining why there is not insignificant overlap between the two groups. But also, they are similar in matters of public perception, which was the point of my post. How the public at large views atheism and how it views homosexuality and what assumptions they make about them have a lot of overlap and interplay, and an understanding of one can help us examine the other.

That was my only point, and I think it gets itself across if you give the post a bit of time and attention. Please let me know if you disagree.

As for the suggested rewrite, I understand, and have considered making it. (I actually did an initial rewrite where I took the "burn in hell" joke over the top, as it originally was a bit too ambiguous to make itself clear as a joke.) But I decided not to. Part of me has decided not to because I'm taking A STAND. I will not rewrite my posts to avoid misreadings that would correct themselves if people would just keep reading a few lines further, dammit! But a much bigger part of me has decided not to rewrite the line because, simply, it messes with the succeeding joke, and I just can't have that.

By Way of Further Introduction

Something I think this blog will deal with quite a bit in its lifetime is atheism. What do I (not) believe and why do I (not) believe it? As an atheist, how do I make moral decisions, and for what reasons, and why should I even care? How do I respond to the objections, in some ways correct, that with no ultimate moral arbiter, there is no basis for ever doing the right thing? That without it, there is no right at all?

In a lot of ways, I think atheism is like homosexuality, and not just because we'll all be roasting in the fiery pits of Hell for all eternity in an orgiastic communion of godless heathens and frenzied buggery. No, they're also alike because of the way society amplifies these traits.

I think a lot of the soft, idle disgust that some otherwise decent people can sometimes feel for homosexuality, and which lays the foundation for the more overt, insidious bigotry around us, stems from the misbegotten impression that most gay people are sex-crazed. This is, of course, not true. At least, it's no more true of the average gay person than it is of the average straight person. But because what we notice first and pay most attention to is the different, the odd, while a straight couple holding hands is just wholesome affection, a gay couple holding hands screams "GAY!" And because they appear to be screaming "GAY!" then the insides of their heads must be ringing with choruses of "GAY! GAY!" over and over again. Thus, they're sex-crazed and all they can ever think about is being gay.

In fact, they're just holding hands and all we can think about is that they're not straight.

In the same way, I don't walk around all day thinking, There is no God, there is no God. Isn't it beautiful in a world with no God? Ah, what a nice tree, made by the hand of no God. However, in the course of any given day, I encounter so many references to God both great and small (the references, not the God) that my difference with "normal" people is highlighted often and starkly. I'm not obsessed with not believing in God, but the world around me is so obsessed with God that the sheer number of times my non-belief must manifest itself in response to the number of times I am confronted with belief can amount to nothing but an obsession.

Our differences from the majority manifest in numbers and ways proportional to the established norm, and so we are defined not by what we believe and how we believe it, but by what we don't believe and how dearly others hold that belief.