Dan Barker, of the “Freedom from Religion Foundation” has been all over the news lately claiming his right to post a large placard next to a nativity scene in Olympia, Washington.  The placard reads: “There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens our hearts and enslaves our minds.” 

Have you ever noticed that avowed atheists are among the most mis-focused people on the planet?  You would think that if they truly believed there is no God and no afterlife, they would furiously occupy themselves with the business of living well.  Don’t worry, be happy.  You would think that if they were going to bother to post anything at all it would be a giant smiley face accompanied by a placard reading “Have a Nice Day.” 

So why are atheists protesting a nativity scene in Olympia when they could be cliff-diving off the coast of Acapulco or cruising the Norwegian Fjords or strolling the Champs-Elysees or any number of infinitely more interesting and pleasurable pursuits?  I can respect an atheist who is a complete hedonist.  I get that.  If this brief life is all there is, then go for the gusto.  But an atheist who spends his only existence attempting to convince the American public that the claims of Christianity are “but myth and superstition” is either a fool or, as I suspect, not really an atheist.  Why so much hostility?  What’s it to Mr. Atheist what I believe if there is no eternity in which it makes a shred of difference? 

A while back, I had an enlightening conversation with an atheist in my family.  As it turns out, he was not an atheist after all, but a solipsist.  He worshiped at the altar of his own mind, because it was all he could know for certain.  He was forever stuck in the dark ages of Descartes: cogito, ergo sum.  I think, therefore I am.  He never bothered to engage the thought that others might exist as well and that they might be bound up with him in a larger humanity subject to an even larger origin of humanity.  Instead he lives his life within the confines of his own mind.  I am and that is all I know.  And because I am all I know, I am all that truly matters - the ultimate statement of radical autonomy.  Except that it’s not so radical.  We all experience a phase in which we express this I-centered worldview - it’s called childhood.  And, just like children, solipsistic atheists are not at all autonomous. 

By posting his sign, Mr. Atheist challenges the prevailing American notion that there is a God to whom we ultimately must give account because this notion shatters his theology, which holds “I am the I AM.”  And there are no others besides me.  But it is the atheist, more than all others, who is utterly dependent upon a society that adheres to basic principles of civil morality, including the ones that allow him to make his absurd statements to begin with.  A society loosed from cultural and religious moorings would soon find Mr. Atheist and his rantings burdensome.  To whom would he then appeal?  Certainly not to God.  To a rational populace?  Not possible, since he has effectively made himself the arbiter of all that is rational, in which case he would become to those around him just another mythical god-figure that, according to his own wisdom, must be rejected.  To the solice of his mind?  Probably.  And that would be fine, so long as he didn’t have a mob of fellow atheists pelting him with rocks if they chose this means of maximizing their liberty.

I know that’s dark.  But it gets darker still.  Mr. Atheist-Solipsist may be a fool, but he is not stupid.  He understands the futility of his beliefs.  If he is all there is, then the world cannot continue to exist without him.  On the other hand, if the world goes on, then he will have spent his life defending a fabrication.  This, I believe, is the thought that torments atheists to the core.  Human beings crave significance - which is one reason why Mr. Atheist fought to post his placard to begin with.  We are wired for community.  The atheist, who ultimately lives only in the solitude of his own mind, has no objective, rational reason to exist at all.  This is the terror of all human terrors.  In order to validate the only thing he knows with apodectic certainty - I am - he must subjugate all else to his mind, his will.  This is the legacy of believing atheists.  To be truly free from the enslavement of one’s mind by any other, the other must be first rejected, then destroyed, and finally anhiliated.

Okay.  That’s about as dark as it gets.  Nihilism is the only rational end of true atheism.  Those naive atheists who post signs calling for freedom from the gods of moral judgment so they can prance around in some Rousseauian utopia have simply never lived with the consequences of their theology.

Have a Nice Day