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The only reason why the title “atheist” exists is that people believe in a nonexistent God.

It’s easy to miss that, sometimes. In a God-saturated culture, atheism can feel like a very concrete thing. For example, here in the South, where Christianity is the most prominent religion, people use the label “Christian,” for example, to treat you differently, talk to you differently, see you fundamentally differently. They make up a story to say that there’s you, and then there are the people who are going to go to heaven and praise God forever.  It’s their story. And then they try to say that atheism is responsible for the resulting chasm.

But I’ve noticed that when I talk to people where belief in God isn’t around, or isn’t a big deal, atheism sometimes comes across as a weird, almost unnecessary word. It seems largely a waste of time, and it’s largely, in a matter of speaking, unimportant.

It’s like this: I’m against the theory that Elvis is alive today. But it’s not a big deal. I don’t go on message boards and talk about it. I don’t see a big need to debate about it.  And God would be the same way, if so many people around me didn’t believe in His existence and used it to attempt to take over major parts of my own.

That really puts things into perspective for me. The only reason there are atheists is because people believe in God. And this only works one way. God is the positive claim — the one whose existence needs to be proven. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in God.

I think Christians seem to think that it takes over every area of my life.  But the title “atheist” isn’t really an independent identity in and of itself. It’s the absence of an identity. So, my life isn’t “consumed” with atheism as if God’s nonexistence is a positive claim that is the most important thing about me to me, personally. It’s more like I’m just trying to live my life, and a nonexistent God keeps getting in the way.

Thanks for reading.

[Image via Unsplash under CCL 3.0]

According to NBC (and most news outlets) Hillary Clinton won the Flint, Michigan debate preceding the Democratic primary decisively, ensuring she’d beat Sanders in the primary.

All the polls, up to the primary, had Clinton double-digits ahead.

538 blog said that Clinton had a 99% chance of winning that primary.

Nate Silver — the famed election predictor ever since he accurately predicted the results of the 2012 election, down to most precincts — said that if Sanders won the Michigan election, it would be among the biggest upset in primary history.

Hillary was expected to win Michigan by around 20 points.

And instead she lost.

To Bernie Sanders.

And for awhile, Nate Silver’s blog was confused. Yeah, there was the theory that some Democrats who would have voted for Clinton decided to go Republican and vote for Trump (as they assumed Clinton would win), but that only explains, by the best data available, around 7% of the Democratic vote. And it’s around number six on their list of possible reasons that Sanders won.

The others? Basically, more people voted than they anticipated.

First reason? “Pollsters underestimated youth turnout.”

Second reason? “Pollsters underestimated Sanders’s dominance among young voters.”

Third reason? “Pollsters underestimated the number of independent voters who would participate in the primary.”

Fourth reason? “Pollsters underestimated Sanders’s support among black voters.”

People voted.

When Sanders talks about the importance of millions of people standing up, this is what he meant. When he said that they can change outcomes, this is what he meant. If millions of people stand up and say “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH,” we will change the complacency in American policy and there will be change.

But you have to do it. You have to go out there and vote. And vote anyway, even if all the pundits are saying that Clinton’s gonna win an election by twenty points, or that Sanders has no chance. Contribute. Vote. Campaign. And we can turn the world upside down and actually change this country, in unprecedented ways, for the better.

Remember Michigan, where hundreds of thousands of people said “not today” and went to polling places, waiting for an hour or more, to change the future of this country and make it something they could believe in. They said the young wouldn’t come, and they came in such force that the ballots could not keep up — and still they waited for more ballots to come, so they could change the future of this country.  These were not people who were just going to be told that their vote didn’t matter, that they could not change things, that change was a pie in the sky dream.

And I’ll tell you — it’s not looking good. Almost everyone says Hillary Clinton is going to win this primary. And she will — unless millions of people stand up, past any jeers and doubters and naysayers, and cast their ballot for the good of this country.

I know it can be hard. But when you’re juggling multiple minimum-wage jobs, or when you’re tired after a long day at the office, or when you see the long lines — whatever you have to sacrifice — remember Michigan. Remember that unless you, and hundreds of thousands of others, stand up, Sanders will never be President of the United States. Don’t let a pundit tell you to stay home. Remember Michigan.

Go to the polls.

