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Note: Although I am a black atheist, and although I think I have pretty solid evidence for my claims here, I should state here that these are my personal views; no one is qualified to be the voice of every black American.

Atheism in the United States, according to many atheists, has a culture problem.  It consists, mainly, of white males.

This is not a trumped up charge.  The stats are clear.

Look under the Atheist/Agnostic label, and you’ll notice a very small number in comparison to the Christian groups.  It’s enormous — 82% of atheists in the United States, as of 2012, are white; only 3% are black.  That is a huge disparity.  Why the gap?  What is going on?

I’ve seen the handwringing over this problem as a Christian talking to predominantly white churches and as an atheist attending conventions and attending meetings with local atheist movement groups.  I’ve been to meetings on diversity, I’ve been in dozens of conversations about why black people prefer to go to church or, if they are atheist, stay in the closet, and I’ve heard from several white people and several black people who are unsure about what’s going on.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLF2H8jigPc[/youtube]

I’m going to tell you.  It won’t take long:

The reason there aren’t more black atheists is because the black church does something atheism isn’t doing.  Atheist movements (and white churches, for that matter) tend to talk about how much they NEED black people.  They seem to emphasize that their doors are open to black people.  They seek to show how black people are wanted and needed and appreciated as atheists.  But where they are not holding a candle to the black church.

The reason is that white atheists seem obsessed about showing black people that white atheists need/honor/appreciate black people.

Seldom do they seem to ask the question of whether black people have reason to need/honor/appreciate white atheists.

And our competition, fellow atheists, is the black church.  And the black church is in the black person’s corner.  Like, their ideology may be wrong, as far as whether Jesus rose from the dead, and so on.  But black churches, for the most part, have taken Christianity — a tool for their oppression — and turned it into a tool for their liberation.  And it is undeniable that it provides several benefits to black people here in the United States that, frankly, the predominantly white male atheist demographic can’t hold a candle to.

Black people aren’t interested, for the most part (though there may be exceptions) in handing out gold stars or attending your events because you appreciate us or honor us or say you need us.  There is a hell of a lot more pride in most of us than that.  You have to show why we need you.  What benefit are you giving us that the black church down the street — which is often fighting for social/financial/political needs day in, day out — isn’t giving us?  Less?  None?  Well, then why the heck would I become an atheist when there’s little benefit in doing so to me?

It’s like the salesperson who is obsessed with selling you his product.  No matter how much he says, “I’d really appreciate you buying my product.  I’d love it if you brought my product.  I need you to buy my product,” you’re not going to choose that product above someone who is saying, “You need this product because of legitimate reasons xyz.”

That’s just the way life works.

And some would-be atheists will pass up atheism and go straight to the black church because the black church is more active in the community and simply are offering more.  Don’t believe me?  Check out a black man who said this:

I was not raised in a particularly religious household, as undoubtedly many in the audience were. My father…was…an atheist. My mother…grew up with a healthy skepticism of organized religion herself. As a consequence, so did I.

It wasn’t until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual dilemma.

I was working with churches, and the Christians who I worked with recognized themselves in me. They saw that I knew their Book and that I shared their values and sang their songs. But they sensed that a part of me that remained removed, detached, that I was an observer in their midst.

And in time, I came to realize that something was missing as well — that without a vessel for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone.

And if it weren’t for the particular attributes of the historically black church, I may have accepted this fate.

I want to stop right there.  So this black man was, basically, an atheist.  And he was going to remain an atheist for the rest of his life.  But where did this lead him?  Apart, and alone — which is how many black atheists working to make things better for other black individuals may feel.  If you’re a black atheist, you may often find yourself isolated if you’re around predominantly black friends.  I’ve talked with black people who have noticed that, due to cultural and experiential differences, it can feel lonely (I’ve experienced this somewhat, as well).  It’s not like you get extraordinary benefits from being a black atheist.  More than a white atheist, you can feel like you’re on the outside, looking in.  Very few of us are willing to accept this fate.  But this man was, and would have continued to be accepting of this fate, if it hadn’t been for one thing — the black church was absolutely irresistible.  This young black man left the atheism not because he was logically convinced that the Christian beliefs were true, but because of the black church.  It took a promising young atheist, because it offered more.  Going on…

But as the months passed in Chicago, I found myself drawn – not just to work with the church, but to be in the church.

For one thing, I believed and still believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change, a power made real by some of the leaders here today. Because of its past, the black church understands in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and cloth the naked and challenge powers and principalities. And in its historical struggles for freedom and the rights of man, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world. As a source of hope.

And perhaps it was out of this intimate knowledge of hardship — the grounding of faith in struggle — that the church offered me a second insight, one that I think is important to emphasize today.

Do atheists offer that in the United States today?  Because that’s what the predominantly white male atheist groups are up against.  I think almost any honest observer — white, black, or any other race — would have to say that the atheist demographic hardly holds a candle to this.  Which, arguably, is why Barack Obama, the black man of the preceding quotes, currently identifies as a Christian and not as a nonbeliever.

When most atheists are about saying “atheism is ONLY about a lack of belief in God or Gods,” the result is that you’re going to attract people who are not attached to movements like the black church that are about a lot more than that.  You’re going to attract people who don’t need those movements, that advocacy; people who don’t need people fighting for them and in their corner as much concerning issues of race and gender.  You’re going to attract the least vulnerable people in society.

Which is why atheism is mostly white and male.

There you have it.  That’s the big mystery.  And you might ask, “How do we solve the problem?”

As a black atheist who has been in conversations with hundreds of white atheists online about this, I’m struggling.  I mean, it’s like pulling teeth to convince most white people I know that black Americans are struggling in the United States, let alone that people should do something about it.  This chart seems to hold true for most conversations:

That is a HUGE disparity.  And, frankly, a lot of black people are tired of having to prove the very basics to white people.  It’s like trying to convince a salesperson that you don’t need his product.  Many prefer not to waste their time, and simply spend time with people who have a bit more sense.  I mean, these are just the facts.  Don’t shoot the messenger.

And note — I’m not saying that ALL black people think this.  There is still that 12 percent of black people in that chart who will say, “discrimination is no big deal.”  And you’ll attract some black people on that basis, with that platform.  And maybe it’s not a big deal for these black people (it’s complicated, too, because many of us black people, due to pride, don’t want to face the fact that we are often being discriminated against).  But for most of us, there is discrimination.  In my experience, if I ask a white crowd, “Is discrimination a problem?” I’m going to get a debate.  Ask the same question to a black crowd, and they’ll look at me, collectively, like I’m a bit insane.  Of course racism is a problem!  Where have you been — sleeping under a rock?

So, if you’re bothered by the fact that there aren’t more black atheists, and feel like you need them, and begin to wonder why there aren’t more atheists, ask yourself, “What benefits are atheists offering black people above what the black church is giving them?”  And if you’re coming up blank, you have your answer.  You don’t have to necessarily care about increasing diversity among atheists.  But let’s end any nonsense about there being confusion about the problem, because the reason for the problem is staring us right smack-dab in the face.

If you are a black atheist looking for somewhere to connect, however, there are some organizations of like-minded people dotted throughout the United States that are trying to be in your corner.  And, although it may be difficult to find a solution here, one is to donate to the efforts of these organizations.  If you’re interested in making atheism more socially acceptable and beneficial for a more diverse group of individuals, consider helping these groups out.  Check out the links, and thanks for reading.

