Have A Holly Jolly Atheistic Christmas
I am an atheist. This is not a defining feature of my life, and my lack of belief in supernatural deities is not something that guides my thoughts or actions on a daily basis, but still — it’s a reasonably significant character trait. Human history is marked by unquantifiable bloodshed, turmoil, debate, and contemplation over questions of the divine. If you think that Earth was created by Yahweh, and Yaweh’s desires can be gleaned by studying the Bible — well, that has huge implications for all sorts of things. Religious belief is at the core of innumerable Americans’ lived experiences, and it has a massive effect on our politics, our societal structures, psychology, and so forth. Coastal liberal elites often under-appreciate this, because they don’t interact regularly with unabashed believers.
And yet there’s been a move in recent years, especially in online media culture, to mock and scorn anyone who makes their atheism known. It’s not because the mockers and scorners disdain the notion of atheism — many of them are atheists themselves, or at least thoroughly irreligious — but because they’ve come to view “vocally atheist” as an inherently discrediting characteristic, associated with a certain kind of Obnoxious Internet Dude who loves to share Neil DeGrasse Tyson clips on reddit.
I get why this underlying sense of scorn has become popular — that Obnoxious Internet Dude type does exist, and can often be somewhat annoying. But whether certain rarified internet subcultures are worthy of ridicule should not detract in the slightest from the proposition that atheism better describes reality than theism. If theism is an accurate mode for understanding the universe, then wow — better say your prayers, or eternal hellfire might be in your future. Whether we are consigned to damnation actually is a somewhat weighty question, and humans have struggled with it for millennia, but these Internet Culture Eye-Rolling Types will just sigh dismissively whenever they come across such arguments. They will laugh at the Hardline Christian Zealots who think that sinners are destined to be punished forevermore in the afterlife, but at the same time they’ll laugh at atheists who think that questions around the existence or non-existence of hell are actually rather important.
Does the existence or non-existence of hell have an observable, real-world impact on how we conduct our day-to-day politics? Not… really. Kind of, but explaining why would take several intensive Medium posts at minimum. The point is, many of the Internet Media Eye-Rollers reckon that these debates are fundamentally silly, whereas Beyonce’s latest music video is of earth-shattering significance. If you have a strong opinion on whether this year’s Oscar winners are sufficiently diverse, you earn plaudits in the digital media “space,” but if you have a strong opinion on whether an omnipotent supernatural being exists, you’re seen as a little weird and overly-aggressive.
Of course, Freddie DeBoer has written compellingly on this topic. When I first read that post of his from August, I wanted to shout Hallelujah!
There’s just a disconnect here that’s always irked me, and it seems redolent of a fundamental vapidity that pervades much of the Internet Commentary Industrial Complex. There’s obviously a lot more to say, but I’m going to keep this brief; Christmas always puts me in the frame of mind to ponder the more spiritual dimension of things, and I wanted to just rattle off a quick something. Maybe I’ll write more on these matters in the future.
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