And this is not just abstract talk. This is real. These are the statistics by the very same pundits who said you didn’t have a chance in hell because they thought you would not vote. They still think that.

It’s infuriating that they would insult us like that, that they think we would care so little about this country and our future.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

It’s time for millions of people to stand up.

Vote.

A malnourished, abused tiger needs care. With care, under your roof, they can grow healthy and strong. They may appreciate petting, nourishing, patronization. For months, especially if they were struggling.

OK, I gotta butt in here and say something real quick. This’ll only take a second.

A lot of us have double consciousness on the whole religion question.

Double consciousness is this idea from the black antireligious (probably atheist) badass co-founder of the NAACP W.E.B. Du Bois, who called himself a freethinker, refused to participate in public prayer, and stated: ” I flatly refused again to join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war.”

Here’s the deal with double consciousness: When you’re black, Du Bois wrote in the segregation era of 1903, you’re looking at yourself through the eyes of other people.  And the whole problem with this is that the way people see you is simply not — not at all — who you are.

I mean, yeah – that’s what people told you that you were. But it wasn’t who you actually were. You were actually a hell of a lot more than that, according to Du Bois. Black people — first human beings on earth, first great civilizations, rich history, etc….diminished to thinking that they are slaves or second-class citizens. Diminished to bow down to “yessuh” and “yes’m.” Diminished to think that they are scum, that they are naturally violent bums, that they are born with poverty in their DNA, when we — well, the late great Richard Pryor put it as, “We were the kings of the earth.”

Now, you may not be “hotep” enough to jive with all that, but that’s not the point of this post. Keep reading, white people. I’m coming round to you.

What W.E.B. Du Bois said was to get in touch with that — that there was something in us black people that was beautiful drop-dead gorgeous and defiant and beautiful. He opened up a doorway into a new view of our history, giving it some dignity — or at least that was the goal.

And yet, in the midst of this private realization, there is the public realization of who I am — the American context I am striving to get rights in. There is my past, and my heritage, but there is also the current moment, and the two sides inform each other.

And for me, a young black man reading this 1903 essay, this was a revelation. I was not second class. I had a rich history, a rich heritage, a beautiful past I could claim and associate with the history of my skin. Also, I could use  my knowledge and confidence from this heritage to craft a black identity in the United States. The two sides informed each other.

As an atheist, though, I’ve run into the same problem. I don’t want to sound like a whiner when I say that people call me names…but people call me names.

And they label me. They tell me I’m a second class citizen in the Bible Belt, that I’m somehow a second-class human being, that if I don’t say I believe a godman rose from a stone-cold grave after he was stone-cold dead 2000 years ago according to some scribblings from who-knows-who, I’m one of the “Unsaved.” An “infidel.”

And they want me to take it. They want me to accept it — and they’re willing, oftentimes, to smile and act nice, as long as I take it and tolerate it.

You may fight it for awhile. You might say that you’re more than that for awhile. You may be insulted and protest for awhile. But sooner or later, you’re supposed to see yourself through their eyes, and Understand.

And then it’s going to be OK. Then you’re going to accept the way they see you, take it into yourself, and live it out.  You’ll be satisfied with being a second-class human being, and you won’t make as many waves.

I’m writing that to say this — if it’s gotten to you, I want to remind you that you are not second class. You know this. You know that you come from a history of people who have defied the most powerful religious authorities in history, people who dared to doubt, people who dared to stand up for reason and empathy and dignity in other individuals instead of urging them to bend the knee to a puppet-God controlled by moneyed special interests, politician, and moneygrubbing preachers.

You know this. It’s just hard to remember, sometimes. And it’s oh-so-easy to accept that you’re second class when people smile so brightly when you have the “dignity” to so abase themselves before the “humility” of their turned-up noses.

I’m not saying, you understand, that most Christians are not good people. I honestly think that most people are trying to do the best they can with what they know. The problem is that they don’t know who you are.

But you do. So you don’t have to accept it when they define you as something less. You know who you are, and you can hang your hat on it. And you can let that confidence drive the way you define your outer, public world as you proclaim who you are and live it.

And I’m not just talking about atheists. I’m talking about every single goddamn human being who has ever been said that they are a second class citizen because of their race, their gender, their disability, their bank account, their employment…

Think about your history, your heritage, who you are, who others like you were before you. The courageous line you came from. Not who others think you are — who you know you are.

