The biggest understatement of the year is my mother and I do not see eye to eye on religion or politics and I would be lying if I said my “sudden” switch from liberal albeit non-practicing Christian to vocal capitol A Atheist has not strained our relationship. For the most part we do our best not to discuss the issue and instead focus on my five-month-old son, because nothing brings families closer together than cute babies. However there are times when I wish we would or could talk. It has been about a year since I proudly embraced the Atheist label (just before Christmas, admittedly my timing could have been better), and since that time I have noticed an uptick in Facebook “likes” on posts detailing what Atheists think, or more accurately what Christians think Atheists think. This frustrates me in general, but in particular with my mother because if she wants to know what an atheist thinks perhaps she should ask her son. Go ahead and take a second to watch the Frank Turek video that graced my Facebook feed the other day courtesy of my mother.
Did you catch all that?
“They have a moral issue, an emotional issue. They have an accountability issue maybe… People don’t want Christianity to be true. Why? Because they don’t want there to be God, they want to be God. They want to go their own way. They don’t want to have a moral authority above them. In fact most people are not on a truth quest they are on a happiness quest, whatever is going to make them happy they are going to believe.”
Its a wonder I haven’t left my wife and son to go marauding and pillaging, and
I have to ask myself, is this what my mother really thinks about me? And even if I did leave Christianity so I could go live an immoral life and not be accountable to God why on earth would I become a capital A Atheist as opposed to a little A atheist? Why would I proudly embrace the label of one of the most disliked groups in the country? For that matter why would I even leave the comfort and privilege of the Christian community? Look at how the evangelical community has rallied around Donald Trump, I assert there is zero reason to leave the Christian community in order to live an immoral life accountable to no one. My act might not fool “God” of course, but certainly would fool Christians. For seven years I lived as a non-practicing Christian, a little A atheist for all intents and purposes, and so long as I occasionally professed a belief in God no one questioned my morality, then one day I embrace the atheist label and somehow with absolutely no change in lifestyle suddenly my mother believes I am an hedonist. And I have to ask, what part of alienating my family does she think is fun for me? It makes no sense to become a capital A Atheist for moral or accountability reasons as Frank Turek describes them, I can do that just as easily while still being plugged into the Christian community without the added stress of being an Atheist. No there must be something more, like the complete and utter lack of evidence for the two most foundational events of Christianity, the Exodus and the Resurrection, for starters.
But I must confess I am guilty of Frank Turek’s accusations. I don’t want Christianity to be true, also if Christianity were true I wouldn’t become a Christian but not because of moral or accountability issues as Turek spouts off. No if Christianity were true that would mean God actually did kill the slaves of the people he was mad at for owning slaves. It would mean God actually did save the life of a man who offered to let a depraved mob rape his two virgin daughters (probably around 13-years-old) but murdered his wife for looking over her shoulder at the wrong time. It would mean there is a God who exists that thinks picking up sticks on the wrong day is a worse offense than beating someone with a rod. A God who cares more about the appropriate way to boil a baby goat (not in its mother’s milk) than he cares about slavery, polygamy, and rape (often all at the same time). Exactly which part of that does Turek think should be appealing to me?
I wouldn’t become a Christian because why would I join an organization that has zero respect for other faiths and cultures, that oppresses women, and discriminates against the LGBT community for the privilege of worshiping a deity who did all of the above? I wouldn’t become a Christian because being commanded to say “I love you” to someone pointing the gun of hellfire at your head means nothing at all and I won’t degrade myself by saying it. I wouldn’t become a Christian because my principles would never allow me to praise someone who made that the choice in the first place.
On second though I did leave Christianity for moral reasons.
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