Why are Atheists so God damn (pun intended) angry : The rise of Phase Two Atheism.

Upon being asked by a Christian, while dining at a restaurant as to why the Muslims are “all-fired, god-damn fundamentalist.”, Christopher Hitchens reply nearly led to the questioner physically assaulting him and resulted in him finally leaving the restaurant. The reaction which was in every sense of the word triggered when Hitchens stated, “while there was little or no evidence for the life of Jesus, the figure of the Prophet Muhammad was, by contrast, a person in ascertainable history.”
A few days prior to the initial drafting of this article the Independent published a piece titled: “Atheists are less open minded than religious people” to which several of my colleagues and contemporaries chose to react in a similar fashion to the afore mentioned Christian. And a week later in Germany, a self-proclaimed “anti-theist” stabbed his Christian housemate because she opposed same-sex marriage.
A Christian Youth Pastor (Whose name has been withheld) is cited to have said the following:
“There is simply nothing we can do about the rise of atheism, but accept the inevitable and hope they do not treat Christians the way Christians have treated them.”
And I’m sorry to say that the mainstream western atheists have failed this test. They have started treating Christians EXACTLY the way Christians have treated them a few decades ago.
It is said that the road to hell (again pun intended) is paved with good intentions, it cannot be truer in the case of the wave of atheism currently plaguing the western world. And no, I’m not talking about the third feminism of Linda Sarsour or the mindless of Trump Bashing of Bernie Sanders supporters. I’m talking about the average everyday atheist who pour out mind-numbingly stupid as well as outdated and mundane content on a daily basis.
Don’t get me wrong, I myself am a bonafide atheist and have spent the last 5 years of my life reading up on religion (mainly through commentary by scholars than the original scripts.), but as of late I’ve begun to distance myself from the global atheist movement. Or to be precise, I’ve begun to distance myself from the western iteration of atheism.
The problem arises in the word “atheist” which in its narrowest definition simply means a disbelief in God, while the word itself is being adopted by a wide variety of people whose disbelief in god has nothing to do with the ideologies which they’re trying to shoe-horn into the movement. Over the years I’ve seen individuals preach all manner of nonsense and stupidity under the banner of atheism. There are those who claim to “spiritual, not religious”. They merely have a nostalgic attitude towards religions and believe that their own craving for spirituality can be protected under the banner of atheism. There are Wiccans or self-proclaimed neo-pagans who reject the religion they were raised in, yet believe in a numerous other superstitious nonsense. There are the self-proclaimed “Hindu-Atheists” and “Buddhist-Atheists”. One thing I’ve personally observed is that in the west there have been attempts to make Buddhism Synonymous with Atheism by cashing in on the vacuum left by the absence of Christianity. This too, like the cravings of the Neo-Pagans is caused by a nostalgic attitude towards one’s former faith.
I have also come to notice that in my own part of the world, the labels “Hindu-Atheist” and “Buddhist-Atheist” can pretty much be used as code for “Anti-Muslim Bigot”. These are not skeptics of religion, but rather right-wing Hindu-Buddhist fanatics who have been exposed to the idea of atheism through short clips of Dawkins, Harris or Hitchens lecturing on Christianity and Islam, thus attaining the misconception that atheism is merely “Anti-Christian” or “Anti-Islamic” and seek to make their own religions synonymous with atheism and rationality. When confronted by with apostates from their own religions; the ex-Buddhists and the ex-Hindus, they can be expected to (and often do) respond with the same howls as their Abrahamic Brethren, or with numerous ad-hominems and non-sequiturs about how the latter has not understood their religion.
Furthermore, it should be noted that they’re wrong in their identification of “Buddhist-Atheist” or “Hindu-Atheist”. As they themselves point out when making their case, atheism is merely the disbelief in God. This leaves their positions vulnerable to numerous fallacies. The case for a Buddhist-Atheist falls much faster than its Hindu counterpart. The Buddha himself, when asked about the existence of a creator and the origin of the universe, simply replied that such questions are “unanswerable” and merely hinder one’s progress in attaining Enlightenment. It simply doesn’t matter to Buddhist teachings if there is a god or not. Buddhism is Apatheistic, not Atheistic.