You can let that confidence allow you to look the public here-and-now full in the goddamn face like you have a fucking right to be here, even if it sends a shockwave  through the entirety of your world.

That’s all I’m saying. You don’t have to be restricted to seeing yourself as subservient because of the ignorance of others.

You can use what you know about yourself, your history, and the history of those like you to realize who you are.

Thank you for reading.

Sometimes I walk through my past.

I wouldn’t call it regret. It’s more like a new way of understanding.

I think it’s nearly impossible for anyone who hasn’t lived my life to understand how significant the things that happened in it are. On a certain level, I have lived most of my life alone. And really, who is interested in another person’s life story? Why would you want to spend countless hours listening to someone give the ends and outs of their past life?

But if you want to indulge…sometimes I go back in my mind, now, to when I was a kid who was still Christian. Things I would have said or done differently.

It’s a recalibration. I know we learn from our past, and I don’t want old lessons there that shouldn’t be there.

If I knew then what I know now about religion, what would I have thought all those years, sitting in the pew? With what I know now about gender and masculinity, what would I have thought and said when my father told me to “be a man”? With what I know now about the importance of standing up for yourself, what would I have said all those times I was told I was selfish just for expressing my opinion?

I don’t really think about how my life would be different. Just the situations I would have acted differently in. And as I’ve done this, I’ve slowly uprooted beliefs that have taken root in my psyche — things that I act as if they are true, even though I know, intellectually, they are not. And yes, I was in church all my life until 28, so there’s a lot of baggage to unload.

I have these moments, late at night, when I walk down the old, dark hallways of my past, shine the light of the viewpoint I’ve gained onto the chapters of my life to reread and reinterpret them. It’s not to be trapped in regret; it’s to create a past that helps me as life moves forward.

I’ve heard that your Christian past is a waste of time. I think that’s up to you.

It may be if you move on from it, letting the habits it planted in you last, and forgetting how much those past experiences may influence your present moment.  Then the memories just lie there, dormant, useless — except for the way they subconsciously influence the way you do things in the present.

But then again — these are still experiences you had of being in the world. Even experiences you saw the wrong way constitute raw data on how the world works. Rethinking and reinterpreting those experiences and situations can add value to your past and help inform your future.

This is, by the way, how many psychologists frequently help people deal with traumatic memories. Rather than encourage people who have experienced trauma to simply move past it, psychologists tend to encourage them to go back to the traumatic events, reliving and rethinking them using the emotional maturity they have gained, as Dr. Bill Klemm is a Professor of Neuroscience at Texas A&M University, explains:

Anxiety disorders are among the most common mental health problems and are often treated with so-called extinction therapies. That is, therapy is geared toward unlearning (extinguishing) our fears by deliberately re-living the disturbing event under safe conditions and thereby learning we can cope.

Modern psychotherapy for phobias, anxiety, and PTSD often involves recalling the original bad event under reassuring conditions. But this has to be done with conscious re-assessment and realization that the original negative emotions and fear are no longer applicable because the re-living is a simulation in a safe environment. One creates a new learning substitute for the original emotional trauma.

The re-living must include dealing with the negative emotions in the light of reason and new emotional experience. Therapy requires critical thinking about thoughts and feelings, especially those that are unhelpful and unrealistic. The patient is gently led to face memories anew and to learn new ways of thinking and behaving. This re-creation of the bad event allows us to extinguish memory of the original bad situation and its negative emotion.

And you don’t just do this to extinguish bad memories. The reinterpretation can help you create new ones:

At first, scientists thought that extinction erases the memory of the CR. But extinction really creates a new memory that competes with memory of the original CR. Both memories co-exist.

The article goes on to say that, in order for the new memory to have its effect, it has to be rehearsed. It’s something to be revisited, or it will go away.

I like the new memories I’m making, and how they’re helping me navigate through life, making better decisions based on new things I’m learning through re-interpretations of my past.

In many ways, it’s been a beautiful thing — in some places, necessary. So I’m passing it on to you.

Think about your past. But don’t just regret it. Think about what you would have done differently, and why, based on what you know. And let that knowledge, the new past you create, drive your future.

Thanks for reading.

“Why do you talk so much about Christianity? If you didn’t really believe it, you wouldn’t talk about it. There must be something in you that still believes.”