 

“Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them – we can love completely without complete understanding.” — Norman McLean, A River Runs Through It

My dad is a very intelligent man. He’s an engineer, but he is also capable of thinking fairly logically about philosophy and a wide variety of subjects. What’s made me angry, furious, is that my father, who questions almost everything else in his life, believes in the crazily fantastic story of the Bible hook, line, and sinker.

We weren’t like most of the other families growing up. Most of the other families weren’t homeschooled, and most of them didn’t memorize a hundred verses a year, or win Bible Bowls consistently, or pour themselves as fully into church as our family did.

Now that I’m an atheist, I feel like my father, who I once respected – and still do, in many respects—is believing a story that doesn’t make sense and is profoundly harmful. I want him to investigate it more thoroughly. I want him to have a higher regard for the truth of what really happened. I try to tell him, over and over, why he’s wrong.

Before you think that I’m antagonizing him unnecessarily, listen a bit more. Almost all the conversations my Dad and I have had for about as long as I can remember have had to do with God. It’s like me and my Dad were living a story together. And it was generational. I doubt I’ll forget till the day I die the time my father got up and spoke at his father’s (my grandfather’s) funeral. He emphasized the theological points his dad and he agreed on. The points were controversial ones, but that connection, that story, was something he and his dad lived; it was a profound part of the family legacy. And it was passed on down to me.

And I tried to live in that story. But I couldn’t do it, because it was insane. I couldn’t understand how my dad could.

Now I do.

Nothing scares my Dad more than living a purposeless life. He sees my view as advocating a kind of pointless meaninglessness to the universe, and that scares him. When I tell him of my fear of hell, he thinks his fear of a world without God is equivalent.

My Dad’s living in a fairy tale. And I can’t live in it with him. And that’s always going to divide us, because our entire relationship has been based in a fairy tale.

That’s always bothered me.  But, recently, I watched the movie Big Fish.  I highly recommend it to any atheist struggling with their parents’ religiosity.  It’s of a father who embellishes his history to his son, turning it all into grand metaphor.  Throughout it, the son is frustrated — he wants the truth told, straight.  So he investigates his father’s tall tales.  And as he does so, he begins to understand his father — not as an obnoxious story teller, but as someone whose life, as he saw it, was grand.  It meant something beautiful and epic to him.  And the way he found to communicate that was by telling his history through tall tales. His feeling was much like that of Tim O’Brien when he said, “I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.” 

So, after seeing Big Fish, I thought…maybe my Dad isn’t weak for wanting his illusions. Maybe he just prefers living life in a grand story. Maybe he thinks that this will save the beauty of his life, because it’s all he’s known that would do it.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAvoR20o9s4[/youtube]

Do I really want to take that away? Do I really want to war against him? Or is it OK to let him live in his grand story?

Yeah, I know the psychological diagnosis…you grow up, and you realize your parents are real people as opposed to the mature giants they were when you were a kid. But it seems like more than this…in a way, explaining the way it is is hopeless. I mean, there’s no way to summarize thirty years of history in a short note. I can’t summarize the smile I got on my face at twelve when Dad let me do the reading for the family Bible Study or the profound feelings of camaraderie I’ll never forget when we read the scriptures on Christmas Day together. I can’t summarize the Thanksgiving prayers or the songs we sung, or the strong sentiments I feel every time I hear them…the memories they bring back. I can’t summarize the pow-wow sessions when yet another professor attacked my faith and my Dad provided a brilliant rebuttal. I can’t summarize the look on my Dad’s face when he realized – and was really the first person to realize – that I wasn’t a Christian anymore. I can’t just summarize the drive we had way back when I was Christian with few doubts and my larger-than-life Dad became human after the recent passing of his own father and said he was afraid of a lot of things, to my shock – and top of the list was that his children would leave God.

My Dad isn’t perfect. But he’s just a man. He’s a man trying to save himself and his family from a dark and dreary world with a story he thinks will encourage and protect them. And in many ways, it has.

I don’t think my father is ever going to be an atheist, and if he did become one, well…he’s been so psychologically averse to the possibility that the change would be traumatic for him, I think. And also, if the genetics are any indication, my Dad is going to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s within the next seven-eight years.

Do I really want to spend that time fighting him and trying to tear down his fairy tale?

Or should I let him continue trying to save his life with a story, even if it hurts those around him?

I honestly don’t know. Full stop. This isn’t a request for advice. It’s just a fact.

I love my Dad, and I hate almost everything he stands for, but I understand the value of saving your life with a story, and that’s just the way it is.

And he…I think, sometimes, he thinks that somehow I let him down, that I rejected something he stood for strongly.  And he doesn’t understand, entirely, why.  But somehow we have tried to hold hands across the divide.  As he preaches another sermon, writes another article, or “discovers” another truth about the Bible, he still makes an attempt to “love completely without complete understanding.”

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfGmV-el44k[/youtube]

But here’s a thought that may be somewhat comforting.  We’re both part of the same spacetime of existence, and the materiality of our existences dissipates into oneness in the space of eternity, even as the constant river of time, proceeds.  So in that way, we are, and will be, reconciled somehow. Kinda the way all things work, if you think about it.  It may be a strange thought, but yes…that does give me some sense of haunting comfort.

Thanks for listening.

How is your relationship with your parents?

“Have you ever noticed how so often when we try to reconstruct the causes which lead up to the actions of men and women, how with a sort of astonishment we find ourselves now and then reduced to the belief, the only possible belief, that they stemmed from some of the old virtues? the thief who steals not for grief but for love, the murderer who kills not out of lust but pity?” — William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom

“Doctor Parcival began to plead with George Willard. ‘You must pay attention to me,’ he urged. ‘If something happens perhaps you will be able to write the book that I may never get written. The idea is very simple, so simple that if you are not careful you will forget it. It is this—that everyone in the world is Christ and they are all crucified. That’s what I want to say. Don’t you forget that. Whatever happens, don’t you dare let yourself forget.’” — Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio

So, I was thinking about God and Christianity, and here’s the thing:

I don’t believe there’s evidence for a conscious being named “God,” or that Jesus really rose from the dead. But I think there might be a helpful metaphor here, maybe, that could build a bridge between my own position and that of many Christians.

I have all these ideals, like love, harmony, joy, healing, etc. These are ideals that are complicated, and they may not be fully realized in my lifetime or anyone’s, but working towards them means something beautiful to me, y’know? Not in a wooden, steel-cut, “this is what they are, and they’re good things regardless of the evidence” kind of way, but in the sense that they are ideals that are adjusted based on evidence.

And then there’s the other thing. Society does all kinds of deeply damaging things to us. Jesus in the Bible was crucified for the sins of the world, and Sherwood Anderson once said, “Everyone in the world is Christ, and we are all crucified.” What if what that means is that all of us are condemned — not by God, but by other people and manmade standards? I’ve never met a person who wasn’t misunderstood, and I’ve never been perfectly understood, but I have the sense that if I were really able to understand someone, these misconceptions might be washed away, in a way. The action is still there, and it sometimes does harm that must be remedied — don’t get me wrong — but maybe we’re all innocent and life and biology make us look kinda fucked up to other people, so that these other people feel they have to “crucify” us because of their perception of what we do and think even though, again, we’re innocent. We’re innocent as the mythological Christ, but the way society sees us makes us look guilty (and feel guilty when we internalize it), and if the production of that guilt is what “crucifies” us, and if the production of that guilt could be labeled “sin,” then, in that sense, if you think about it, we’re all Christ, and we’re all dying for the sins of the world.