The case for a Hindu Atheists follows that the word Hindu simply applies to everyone from the Indus river to the Himalayas. Everyone in between it is a Hindu regardless of what they believe. And of course that many holy texts of Hinduism question or doubt the existence of God, and that numerous schools of thought that sprang in Ancient India are in fact extensions of Hinduism than separate religions in their own rights. This argument is further distorted by stating that the real reason name with this faith is “Adyanta Dharma” and that it was western scholars who have quite incorrectly termed the numerous schools of thoughts under the umbrella term “Hinduism”. This argument relies too much on simply “switching the goal post”. The arguers themselves have left us with a rather broad definition of their own religion with can be inflated or deflated whenever it suits their need. But the simple fact of the matter is that the word “Hinduism” in contemporary times, refers only to the single polytheistic religion native to India and few neighbouring countries. The other religions and schools of thought that spring within India; such as Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and the school of Lokayata are separate have less to do with the polytheistic faith of Indians than the book of Mormons have to do with Islam, Christianity or Judaism. They are separate.
I was raised a Buddhist. Or so I’d like to think. Religion had no impact on my life beyond the morning prayers at school, a few yearly rituals and the occasional trip to a temple for social reasons. I was raised not to hate religion, but to simply ignore it. In short, I was raised secular. Growing up, I had the privilege of not having religion forced down my throat, and being taught the supernatural aspects of all religions (including that of my parents) as Romanticizations and exaggerations of the actual events that took place.
The journey from belief to disbelief can be divided into 3 sections or phases.
Phase one: Realization. The Moment of Enlightenment. Either spontaneously or after numerous tumbles down numerous rabbit holes, you’ve just come to terms with the fact that religion is not what it’s been made out to be. I personally don’t know what it’s like to be in this phase. As a child, I was never forced into religion and cannot comment on what actually goes on during this phase. I can only assume from how my friends and colleagues have responded that that involves a lot of self-doubting, and a lot of “What-Ifs”.
Phase Two: Rebellion. A lot of my late teens were spent in this stage, and this is what I expect to elaborate on in this article. I can only begin to describe this stage by saying that it’s its own worse enemy. This stage involves a lot of late night YouTube marathons on atheism, a lot of online rants and a lot of reading. The stereotypical depiction of an obese, fedora tipping atheist, with a tattoo of the capital “A” that has become the insignia for disbelief, copies of Richard Dawkins ‘The God Delusion’ and Christopher Hitchens ‘God is Not Great’ in the bookshelf and tally mark of all “Internet arguments won” is not that far from the actual state of those who are going through this stage of rebellion. Although I have yet to meet any who fit this description 100%, I have known several individuals who fit it 90% with the missing characteristics being the black fedora and the tally marks, which I have yet to, nor ever will muster the courage to ask about.
Phase Three: Acceptance. Perhaps this is the true stage of enlightenment. This is the stage where your anger has subsided. You’re no longer burning with anger. You’re no longer spending night after night debating people online. You’re calm. You see the people in your own movement making mistakes and you tell them to calm down and they reply quite rudely, but you understand where these harsh words are coming from, so you ignore. This is the phase where most people simply move on with their lives or try to reform the world in much more tangible ways, such as volunteering for human rights organizations or other such campaigns.
My own advent into what I now I call “Phase 2 atheism” only began when I was made to attend a strictly religious and frankly cult-like institution to complete my A/L. What followed was nearly five years of debating both the religious and the apologists of religion on multiple social media platforms during which time I made countless allies from all over the world, from various roots. Arabs, Europeans, Africans, Indians and East Asians all unified against the tyranny of religious dogma.
And therein lies the problem. While nearly all points made by these groups remain factually correct, the global atheist movement ignores the most fundamental problem within their community ; which is that most self-proclaimed atheists are only motivated by a deeply personal hatred towards the religion in which they were raised and do nothing more than attack religion for the sake of a few good laughs. And when that anger cessates, it partly fades also.
Anyone who has read Ali. A Rizvi’s “The Atheist Muslim: A Journey from Religion to Reason” may recall Ali recounting a similar incident in which he attended a party on Eid thrown together by a group of young Ex-Muslims. The party as he explained largely consisted of tasting pork and alcohol and making deliberate attempts at tempting homosexuality. In his own words, finally Ali concludes as follows :
“Ultimately, many of them will find equilibrium and stability, and learn to define themselves in new ways”
Phase two is a stage in life that’s filled to the brim lots of hyper emotions. Its neurochemical effect on the brain, I imagine is similar to that of someone under the effects of hallucinogenics or that of an angry religious mob. Phase two is a stage in disbelief that should be succeeded rather than bypassed. It’s a stage of learning as well as rebellion. It’s no different than a teenager having a ‘goth’ or ‘emo’ streak. Upon finally succeeding my own “phase 2 atheism”, I noticed that several of my friends and colleagues have done the same. I asked one of my friends who grew in circumstances similar to my own, why did he stop. His answer was that what he did in those days, and what I did was quite similar to a dog who after being kept in captivity for so long would lash out after being freed and slowly calm down over time. I asked a former Carl Sagan enthusiast what he thinks of the man now, to which he replied that reductionism is merely an absurd idea.