I’ve noticed that this sentiment is not only shared by many Christians — it is also shared, to varying extents, by many atheists. I talk about Christianity quite a bit, and while it goes without saying that doing seems to confuse many Christians who think I should have moved on by now, I’ve also found that many atheists have told me that I should stop bashing Christianity so much; I should just move on and shut up about it.

It turns out that’s probably not intellectually healthy.

Why? Because our brains don’t work like computers.

If you input data into a computer, and the computer pops out a certain answer…you can change that answer by changing some of the data, as the computer will automatically update all of its “thinking” to reflect the new data. So, if you told a computer running as if Christianity was right, “There is no God,” it would immediately update all the programming based on God’s existence, removing every single implication of God’s existence in its programming and replacing it with implications based on the fact that God doesn’t exist.

In an instant. Boom.

That’s why a computer-brain wouldn’t have to talk about God after leaving Christianity. God would be completely and totally erased from the entire programming mind. Gone — assuming the computer doesn’t have glitches.

It turns out the human brain doesn’t work that way.

If you’ve lived all your life as if Christianity is right, and suddenly are told “There is no God,” your beliefs don’t automatically update.

For example, as Julia Galef explains in the video below, you may believe there is no God…but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll automatically act as if what the God you worshipped supposedly said about promiscuity being wrong is irrelevant — it may still be a thought stuck in your brain on some level. If you don’t talk about the absence of Christianity, you may eventually forget that the idea of promiscuity being wrong is based on the nonexistent God you left, and think that it’s based on “just so” facts.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFv5DvrLDCg[/youtube]

If you do talk about the absence of Christianity in your life, all those extra beliefs you have that were connected to that belief will have an easier time coming to the surface.  It’s really awesome, actually — the first year after I left Christianity, I felt like every day was a new Eureka.

Now, when you do things that used to be rationalized as “God says that’s what I should do” after you stop believing in a nonexistent God, that doesn’t mean you suddenly believe in God again. Those are just leftover habits, like muscle memory — kinda like when you just moved and you’re going home to your new place…and because you’re not really paying attention you find yourself in front of your old apartment.

That doesn’t mean you still think you live there.

I mean, there is a bunch of stuff you do that clearly shows that you know you don’t live there (like a ton of paperwork you filled out and that higher rent). It’s just that you’ve been going home the same way for ten years and your thinking hasn’t been fully updated.

So…I was in church all my life till 28, and I was one of those C.S. Lewis Christians — the “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else” type. Fundamentalist Christianity informed almost everything I did. When I found out God wasn’t real, I thought my “system” would automatically update — but I kept finding things that weren’t true, that I had to adjust to — scattered beliefs and tendencies here and there. And I wrote about them, as I did so. And I still have things that I’m striving past — muscle memory that I have to erase. And I know this because I talked, a lot, about the implications of God not being real.

Talking about things in this way was how I went from being a fundamentalist Christian to becoming an atheist in the first place. I kept getting new information, and I forced myself to update my thinking based on the information coming in. It wasn’t always easy. It was often excruciatingly difficult, because I was pretty deep in it. It was suicidally difficult at times — although I never actually attempted suicide, I came close several times, and am glad I lived to tell the tale. The dominos falling gave me pretty bad anxiety at times. It was not easy.

One thing that would have eased the transition is realizing that this is normal. You’re not wrong for continuing to criticize and tease out the implications of beliefs you found out were false. It is a necessary aspect of being human, of being less wrong about the world you’re living in. So…this is something I learned the hard way.

And I think there are larger implications here — society-wide. When you live in a predominantly Christian society, there are often assumptions about how the world works and how people should think that we may gather without realizing how influenced by Christianity they are. Revealing that these beliefs have their source in Christianity can show how the beliefs are based on incorrect assumptions — but we can’t do that if criticizing Christianity is off limits.

There are many beliefs that need to be updated due to the powerful evidence we have that Christianity is not true. We as an increasingly post-religious society in the West need to talk about the implications of Christianity not being true so that we have fewer vestigial tendencies that are based on the false, and often harmful, beliefs within the religion.