And yet, there are these ideals that we believe in, that this innocence is somehow connected to if we could understand the innocence. Like, our innocence could be metaphorically labeled “Christ”, and seen as kind of the “son” of those ideals. I don’t think those ideals are embodied in and of themselves, but if they were…that might be God. But at the same time, they are embodied in the sense that we hold them and believe in them, in a sense, and our collective desires breath life into the ideals, creating something that, perhaps, some might call “God.”

And maybe “heaven” and “hell” are states on earth. Like, we can try to understand people and adjust our ideals to fit them, thus deconstructing constructions of guilt, in a way, and allowing them to be understood in a way that gives them access to association with these ideals and is like a heaven. Or, we can reject this understanding of other people, underline how far they are from our ideals, flaunt how they don’t measure up and burden them with guilt, causing them to suffer from a hell of our own making.

Or that’s one way of looking at it, maybe. I don’t endorse Christianity, obviously (check out some of my earlier blogs).  The concept of us BEING sinful instead of being PERCIEVED as sinful is extremely problematic to me.  But maybe what I stated is an accurate translation of where I’m coming from now. Hmmmm…….

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJHTZ7GWL4o[/youtube]

“What you are, basically, is the fabric and structure of existence itself. Only, there’s a conspiracy that you must not let on about it. Because everybody is. And if one person realizes it, the other is a bit offended. They say, ‘Well, how come you’re so great?’ So to everybody, therefore, who gets an intimation of who they really are — in Christian civilization, people say, ‘Who the hell do you think you are? Are you Jesus Christ?’ Well, you could say that Jesus Christ thought he was Jesus Christ and everybody put him down for it and that’s what you’re doing to me. There is, as it were, a recess in the soul, in the psyche, where everybody knows, perfectly well, that you are not just this irresponsible little mouse that’s been chucked down into this world, but that you are really doing this work, you’re running it. And you can’t admit it just in the same way that you can’t admit that you’re responsible for the way your own heart beats. You say, ‘Oh, that’s not my doing. I have no control over my heart.’ Do you have any control over being conscious? Do you know how you will?” — Alan Watts

About a couple months after I left Christianity, I was having dinner with a group of people after a Unitarian Church service.  At the table I was at was an 80 year old man and his wife.  We got to talking, and he informed me that he had slowly pulled back from religion.  He had started out in conservative churches, became gradually more liberal and went to increasingly liberal churches as he got older, and, finally, at forty years old, cut off ties to religion altogether.

He was solemn as he spoke, and his eyes, though looking at me, were peering back to a distant time and place.  I asked him how he walked away from it.  He said that, at first, he was insistent.  He was paranoid about his mother, who thought he was going to hell.  He tried to convince his friends he was sane as they began to leave him.

We tend to think that time heals wounds – that eventually, people are going to get over the prejudices and eventually the people of your past will accept you so that everything will feel more like “home.”  I thought that about my own life once.  But you come to realize, sometimes, that there are simply some relationships that will never be the same.  It’s not a pretty realization.  It’s true, perhaps, that there may be a way to mend the bridge – or there may not be.  Sometimes, though, the choices faces you to stand at the bridge and keep trying to find a way to help your friends cross…or walk away from the bank into your own inviting sunrise of tomorrow’s possibilities.  Many times in life, you can’t choose both.

So I asked this man if things ever did get better – if his mother came to understand him, if his friends eventually connected to him even if they never understood.  And a kind of sadness came into his eyes.  He thought for a moment as the sadness slightly bowed his head, and he said, “No…no, my mother died thinking I was going to hell.”

“None of your friends reconciled?” I asked.

“No…most of them are dead now, too,” he continued, as he processed the history of the last forty years.

We sat there in silence, eating at the Mexican restaurant.  I thought of my own family.  It was just a couple months after my own deconversion, and all I wanted was understanding.  I wanted people to “get it.”  I wanted my mother to stop thinking I was going to hell.  I wanted my friends to understand that I had genuinely tried to stay true to them.  I wanted my siblings to respect their brother again.  I wanted my heart to be able to come back home, accepted, although I so thoroughly opposed almost everything in the Christian religion.  I felt terribly, deeply torn.

And he thought about his own history, his own former fears and desires, in the silence.  He saw the sadness in me, the prospect of me being an 80 year old man and still not being able to come home.  He finally sighed and finished his thought.

“But…you gotta live your own life.”

I heard those words about three years ago, and at the time it seemed lonely, depressing.  But in my meditation of those words over the years, they’ve become something else.

Over the years, I’ve discovered my own life.  Once upon a time I gave my life to a book and a church, and called the value of that gift “meaning.”  My life wasn’t my own, in a sense.  And these last few years have been a long process of taking my life back.

And I have a beautiful life.  I have replaced old Christian friends I lost with new Christian friends that challenge me and aren’t afraid to entertain my deepest doubts.  I have developed relationships with people who appreciate who I am without me having to pretend to be someone I’m not.  I’ve had experiences that I wouldn’t have had if I’d committed to a church.  I’m able to publically express myself honestly instead of living in the loneliness of lies or suppressed thoughts of doubts.

It’s a very beautiful life.  And it’s mine.  It’s taken some fighting, though.  Some boundary setting.  Sometimes boldly telling people and institutions that have had authority over my life for years that this domain was no longer theirs to rule.  It took accepting insults from those I thought were friends.  It also took saying some painful truths – painful for both sides – to people who loved me.  It changed friendships profoundly – and created others that will last, I anticipate, for a long time that would never happen if I hadn’t had the courage to discover myself.

Y’know…a big reason I’m an anti-theist is because I know that people who leave religion – especially those who were most entrenched – are going to be hurt, angry, and confused when they come out.  And it’s not for irrational reasons.  It’s because they’ve been lied to, and the truth is tearing their lives apart.  I think the worst thing we can do to people at that stage in their life is silence their pain.  We need to remind them that no, they aren’t insane.  It’s not them; it’s the lies of the Christian religion that has ruined their lives.  They aren’t depraved sinners – they’re human beings with dignity who have the right to demand respect for themselves.  I’m fundamentally indebted to the people who reminded me of that, who encouraged me through those difficult times, and who, thus, brought me to the place I am today, a place where, every day, in a new way, I find meaning not in church creeds or the Bible’s words, but in the joy of living my own life.

I’m not sure that older man will appreciate how much I appreciate not just his sharing of words, but his sharing of life.  Because in that moment of silence when he thought about his past and I thought about my future, we had one of the most meaningful, profound, impactful conversations about life I’ve ever had.  It’s something I’ll carry with me for a long time, a “me, too” that has reverberated in the last three years of my struggle, and may well reverberate into my own eighties, should I reach them.

So I decided to try passing it on from my life to yours.

[youtube width=”600″ height=”485″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwTr_CRw3GY[/youtube]

Thanks for reading.

Recently, a “Bigotry Map” was made by the American Family Association.  If you’ve been trying to cater or build bridges with this organization, this map would delineate exactly how successful you were seen as being in your attempt.  It would show you exactly how to avoid being a bigot against religious conservatives, how to effectively be an atheist who didn’t make waves, how to shake hands with the “other side” of the debate effectively, on their terms.

