The Atheists Conundrum

[Moonwalk]

16. As a fellow Atheist, there is a third option, and it's not quite the dilemma you think it is...

See, most Atheists used to be religious. So if there was something the religious saw that Atheists do not, we'd know it--we'd have seen it when we were religious and probably not let it go. And we also know when we were religious if we were crazy or delusional or not--and we might say so, but, again, probably we were mostly reasonable and rational outside of religion.

The third element is this: every religious person actually agrees with Atheists, but they can't go to that particular conclusion or distance (i.e. that there is no god). What do I mean by that? No religious person I know believes everything. And most will say they believe X but not Y. For example, that Jesus was the son of god, but Mohammed was just a man not a prophet. They may believe prayer can cure one, but not believe that one can be cured by a witch doctor chanting; they may not not believe, as the Mormons do, that Jesus and Lucifer were brothers, but they may believe that there is a hell where Lucifer reigns.

In other words, every religious person is skeptical about something. Every one one of them does view some other religious belief as nonsense, myth, as unbelievable--even if it's to say that gods of old, Zeus and Odin, were myths. Which means they can see things from our point of view. This erases the conundrum.

It certainly sucks to be an atheist in a theist society as everyone views us as a spoiled sport raining on their parade and party--religion is like music or sports, and questioning it is like questioning the joy and fun someone gets from music or sports. No one likes it and it pisses them off. But it's not so hopeless as it seems to get them to see where we're coming from. It's already there in their sights. And knowing that gives us another way of viewing them which is neither as crazy or special. They are us and we are them. Just at different stages of what we're willing to believe.