And not just Christianity — other beliefs, too, like the belief that global warming isn’t happening (which is arguably based on the belief that God will take care of the earth), or the belief that people are the gender they are assigned at birth (which seems based on the belief that some God-figure made us and decides what gender we are), or the belief that “alternative” medicine is more effective than prescription medicine (which seems based on the assumption that God made nature for us, so that human modification of what God made somehow makes things worse). We need to talk about the beliefs we’re rejecting for ourselves, and also for others in order to weed out connected harmful tendencies and work towards a world that is free of them.

Thank you for reading.

I’ve tried to get into the mindset of a Trump supporter, to understand. It’s scary. But I think I get it.

Every day, there are little annoyances. The person who cuts you off on the street. The jerk who stole your car radio (probably, you assume, a desperate addict). The homeless person in the Wal-Mart parking lot begging for money when you’re in a hurry. The person who gets offended when you use a word they say is ableist, or ageist, or racist. Being unemployed, walking in to get a job application, and seeing a Hispanic (you assume illegal) having a job and while you do not have a job. Etc., etc., etc.

And everyone is telling you that you can’t do anything about it. If you do, you’re a bad, terrible, horrible person. You’re a “neckbeard.” You’re a “racist.” You’re a “dudebro.” You’re…well, you get the idea. And it piles up. So you feel that you have to play nice with people, at the sacrifice of yourself, in order to be a good person.

What Trump does very effectively is tell that part of you that thinks you’d be a bad, terrible, horrible person if you spoke your mind that it’s OK. He’s with you. Not in a nasty way, necessarily. In a friendly way. Rich, powerful billionaire, coming through the noise of you’re supposed inferiority, saying you’re a good person. The words you’ve wanted to hear for a long time.

Shaking your hand, smiling, laughing, joking.

Saying, don’t worry about those other people. It’s about you. I give you permission to fight back. It’s on me if you’re mean to other people, if you put labels on them. You’re not a bad person for doing this. They’re the bad people. They’re the evil ones. Get them — we’ll get them, together. It’s not you. For too long they’ve been pointing the finger at you; they don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re incompetent. You’re competent. You’re wonderful. They’re horrible.

He flips the script.

It feels like redemption. And that’s what so frightening about it. Trump is the pied piper to the worst parts of ourselves, complimenting them as our best and encouraging them to stretch their legs and clench their fists. He’s the close friend who says that you’re alright and is “with you” even when you do something everyone else thinks is cruel and nasty, and eggs you on to do the cruel, nasty thing again because he is so firmly for you and the protection of who you are.

And when you do it, he cheers or winks. He widens the boundaries of acceptable discourse for you so that you can do more of the cruel, nasty thing — which he says is good and ordered. And any backlash from what you do, he tends to take on himself. Where he doesn’t, he makes it obvious that the reason he doesn’t is because of them — they are preventing him from doing a more effective job of protecting and enabling you.  Those mentally inept people who don’t know what they’re talking about are holding him back — prompting you to urge harder, to become more extreme, to propel him forward.

I don’t know how far he can go. It frightens me. If you fight him, you only empower him more. If you go with him, you’re along for the ride.  Where is too far? What is too extreme for his supporters or for him?

Considering what he’s said and done so far, I’m really not sure. That’s why I am genuinely afraid of what he will turn this country into during the race, even if he eventually loses the election. I’m afraid of how extreme his rhetoric and the actions he actively encourages will become. As a black atheist who was liberal enough to vote for Sanders, I am afraid of what will happen to me, personally, when he has gone as far as he can in encouraging all of those who are offended by the idea of respecting minorities and nonreligious people. And it’s somehow even more unnerving that he’ll do it through bullying, jokes, winks, entertainment, and thunderous applause.

So…even if he eventually loses the general, what will this country look like when he’s done? As a black, liberal atheist I am afraid.  What will become of us when Trump goes as far as he can in destroying any respect we have left for minorities and nonreligious people? somehow even more unnerving that he’ll do it through bullying, jokes, winks, entertainment, and thunderous applause.

It makes the bullying, jokes, winks, entertainment, and thunderous applause unnerving.

I hope he doesn’t turn America into a nightmare for us in the next few months, but stranger things have already happened. When I look at what he’s accomplished so far, the road from here to November looks enshrouded in a foreboding dark.

Buckle up, folks. We’re in for a ride.

Thanks for reading.

I’m a black person who is a bit perplexed by the win Clinton had in South Carolina tonight.