Ready?  All you’ve gotta do is not stand up for gay rights, not oppose the presence of Christian influence in the sphere of government, not advocate that critical thinking and evidence (as opposed to faith) are the basis of belief, not be critical of those who express faith in public, and stay away from organizations that the AFA sees as harmful — like the Human Rights Campaign; the Southern Poverty Law Center; the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network; and the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Seriously, guys.  Y’all need to tone it down with your anti-God nonsense.  Just build bridges, and stop being so hateful against Christians by supporting all these causes and organizations.  They seem to think that by calling us out, they’ll tone us down.  And they aren’t alone.  Lately I’ve heard a wide variety of people — Religious and Nonreligious — telling us all to tone things down already.  It’s cool to be an Atheist.  But an Anti-Theist, stirring up trouble against several causes with the label “Christian” on them — no, no, no, no.  That’s too much.  Better to be calm and conciliatory.

Well, I’m sorry.  I’m done with that.  And apparently the Center For Inquiry was, too.

Rather than distance themselves from these “Christian bigots,” the CFI Communications Director Paul Fidelgo told the American Family Association:

“We ask…no, we demand that the American Family Association recognize that we are just as much a threat to their backward vision of a theocratic, Christianized America as any of these groups – certainly more than the AARP – and add us to their list.”

And in doing that, they left themselves wide open to be called an enemy of Christianity by the influential AFA. And to that, I say bravo.

Now, let me make clear: I’m not anti-Christian, in the sense that if a Christian is being persecuted — like actually persecuted, like being threatened with a gun or being physically tortured or something, not seeing a recently married gay couple make out in front of their church — then I hope to be the first in line to say that no, that’s not cool.  But I’ll be damned before I expose the least bit of trepidation in fighting against the injustices groups like the AFA fight to enact, simply because I am afraid of being smeared as an “anti-theist” or “enemy of Christianity.”  If anything, that exposes to me the importance of standing in that space even more loudly and insistently, in order to give others courage.

Now, there are some liberal Christians I may be able to stand, whose views are not quite as opposed to human dignity.  But I embrace the anti-theist label because there are many in my country — and especially in my state of Texas — who will tape my mouth shut in a heartbeat if they can find a way to make me afraid of identifying with the anti-theist crowd.

I know it’s unpopular in much of Christian culture today.  I realize that the popular, safe mode is to be “moderate,” in many circles.  And sometimes I am conciliatory.  But make no mistake — this reaching out comes from a stance that is firmly against most of those taken by theists in this country, and unapologetically so, especially in light of statements here and, among other things, recent statements by the too-often-respected Pope Francis about transgender individuals.

Now more than ever, we need individuals who are not afraid to say to conservative Christians, “I am whoever you say I am.  Whatever you want to call me, call me.  But I will not give quarter to people who demand respect for beliefs that disrespect my very existence or that of my friends.”  And if I stuttered in that statement, or somehow your response indicates that my words were not clear, I would be more than obliged to raise the volume in insistence.

I am not ashamed to be called an anti-theist; if it is as defined by the likes of the AFA, I will wear it as a badge of honor.  My hope is that next year, the groups opposing their aims will overwhelm their map, and I intend to work with other like-minded individuals to help that happen.

Spare The Rod | The Economist (2014)
“81% of American parents believe that spanking is sometimes necessary. That is more than in many other rich countries, 20 of which have banned spanking even by parents. In America…born-again Christians [spank] more than everyone else.”

Don’t spank your kids.

“But,” you say, “Some kids need to be spanked. You don’t understand…”

The studies are pretty darn consistent, and they’ve done a lot. When you spank a kid, the act tends to INCREASE, rather than decrease, the frequency of the kinds of behaviors you are trying to prevent.

Should Parents Spank Their Kids? | Scientific American (2009)
A five-year effort to review the scientific literature …by the family services division of the American Psychological Association (APA) concludes that “parents..should reduce and potentially eliminate their use of any physical punishment.”

Those are just facts. They’ve run this experiment a zillion times (see links of meta-analyses in the sidebar for samples), and that’s just the facts — no bias, no interpretation. Just bare bones. More spanking tends to result in more “bad” behavior. We’ve run it, said, “That can’t be right,” and run it again…and again…and again….around literally hundreds of times in about the past 60 years, and came up with negative results almost every single time. Go ahead. Look it up yourself.

Research on Spanking: It’s Bad For ALL Kids | Psychology Today (2013)
“In terms of whether parental aggression (spanking) decreases aggression in the child, the answer is no. In fact, spanking tends to increase child aggression.”

The next question is, “Why?”

The reason presented makes sense: If you teach children that aggression is the way to deal with behavior from people that *you* don’t like, children will learn that aggression is the way to deal with behavior from people that *they* don’t like.

I mean, think about it. If you step on someone’s foot accidentally, and they say, “OW! That really hurt — please don’t do that,” how are you likely to respond to someone stepping on YOUR foot a week later? Similarly, right? But if you step on someone’s foot accidentally and that person steps on your foot back and punches you in the face, wouldn’t you be a tad more likely to act a bit more violently towards the person who stepped on your foot a week later?
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcO48w5Xcvo[/youtube]
Keeping that principle in mind, here’s what happens.

Toddler Johnny takes a toy from Toddler Danny. You spank Johnny. Johnny learns that this is the proper response to the situation. OK, so a few days later Susie takes a toy from Johnny. Johnny slaps her angrily and yells, “Mine! Don’t take it!” Because he’s learned from you that this is the way to deal with the situation. So you take Johnny and spank him for THAT — reiterating and multiplying the scenarios in Johnny’s head in which Johnny thinks it’s fine to slap somebody. So Johnny becomes more aggressive, which leads to you becoming more aggressive…and it becomes in your mind a kind of arms race, while in Johnny’s mind it’s just an attempt to learn how the world works.

Corporal Punishment by Parents and Associated Child Behaviors and Experiences | American Psychological Association (2002)
“The stronger association between corporal punishment and the aggression composite for boys may also be accounted for by child effects; because boys tend to exhibit aggression more than girls, they may also elicit more corporal punishment from parents than do girls. However…boys in general tend to receive more corporal punishment than girls. Taken together, these findings constitute a chicken-and-egg problem: Are boys spanked more because they are aggressive, or are they more aggressive because they are spanked more?”

What happens for many parents is that they think the child is “sinful” and they have to spank the sinfulness out of them, which turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy and vicious cycle in which the parent teaches the child aggression and then punishes the child for aggression by USING aggression, thus teaching the child aggression…etc. Although genetics do indeed play a part in aggression levels in kids, this practice of using aggression to punish aggression may be a major reason why you might think Johnny needs more spankings than Suzy — Johnny gets spanked more and buys into the aggression you taught him, thus making it so that he needs more spankings. Suzy may need less spankings not because she is a better kid, but simply because she was not spanked as often earlier and is mirroring the less aggressive discipline techniques you taught her.

Spanking and the Making of a Violent Society | Pediatrics (1996)
“The research reviewed suggests that, in addition to many other benefits, a society in which parents never spank will be a society with less violence and other crime.”

Ironic? Spanked Children More Likely to Break the Law | Psych Central News (2013)
“Emerging research suggests university students who were spanked as children are more likely to engage in criminal behavior.”