The attitude harboured by Phase two atheists towards religion is merely a reaction to childhood upbringing than an articulated response. We should not dismiss these childhood and adolescent traumas as “mere details”. I myself have been subjected to a lot of harassment and abuse by those claiming to be divinely authored or simply to be on the side of, or are speaking on behalf of the divinely authored, as have many of my friends. I have for example, among other things been told by a teacher at a very young age following a series of vicious beatings at school that I get bullied on a daily basis for a great sin which I had committed in a previous birth, and that my only way to escape this bad karma was to calm my thoughts. Imagine the sort of impact this would have on a child. And I have put up with actions inflicted onto me by a Buddhist monk which, at that young age, I was too naïve to understand. These are real issues and they must be discussed and the culprits must be exposed in a very eloquent fashion. They should not be wasted away in an ocean of internet tantrums.
What “Anti-Theists” fail to grasp is this: The majority of the believers don’t follow the religion as literary as they claim to be. Mainstream attitude towards religion, be it Christian or Islamic, Hindu or Buddhist is Deistic in Nature. Once again I turn to Ali A.Rizvis “Atheist Muslim” to explain this phenomenon. Ali explains how he once quite jokingly asked a friend of his , a “feminist Muslim” how her feminism coexists with Quran verses 4:34 and 2:82 to which she replied that she neither understand nor agree with them, yet ultimately felt that she was able to disregard them, “confident in her belief that Allah sees her as equal to her male counterparts” as Ali himself puts it. The following is Ali’s own narration of the conversation:
“But isn’t this disingenuous” I asked. “Don’t you believe that the Quran is the unadulterated word of god ?”
“Yes, of course. But everyone cherry-picks,” she replied, with a shrug.
Upon being vocal about my own disbelief, I asked my own mother about the aspects of her Buddhist faith which I found problematic. She listened to my explanation and agreed that I had raised some rather valid points, to which I responded by asking her why she still chose to be a Buddhist. Her answer was simple: “Because that is how I feel.”
Religion is simply a matter of personal choice. Which is something most self-proclaimed anti theist who spout it out at the top of their lungs simply fail to acknowledge. When asked as, if religion was as bad as he makes it out to be, why don’t the believers engage in various sorts of debauchery and decadence Christopher Hitchens replied as follows:
“Religion is man-made… and most countries and societies come quite early and easily to the conclusion that their own religions are in one form or another, not really practicable…”
This is what Phase Two Atheists refuse to understand. I know several individuals who have described their religious identity as being “Muslim, but not soo religious” and “Buddhist, but I’m kinda sick of it.”. The fact of the matter is that most of the faithful hold no strong conviction in the supernatural than the average nonbeliever. In this day and age, the only thing that differentiates the average believer from the average non-believer is their refusal to view homosexuality as anything but sinful (not to be confused with wanting to physically harm homosexuals) and the refusal to consume pork or beef. The average believer consumes as much intoxicants and alcohol and is as sexually active as the average nonbeliever. There is a question asked by the religious; If Atheists don’t believe in the supernatural, then why do they put so much time and effort into talking about it and trying to convince people that the supernatural doesn’t exist. The answer to this question has mostly been a comparison of the said atheists to doctors who attempt to cure patients. This saviour complex is quite similar to a religious line of thought. This is not a doctor who cures the common folk of the plague, but a mad Nietzschean doctor who shouts at the top of his voice, the cure for the common cold.
While there are numerous atheists, especially outside the western world who do produce high-quality content on belief and disbelief and risk their very lives for this cause, Phase Two Atheism is merely a childish attempt to play hero. There are only so many videos and books that can be titled “Why there is no god” or “10 reasons why God is not real” or “Why your religion is wrong” before the entire discussion devolves into degeneracy.
Contemporary atheists in the western world wish to re-live the glory days of when the church was burning heretics at stake or when the Klu Klux Klan was burning Africans in bonfires. They refuse to acknowledge that the age of Christian totalitarianism is dead. They live in a fairy tale world in which they themselves are the saviours of mankind. It is a line of thought that is quite similar to that of religious fundamentalists. It makes no contributions whatsoever in promoting rationality.