Hillary Clinton seems dismissive and patronizing of black individuals who are not in her corner. She has for years. She is using them to garner votes; when they are inconvenient to her, she dismisses them.

She wants to bring us to heel. She wants to make sure that black people behave themselves. And, I see that in the below clip, where she dismisses a woman at an upscale $500-per-person fundraising dinner:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2WFC7ZyQiY[/youtube]

“Okay, back to the issues” is, in my dictionary, dismissive.

Contrast that with Bernie Sanders, who let black individuals speak at his own rally.

You may think that what the protestors did was over the top; you may not. But one thing is clear: He is not interested in bringing black people to heel. He is interested in listening to our concerns. He is interested in real change that will protect us from racist cops, judges, and laws. He listens better than Clinton, according to BLM evaluations themselves.

Can you see Bernie Sanders allowing a black woman to be forcibly removed from a private $500 dinner for asking him to address remarks she thought were racist?

And then, once she was escorted out, saying, “Now, back to the issues I think are important” in ANY context?

Be honest.

I’ve had enough of this nonsense.

It was downright annoying, when I was a Christian, to be told that I had to have joy in God all the time. I didn’t really feel there was a real right to be pissed off and angry at God, or question God’s presence or utility. When I left Christianity, I thought that song-and-dance was over.

But here I am, an atheist four years later, finding out this seems to be anything but the case. If you so much as hint that your life is tough, hard, or depressing, there are a shitload of atheists waiting in the wings saying that you’re not being on your best behavior as an atheist.

If you mouth off too much about social justice, you’re not really a true atheist, because atheism has to do with a lack of belief in God or gods. That’s it. So shut up.

If you wax eloquent about how much you feel part of the universe, and that helps you with a sense of belonging in the world, you’re not a true atheist — a true atheist realizes that they are starkly alone in a universe that doesn’t give a shit about them, and embraces it — unlike those pesky Christians who need a sky-daddy to hold their hand.

If you need a sense of community — other atheists around you to make you feel secure and have strong relationships with so you don’t have to deal with conversation and advice that assumes magic exists — you’re not a true atheist — a true atheist has no goddamn need for an atheist community; they’re all lone rangers.

If religion has hurt you and you, in a moment of weakness, admit it, you’re not a true atheist — a true atheist is past all that, isn’t hurt by a religious past one bit, and isn’t going to annoy people by acting like some damn crybaby.

And doubtless there are some who think that, by writing this, I’m the one with mental problems who needs to shut up and get with the stoic atheist program. It couldn’t be their fault for trying to burden me with some “ideal atheist” stereotype that looks and talks like the public persona of one of the four horsemen. It’s me, not atheisting right.

I’ve run into this repeatedly, online and in person — most recently, at a thirty minute discussion at restaurant in which a fellow atheist laughed and opined about how he doesn’t want to sit around with a bunch of weaklings — he’s strong. He’s a true atheist. He doesn’t need any of that nonsense.

Yeah, I know this attitude gets people to think that atheist are somehow made of titanium steel, and sure, it protects us from the vulture-istic Christians waiting to swoop down and rub in and take advantage of the first sign of weakness.  And maybe some of y’all are really that strong; I dunno.

But this is one thing I know: When I show I’m weak in an area, I hear from other people who struggle, too. And that’s OK. The fact that sometimes life is hard as shit, that you have to cry sometimes, that you need a sense of community, that religion has hurt you  — that doesn’t mean that you’re not a member of some atheist goody-goody club, because atheism, as I’ve been reminded countless times by these hypocritical more-atheist-than-thouers, is about a lack of belief in God or gods, and that’s it.

It doesn’t mean you’re always happy, it doesn’t mean you don’t feel a need to belong, it doesn’t mean you don’t need a sense of community, it doesn’t mean you’re not wounded by religion, it doesn’t mean you’re apathetic towards religion, it doesn’t mean you don’t give a damn about social justice, it doesn’t mean any of that stuff. It just means you don’t believe in God or gods.

And that lack of belief, for many of us, has consequences. I know. I didn’t run a blog that got nearly a million views last year (mostly from atheists) without hearing a zillion statements from struggling atheists — and rebuttals from goodie-two-shoes atheists who somehow think that atheists has to go around with the stoicism of a Richard Dawkins caricature.