Now, the good news is that the earlier you end the spanking, the better. If you end the spankings around the time the child is 2 or 3, the child may recover, for the most part, or even completely (although there is a high likelihood that there will still be negative effects).

“But,” you may say, “Johnny acts better when I spank him.”

Well, of course he acts better right after you spank him, just as you are unlikely to step on the person’s foot right after you get the shit kicked out of you. So it works in the short term. But as soon as he is in a position where he can copy your violence, will he?

Well, turns out they did studies on this, too. And people who got spanked were more likely to be violent towards their spouses and kids when they got older than those who didn’t. Which makes disturbingly perfect sense.

“But I got spanked, and I turned out alright. Johnny should be raised the way I was so he can turn out alright, too.”

Ummmmm…with all due respect, maybe you didn’t. Maybe you’re the grown up version of Johnny and you don’t know how to resolve situations you don’t like without violence, because that’s how you were raised and it’s what you know. Maybe you’re taking out the aggression you learned in the way you were raised on your kid, and maybe how you turned out isn’t what you’re shooting for with Johnny.

Maybe spanking your kid is about your problems more than it’s about Johnny’s problems…but it will be about Johnny’s problems if he grows up and continues the cycle on your grandchildren.

Therapy for Parents, Therapist for Parenting Issues
It’s not just for you. It’s for you and your child. Maybe you’re not a terrible parent — maybe you just need some help and a few strategies. How valuable is a healthy long-term relationship with your child? Find a good therapist here.

So I’m not saying you’re a bad person. Maybe you need help. Maybe you need to open up to someone skilled in discussing these matters (like a licensed therapist). Not for yourself, but for your kid and your grandkid and so on. It could make a difference…it WILL make a difference, either way.

But now you know. So what are you going to do?

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVFt7Ahs8gw[/youtube]

Don’t spank your kids.

What Most Christians Seem To Argue

I’ve heard it said that my choices are meaningless if the Christian’s view of free will isn’t true.  When I inquire as to what this definition of free will is, the answer usually is one that seeks to completely absolve God from the guilt of our choices.  “Free Will” is independent and not dependent, for many Christians, on circumstances or any determination from God.  The benefit of this free will, for these Christians, is that it is ours.  We have, to some degree, independent control over our choices.  Without this independent control, most Christians continue, there are no real “choices” – only predetermined outcomes.  And such predetermined outcomes would make choices themselves somehow meaningless; we’d be like robotic machines.

Why I Disagree

That last part is a bit difficult for me to get my head wrapped around.  I will admit that knowing I will experience the direction I go in my life does push me forward.  But the motivation behind this direction is a construction of my experiences.  It’s not divorced from my biology, my likes and dislikes, my desires, etc.  Every motivation I have is firmly attached to that whole arena of experiences.

And I want it to be.

I mean, if I’m making a decision, like, “Where do I want to go in my career?” I want to look at all the circumstantial factors.  I’m going to look at my desires, my circumstances, different trends, etc.  All these factors, and several more, will determine where I want to go in my career and how I’m going to get there.  And even if I don’t make the best possible choice, that decision would also be determined by the knowledge (or lack thereof) of my circumstances I had at hand –  like my desires, my likes and dislikes, my biology, and a whole history of experiences.

In other words, the reason why you may look at all the factors that go into making a decision is because you know that the actions you take or don’t take will determine the actions you take or don’t take in the future.  And you know this because of the way you’ve learned how decisions you’ve made have been determined by circumstances in the past.

What I’m trying to say is that it’s not at all unusual for us to think that choices are determined by several factors, and that the most rational choices are the ones that seem best at recognizing that they are determined by several factors.  According to the logic of this Christian free will, however, your choices are, at one point or another, not determined by several factors; at some point, they are completely independent of circumstances.  Following this Christian “Free Will” logic, that point where the choice would be independent of circumstances, that “free” point, would be like a missing link in a causal chain.  It’s a part of your decision process that can’t be rationalized – you can’t say, at the point that you have this free will at, “I did this because x,” because “x” would be a circumstance.  If you don’t believe me, try to rationalize a free will choice without connecting it to a factor outside of free will.  If you can do it, put it in the comments.  If you can’t, please read on.

Because the exercise of your Christianity-defined free will wouldn’t be attached to circumstances, you would have to simply say “I did this” or “I thought this” in regards to an instance of free will without there being any answer or rationale as to why that decision had anything to do with your environment. Thus, the decision would be less rational than the result of a coin flip.  There is no reason to trust it or depend on it, because any reason would have to appeal to some reference point outside of this free will — and if it died, that free will and would no longer be “free.”

Responses To Christian Rebuttals

Normally Christians break in here and say, “Wait a minute!  Free Will is NOT divorced from circumstances.”

Well, if “free will” is dependent on circumstances, and if God made the circumstances, then the choices we made with “free will” are God’s fault.  Right?  If you can’t divorce free will from circumstances, then the choices we make with free will would clearly have to be God’s fault.  That seems to be the clear logic of the situation.

I feel I also need to clarify something.  A Christian may say, “Well, I’m not talking about circumstances.  I’m saying free will is attached to the PERSON.”  Well, remember that I’m including everything in the person in circumstances – everything the person didn’t make themselves.  Their brain, their heart, their body chemistry and makeup, their genes – all that is under the purview of “circumstances.”

From here, a Christian will often say that there is a separation here between the physical and the subjective, and “free will” is located in the subjective part of the mind.  Now, there’s a rather long argument one could have to say that subjective experience is an emergent quality of matter in rebuttal, but there’s also a shorter way to respond to this.  Even if we accepted for the sake of argument that there is a separation between the subjective world of experience and the actual physical world, things in that subjective world, like “free will,” would still be caused by other things in the subjective world, like “pleasure and pain.”  Your subjective decisions would still have to be constructed and motivated by subjective data in order to make sense.  Even if you were to take dualism for granted — whether your decisions are determined by your experiences or constructed by physical matter, your decisions are still being determined.  And if God exists, they were ultimately determined by the “first mover” – the all-knowing God.

Now there’s another argument here.  The Christian may argue, “Free will is completely separate from circumstance.  Completely.  And there is no necessary rationale for it; God is simply separate from it.”  But not so fast.  If there is no necessary rationale for it, then it’s random.  And it’s not any created person’s fault that they’re random; none of us threw the dice, so to speak.  God blaming things on us when he set the randomness into motion is analogous to a gambler blaming the dice for a bad roll.  The randomness is ultimately God’s fault.

So, yeah.  The Christian concept of free will does not rubber-stamp choices as rational – choices would have to be irrational for the concept of free will to be viable.  But either way you slice it – whether God determined everyone or He gave everyone “free will” – God ends up being responsible for everything people do.  There doesn’t really seem to be a way around that, if you think about it.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRIcbsRXQ0o[/youtube]

P.S. I know there are several definitions of “Free Will” that do not coincide with this Christian definition.  Feel free to discuss them in the comments below — this was a response to one very specific definition of the concept.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQxJi0COTBo[/youtube]

Christians frequently tell me that I became an atheist because I didn’t follow their advice.  I try to say, frequently, that I took Christianity extremely seriously — and I hear many other former Christians say the same thing.  And that’s the infuriating thing.  This Christian belief was the center of your life for years, and you DEDICATED yourself to it wholeheartedly.  And the principles within it, oftentimes, are what turn you against Christianity.  There’s an anger there, however irrational, of thinking, “I really genuinely followed all the advice, and that’s what brought me to atheism.”

