A Civil Religious Debate

They just built a Church of Scientology near my house. And they hold worship services. Well, maybe they're not worshipping, but they have some sort of service that everybody's going inside for. Maybe they're slaughtering a goat. I don't know.

But they all go in there together. And they come out with that smug arrogant smile.

I'm not an atheist. I'm simply a non-Believer. Years ago I came to discredit Christianity, Judaism, and Islam for myself. I always felt like the most honest answer that I could give is simply "I don't pretend to know where we come from or what happens when we die". I also don't believe it is that important.

I do have a number of atheist friends. As a group, they tend to be cynical, jaded, and a bit angry. A good number of them were actually raised in Conservative Christian backgrounds and have been hurt emotionally by the Church and the heavy-handedness of their families. So, sometimes they kind of come from this very angry place when discussing religion.

Other of my atheist friends are the proverbial smart guys. They were the kids in school that always had the right answer and had to make sure that everyone knew that they were smarter than everybody else. In the instances where they were wrong, it was devastating for them, because their sense of self-worth was built upon being right.

I have also noticed that atheists, in general, will argue with me far more than the most evangelical Christian. The evangelical usually just says something condescending like "I'll be praying for you" and they'll leave it at that. The atheist has to keep trying and trying to prove to me that there is no God. And I usually just have to tell them: "the thing about me that you have to understand and I mean this in all sincerity is that I simply just don't give a shit."

I don't think that religion matters. There may or may not be an afterlife, but we're here now and I think that's so much more important. It's better that we live with compassion for one another and savor these few moments that we do have. There may not be any that come after.