And you know what else? We atheists also have Christian friends and family that we care about, many of us. And that’s OK. It’s those Christians who are always saying they can’t be “unequally yoked” — many of us atheists just see ourselves as members of humanity who happen to love people who don’t share our views and are strongly affected by what they think and don’t think of us, and that doesn’t make us less-atheist-than-thou. It makes us human.

Goddamn.

And I want to say to any Christian reading this — you may have heard some of this and thought, “I’m not strong enough to be an atheist.” I know this, because I’ve heard it in a few places. They see atheists as strong and confident, and sometimes, some days, Christians aren’t that way. Sometimes they’re weak. Sometimes they struggle. Sometimes they need someone who cares when hardly anyone is around and they reach out for community.

And yet, many have doubts. The Bible seems pretty ridiculous and insensitive to several populations they care about. And so they’re torn. But every time they approach atheism, so many of us — many of the loudest — taunt at them, call them weak, and use their lack of strength to label them as mentally unhealthy and thus unfit for the atheist species. And this happens in spite of all the insistence that lack of belief is only about a lack of belief in God or gods.

I know this isn’t the most popular message for atheists to hear. And I’ve kept quiet about it for awhile. But after reading hundreds (thousands?) of comments and stories…I’ve had it. I’m pissed off.

You can still have a need for community, you can still have moments of weakness, you can still show you’re hurt by religion, you can still struggle, you can still feel pain, you can still reach out, you can be honest about your emotions and feelings — and I, for one, will not tell you that you’re a malfunctioning person who is unworthy of the atheist breed. You’re just a human being with emotions and mushy feelings like so many of us have even behind our often hard exteriors. A human being who happens to not believe in God.

Goddamn. C’mon people. I had enough of this “goodie-two-shoes” game at church. If you’re gonna say that atheism is only about a lack of belief in God or gods, quit trying to tell people it’s about perfect mental health, too, because it’s not. This isn’t Christianity; there is no rule about having to “rejoice in the Lord always.”

It’s OK not to be OK. Doesn’t make you any less of a true atheist.  In fact, it’s a relief not to have God wagging His finger saying I’ve got to plaster on joy all the time. I don’t need atheister-than-thou atheists taking His place.

Seriously.

Thank you for reading.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately.

So last week, I’m talking during a break to a coworker who wants to be a counselor, and she’s telling me she wants to help people define their identity. She said that a few months ago she was in a car accident, and for weeks she couldn’t work out. And working out was her identity — without that she didn’t know who she was. She had to find something deeper than that that would never leave her, and she found it in God. It was a gift. No matter what happened to her, she’d have this core she could hold onto.

To this atheist, in spite of the problems I have with God, there was something beautiful there.

Just now I saw Ronda Rousey being interviewed by Ellen DeGeneres about her defeat to Holly Holm. And she said that when she fell to the ground, she wanted to kill herself. Because, she said, who was she if not the UFC undefeated champion? Who was going to listen to her or pay attention to her?

And I saw, then, that all those hours in the gym, all the hell Ronda Rousey went through to get to where she is, all that hard work…so much of it was because she wanted to be heard, to be seen as someone worth living.

What kept her going, though, was what she wanted — she wanted to have her boyfriend’s children, for them to have a life together. And him sticking by her side — that helped her through.

But not everyone is so lucky. And some people were, as the Journey song goes, “born to sing the blues.” What about those people?

What if I become one of those people? Will anyone care about me? Will I be so desperate for a friend that I’ll have to make one up?

This had me thinking about Christianity. Christianity solves one basic problem — it says that even if you’re a nobody, you can be someone with worth and value. And I want to believe that is true. I’m not a Christian. But I want to believe that even if I lose all my value, someone will still think I’m worth it.

So…in that sense, as an atheist, I feel like I have to take the place of God, in a way — not in the bigoted myth of the Bible, but in the way the myth has made some people feel safe and secure regardless of their status. It’s hard. It’s a sometimes thankless pursuit. But I don’t really do it just for the other person. I do it for me, to try to convince myself that it is possible to love even the people on the outskirts of humanity. I don’t always do it. But I’d like to convince myself it’s possible, so I try.

So…Yeah. That’s it. Just wanted to share that page of my diary with you.

Thanks for listening.