And most people don’t seem to understand that.  It’s like you’re screaming in a glass box and people are making up where you’re coming from, putting you in the box of “Angry atheist rebelling from God” instead of paying attention to the nuances and the struggle in your story.  It’s likely that this will be another one of those attempts — that Christians who read this will close their minds and hearts to this story, which is my own and also that of countless other formerly devout ex-Christians.

But maybe that’s not you.  Maybe you’re an ex-Christian who was once a sincere Christian and is frustrated right now because you don’t really think anyone “gets it.”  So, if nothing else, this is written to let you know that I’m here, I’ve been there, I get it.  Sometimes all that’s needed is a “me, too.”

So, with that in goal in mind, here are 8 ways trying to be a stronger Christian made me an atheist.

 

1.  Many Christians will say to stop being obsessed with being a good Christian and let God work in your life to draw you closer to Him.  I tried that.  I stopped being concerned about trying to be a Christian with my own power and just let God work.  And the more I did that, the more the only thing that “worked” powerfully in my life and heart was God’s nonexistence.  I began to allow the nonexistent nature of God to work in my life, changing my vision and allegiances, until finally I truly connected to God’s nature of nonexistence in becoming an atheist.

 

2. Several Christians told me that the reason people leave God is a failure to appreciate God’s grace.  So I began striving to appreciate it.  It became overwhelmingly beautiful to me, and I began seeing grace in more and more people and to believe in grace more and more stridently.  And the more basic to the beauty of existence it appeared, the more I wondered why anyone had to do anything to get it. As I kept meditating on this grace, I began to see that the greatest grace possible is the kind that isn’t called “grace,” but “justice” — that it is far more beautiful to love humanity as fellow human beings who deserve dignity a priori than as sinful people who don’t automatically deserve their salvation.  Coming to that realization helped me become an atheist who identified with secular humanism.

3. I was told that my problem was that I wasn’t getting deeper into God’s word with my mind and heart. But the deeper I got in the word, the more I tried to let it fill me as I meditated on it, the more I saw inconsistencies within it. I felt the inconsistencies as I saw them, and when I felt the greatest inconsistency of all the deepest I could have possible felt it—the inconsistency between God’s infinite love and God’s eternal separation from those who did not love him back —the rupture became the entire landscape; it became increasingly impossible to identify, at the same time, with the God who loved and the God who had to be separate from some of His creation.  So I finally left the illusion of a schizophrenic God to choose love, and became an atheist.

 

4. I tried to focus more on God than on people. But the more I focused on a God who wasn’t just the creation of the people around me, the more I realized how much people had to do with propping up Christianity, and the more I realized that if I didn’t focus on people and instead focused on God, I didn’t need the picture of God that people were trying so hard to sell me.  When I needed that picture least, I became an atheist.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssf7P-Sgcrk[/youtube]

 

 

5. I tried to be a more loving and caring Christian by looking for God in people who said they had the love of Christ in the hearts. The more I looked, the more I found this love of Christ within more and more people — especially when I looked at and tried to understand “character flaws” in people that made them not conform to God’s supposed standards. When I saw God in people most, I started seeing Him in the guidelines, instructions, promises, and threats he had for them least, and so seeing God in people as opposed to rules led me to leave those guidelines, instructions, promises, and threats, focus  and become an atheist.

 

6. I tried to be a more spiritually grounded Christian by being more intimate with God in worship, both in and out of the Church, so that I could develop a relationship with God instead of just adhering to a religion. But the more grounded in God I got, the more I found that what I was being intimate with wasn’t the Bible’s God. It didn’t have the boundaries and definitions the book told me it had. As the barriers defining “God” collapsed, I found I was becoming more intimate not with one particular being, it seemed, but with existence itself. And when I was most intimate with existence, the concerns and limitations on its definitions in the Bible seemed to fade, until finally they weren’t there; it was just me and the beauty of existence, and the “God” it spoke of finally vanished due to the consumption of its own flame, and I was an atheist.

7. Some Christians said I needed to embrace my doubts and become a more logical, rational Christian by reading about the logical proofs for God’s existence and using them to defend God. The more I did this, however, the more the criticisms I leveled against other viewpoints were leveled onto my own Christianity. I began to see that, oftentimes, people were trying to defend their viewpoints not because they wanted to be right or wrong, but because they wanted to defend themselves and ensure they had the respect, reputation, and security they wanted.  As I saw this tendency in others, I also saw it in myself – I began to see that if I came in trying to prove God’s existence instead of trying to be more accurate in my opinion, much of the time that attitude exposed a desire to be respected, preserve my reputation, and keep a sense of security instead of trying to be right.that my primary commitment to God was really a commitment to myself. Thus, I gradually became less interested in proving I was right and more interested in trying to BE right, regardless of the consequences, and that opened a wide door for me to potentially change my mind when the evidence required it. When that door opened and I gathered the courage and humility to enter through it, I became an atheist.

8. I tried to become a more humble Christian so I could be more in awe of God. But the more I tried to be humble, the more I wondered how I could be a truly humble Christian when so many people I knew were going to hell and I worshipped the God whose judgment or definition meant they were going there.  How was it humble to sing about how wonderful it was that God saved ME? I tried really, really hard to figure this out. I tried Arminianism, Calvinism, Open Theism, Emergent Theology, and so on. I tried talking to other people to see how they did it. I tried helping people down on their luck to be more in awe of God. I tried to look more at the beauty and grandeur of the universe, and my own size in comparison to it. 

My humility caused me to respect others more. The more I respected the beauty in others — humans and even animals; really, existence in general — the less I saw them as people God needed to give beauty to.  And the more I respected others, the less I saw they needed God’s grace.  The transition actually made me more humble, in a way. God didn’t make me more valuable in any way than anybody else, and he didn’t “save” me more than He saved anybody else, because everything was already valuable without His salvation. And so, in my humblest moment, I recognized that God was keeping me from realizing the worth of the world, and saw that I had always been part of the world instead of “in but not of” it.  Breaking down that barrier allowed me to see a beautiful view from my own humble station in life, and I have come to call the beauty of that humility my atheism.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PN5JJDh78I[/youtube]

So, I’ve been reading that Oklahoma has been trying to get rid of its AP History classes because they’re too negative when it comes to America. And I’m supposed to be outraged, I gather. But I’m not, really, all that more outraged than usual.  Oklahoma has been pulling this nonsense for years. Did you know, before reading this article that the worst ever race riot in the world’s recorded history — and the second worst riot, PERIOD — happened in Tulsa Oklahoma?  Maybe.  But a lot of people don’t.  Why?  Because…it paints an unsavory picture of America. [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRTyN3o2MlE[/youtube] Let me sketch the details.  So, it was 1921, and there was segregation in the city of Tulsa, right?  Now, in Tulsa, for a variety of factors (including a nearby oil boom), there was a black suburb called Greenwood that started to be so well off it was nicknamed “The Negro Wall Street.”  If you went there, you found black people in suits and ties, going to movie theatres, being professional doctors, lawyers, and so on.  They never needed to go to the white side of town — they had extremely nice libraries, movie theatres, restaurants, law offices, and the like. So, the white people saw the black people being successful in Tulsa.  Really, outrageously successful.  That separate but equal motto?  The black individuals had ARRIVED.  They had reached respectable status.  If the true motive of segregation was to keep the races separate and not to keep blacks subordinate, the white individuals should have been happy that it was supposedly working. They weren’t.  Greenwood was an embarrassment to the white South in a time when the KKK was increasingly taking hold in Oklahoma.  It was hard proof that, given the right opportunity and circumstances, black people would choose not to be in slums — they could build themselves up to outdo the most prestigious parts of white southern culture on its own terms.  Like a sore thumb, it stuck there.  And the white part of the segregated city looked on, a ticking time bomb.  It must have been frightening for the black people, who were outnumbered by the black people 10-1. The Chicago Tribune summarizes the incident well here:

On May 30, 1921, a 19-year-old black shoeshine man named Dick Rowland entered the Drexel building downtown to use the segregated restroom. While approaching the elevator, which apparently hadn’t stopped evenly with the floor, Rowland tripped and fell on the operator, a 17-year-old white girl named Sarah Page. The girl screamed, drawing the attention of onlookers who yelled rape.

Authorities arrested Rowland and held him overnight in the county jail, though Page declined to press charges.

The following day, the Tulsa Tribune ran a story in the afternoon edition headlined, “Nab Negro for Attacking Girl in Elevator,” and added a racially charged editorial calling for a lynching. That evening an angry white mob showed up with guns to kill Rowland and an angry black mob showed up with guns to protect him.

A gun went off, and the two sides went after one another shooting and punching. The whites overpowered the blacks, pushing them to the Greenwood dividing line. Over the next 12 or so hours, the whites went on a shooting, burning and looting rampage in Greenwood.

And it was a brutal rampage.  Greenwood was ransacked.  Black people fought back, but they were no match for the white people indiscriminately shooting civilians and black individuals (who, you remember, were only involved because they were trying to keep a falsely accused black man, who was later released without even being charged, safe from a lynching).  Police officers and law enforcement were involved; the sheriff even, according to a book written by Alfred Brophy, a (white) Professor of Law at Chapel Hill, would deputize citizens to further license them to terrorize the black area.  As the white people ransacked and sat fire to 35 entire city blocks, turning them into ruins and doing today’s equivalent of 21 million dollars worth of damage, Governor Roberts finally sent in the National Guard.  Which began arresting people.

Black people.

That’s right.  No white people.  Black people only.  Not a single white person — who were doing all the rioting, remember — got arrested or charged.  Some of the black people were being held hostage by white vigilantes — and the National Guard came in, took over custody for the white individuals by taking the black people into custody, and let the white kidnappers be.

That’s not the worst part, though.  The worst part is what happened afterwards.

Because right now, chances are high that, if you’re white, you’re thinking, “Man, just get over it.  That happened almost 100 years ago.  This is now.  Things like this don’t happen anymore.”

Which is ironic, because that’s exactly what Oklahoma did.  This was the second largest riot in the recorded history of the WORLD, remember.  And for a long time, nobody ever heard of it, because people didn’t really want to talk about it.  The investigation was very light and said only 36 people were killed, when we found out later that it was 300.  If you look around the net, you’ll see it be called a “cover up,” but it doesn’t seem to quite be that.  It seems to be the thought that black lives didn’t really matter.  This wasn’t really American history.  American history was white lives dying for prestigious reasons, sacrificing themselves for the freedom of their white comrades.  It wasn’t 35 charred city blocks in a black neighborhood.  It wasn’t 300 dead blacks.  It wasn’t 10,000 professional blacks suddenly made homeless. It wasn’t lynchings.  And it certainly wasn’t well-to-do blacks in segregated communities who had overcome all the socioeconomic damages thrown at them.  If the more subtle marginalizations didn’t validate white superiority in the Oklahoma narrative of the time, burning 35 city blocks to the ground would.  So, if anything, turning Greenwood into a wasteland that would never be the same again FIXED history.  It wasn’t part of history.  I’m not sure it was intentionally covered up so much as just ignored.  It was black people dying in a black neighborhood, not white people highlighting concepts of freedom and dignity.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NboclI2h-5s[/youtube]

Aljazeera America reported the following in 2014:

According to a 1921 New York Times article, Judge Loyal J. Martin, a former mayor of Tulsa who chaired the first race riot committee — the Tulsa City Commission — just days after the attack, said in a mass meeting that the city could redeem itself and move forward only “by complete restitution and rehabilitation of the destroyed black belt.” “The rest of the United States must know that the real citizenship of Tulsa weeps at this unspeakable crime and will make good the damage, so far as it can be done, to the last penny,” he said. But that never happened. Insurance companies denied claims from African-Americans, leaving them with nothing but the clothes on their backs, forced to start over or leave. Blacks tried to sue the city and state for damages but had their claims blocked or denied, according to the official report. On June 14, just two weeks after the riot, Mayor T.D. Evans addressed the commission, telling it that the incident was “inevitable” and that the victims “should receive such help as we can give them.” But then he said something else: “Let us immediately get to the outside fact that everything is quiet in our city, that this menace has been fully conquered, and that we are going on in a normal condition.” In other words: The city should move on. And for 90 years, that’s what happened.

But you’re probably still thinking, if you’re white and living in Oklahoma, “Come on, man.  Get over it.  That happened so long ago.”

How do I know that?  Because I’m a reverse-racist black person?  You can think of me what you like, but the point of fact is that is what Oklahoma DID. In 1999, all the facts were brought up.  The damage was assessed, records were dug through, and the story that had lain hidden for 80 years was laid bare in all of its terrible detail.  As the Al Jazeera America article states, after the investigation was published in 2001, it was recommended that the living victims be compensated.  However:

Paying reparations was just not something Oklahomans were interested in entertaining. Brown said that almost as soon as word got out about the possibility of reparations, the Greenwood Cultural Center began to receive hate mail and angry, anonymous phone calls from people who did not support paying out. A lot of the calls were similar: “I wasn’t here, my parents weren’t involved in it.” The Oklahoma state Legislature accepted the report and the “moral responsibility on behalf of the state and its citizens” but flatly refused to pay any type of reparations. More than 200 people sued the state, seeking recourse for damages. The survivors weren’t asking for individual checks for themselves or their descendants; they wanted educational benefits such as scholarships for students in the area to attend historically black colleges and universities and health benefits for descendants who remained in Greenwood.

So, there were several of them alive, whose lives were ruined by that tragedy. And they would have gotten some justice, too…had not Oklahoma railed angrily that no, they were NOT going to get reparations, the PAST was in the PAST, and giving them money for something that happened so long ago was like giving money to Native Americans.  Get the fuck over it, survivors of the second worst riot in the world’s recorded history.  It’s not our fault.

And you still don’t really hear about it in the history books, do you?  Because it didn’t happen.  Because black lives don’t matter.  Because it doesn’t belong there with Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

“But,” you say, “That’s back in 2001.  We’re way less racist now than we were then.  So get over it.”

MAYBE you would have a point if it wasn’t for one thing.  There are about a dozen people STILL alive and STILL trying to demand some kind of compensation for the damages.  Just to put this into perspective, they have been trying to do this FOR ALMOST 100 YEARS NOW.

Nothing.  Notta. Zilch.  Not a cent.

Oklahoma’s attitude towards AP American History is the epitome of white America’s “Forget about our racist past” narrative.  Not as much has changed since 1921 as we’d like to think.  We still look at the current conditions and criticize them in ways that are purposefully meant to perpetuate centuries-old stereotypes, and we blind ourselves to the fact that this is what we are doing by erasing the history that reveals how longstanding these stereotypes are. Tulsa Race Riots aren’t news.  The problems in some black neighborhoods have NOTHING relevant to do with a history of segregation and discrimination, and everything to do with black people not pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps.

And we’ll stop at nothing.  Even if it means denying compensation for the survivors of the second largest riot in world history.  Even if it means taking out all the critical parts out of our history books.  We’ll do our damndest to show the world that white America — or, as we put it, “America” — is the greatest nation on earth.

This is something that I know, as a somewhat conscious black American in our country.  So if you’re running around paranoid at cuts to AP History, please know that I’ve already finished emptying my tear ducts for the survivors of things like the Tulsa Race Riot; you should understand my lack of surprise when the answer is an unsurprised shrug, even as I hear another person rail about the greatness of our country while telling me, “Forget about the past.”

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides, 
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

-- Langston Hughes

So you’ve just been told. “I’ll pray for you!”

And you’re not really sure how to respond in this situation. Maybe you mutter a “thanks” and feel like a dufus as you walk away, wishing there was something more clever you could’ve said. Or maybe the context was different – the person was being sincere, and you want to say you appreciate the thought even though you don’t agree with it. But you’re not sure how you should word that sentiment or if you should even express it. So maybe you say something that didn’t quite fit to your satisfaction in that instance, either.

Before going any further, I should state that it’s trendy, especially among lifelong atheists or those who have been atheists for a long time, to say that you shouldn’t feel angry about the religion you came from (in this case, Christianity) — so someone saying “I’ll pray for you” in any context should be no big deal. On the other end, I know some of these atheists who aren’t angry are probably reading this carefully to see if I am endorsing a position of anger towards well-meaning Christians — an endorsement that is likely to alienate some atheists who claim they just don’t feel angry at the religion they came from.

I’m going to say – you owe it to yourself to be honest about your feelings here. If you’re angry about Christianity (as I often am) you owe it to yourself to admit that to yourself and figure out how to best express your honest feelings to other people. If you’re less angry and more diplomatic, or even apathetic – then you can admit where you are on that spectrum, as well, and act accordingly.

Because atheists have such a wide range of reactions against religion, there isn’t a single one-size-fits-all-people-and-situations strategy. So I’m going to offer several possibilities to help you out. Knowing where you fall in the continuum will help you know how to respond – not only to phrases like “I’ll pray for you” but other Christianeze staples, too, like “Why are you so angry at God?” “How’s your heart?” “Maybe you just need to humble yourself?” “You must have a secret sin in your life/ You just want to sin” and so on.

OK, let me go over some possible scenarios.

Scenario 1: The sincere “I’ll Pray For You” in reference to a tragedy

You’re at a funeral, bawling your eyes out because your father died. Your teenage niece comes up to you, reaches out and touches your shoulder consolingly, and hesitates as she looks for something to say. She looks at you a long time, and she knows you’re an atheist, but she cares about you deeply and this is, by necessity, a very religious moment for her, and she’s torn. So she says something because it’s better than saying nothing at all, and it’s the only thing she can think of to say in this context. “I’m so sorry. I’ll pray for you.” How should you respond?

Best response

Regardless of how angry you are as an atheist, the best response is probably a simple “thank you.” Even if you don’t agree with her beliefs, chances are you appreciate the sentiment, regardless of how angry at religion you are. And you’re not lying or being dishonest – you probably honestly appreciate the thought and the care she’s expressing for you. It’s a lovely moment between you and her – just something she said to make a beautiful relationship moment happen between you – not something she did to insult you or make you upset. And you can, probably, embrace that moment without believing in God.

(Note: If you’re one who tends to be angry at religion and someone says “I’ll pray for you” with an intent that is less than this innocent later and brings this moment up as proof you should be OK with it – yes, these scenarios exist, especially in families – discuss the differences in intent and specific contexts in your rebuttal – the previous paragraph may give you some pointers.)

Scenario 2: The genuinely concerned for how you’ll get along as a nonbeliever “I’ll Pray for You.”

Someone who thought you were a Christian finds you aren’t. They seem disturbed and surprised, and you guys have a civil five-ten minute or so conversation about it. They’re obviously concerned. At the end of the conversation, they say, “I’ll pray for you.”

Possible Response

“I’m OK.”

“I don’t need prayer” may be more abrasive than you want to be, and “I’m OK” basically communicates the same sentiment, anyway. It also reinforces the fact that your relationship can continue – no one needs to pray to make you “OK”; you’re already there. It’s short and to the point, and can easily be said at the end of a conversation, as the person’s walking away, without seeming rude. Also, “I’ll think for you” (another oft-suggested response) may be more abrasive than necessary for the conversation, and it likely won’t register in the person’s head if their primary thought is “I want you to be OK.” Saying “I’ll think for you” also focuses the conversation on the other person, underlining what separates you instead of what unites you. Saying “I’m OK” is unifying and nullifies the “I’ll pray for you” sentiment. Finally, saying “I’m OK” here opens up a door for you to see the other person’s intentions – their response back can show you whether things are cool as far as they’re concerned, or whether they’re intent on letting you know you’re not “OK” enough to be friends with.

It’s two words, but I think they’re fairly effective here.

Scenario 3: The rude “I’ll Pray For You.”

Someone knows you’re an atheist, and you’re in an argument with that person that is filled with insults from them about how arrogant you are, how much you need God, how ignorant you are, that you’re in danger of going to hell, etc. You make a fairly strong point and they leave the conversation – and, in their parting words, they say, “I’ll pray for you” but it feels like “Fuck You.”

Possible Responses

If you’re apathetic or insistent on being a passive atheist, you might think the best response here is to simply say, “I’m OK.” And that’s you’re choice; you can do that.

However…that might not, exactly, reflect your honest feelings.

Here are some more confrontational responses with their probable reaction.

1. “Why?” or “Why would you tell me that?” or a similar question can continue the conversation, if the person used “I’ll pray for you” to end the conversation and you want to keep it going. “Why” leads to a conversation on the meaning of prayer if the person wants the insult to stick. “Why would you tell me that?” shows that the announcement is unnecessary, and you can, from here, press home the point that they told you because it’s about humans trying to convince each other; it has nothing to do with God.

2. “OK — if you want to talk to yourself, that’s your deal” or something similar. This shows you don’t value their judgment much more than scenario 2’s suggestion — it’s an insult that effectively separates your viewpoints. Sometimes, such a fence may be useful.

3. A simple chuckle and a “you do that” can be dismissive and do the trick without ruining the vibe of a dinner party. I find this short, sweet, and effective in communicating that prayer does nothing for you and asserting your own stance without strongly attacking the other person.

Note: Often, Christians state that the phrase “I’ll pray for you” makes atheists angry because atheists actually secretly believe in the power of prayer, but there are more plausible possibilities.  For my earlier blog post that I wrote to help Christians understand WHY Atheists get angry at the phrase “I’ll Pray For You,” click here: 7 Reasons The Phrase “I’ll Pray For You” Makes Atheists Angry