"We Can't Stop Here... This Is Bat Country!"*
You have to be a bit batty to believe that anyone would blame the misery around the world on someone or something we don't even believe exists. It would be like blaming Zeus for all deaths by lightning strike, or blaming Ra for skin cancer—it's absurd. It takes a lot of work to intentionally not hear the atheist grievances against the Fan Club of God and misrepresent them as grievances against God Himself.
When we take grievance against the actions that these various "holy" scriptures say God committed, it's the same as saying we think Megatron is a bit of a dick. It's a commentary on the text, not the being of God. The scriptures were written a long time ago and the men who wrote them are the ones who painted the picture of who God is. So in essence, what I'm saying is not that God is a terrible being, but that those guys who wrote these "holy" texts, wrote a terrible book. And that goes for all of the books. It's like a group of psychotics got together and wrote an instruction manual on how to properly worship a sociopath. The Handbook for the Mentally Deceased or Diseased would be an apt title.
I'm not angry at God. I'm not scared of God. But I do have a fear of men who can look at the portrait of God painted in religious texts and see beauty there. Men like that are like collectors of brutal crime scene photos. They are the men who believe we deserve eternal pain and suffering and truly wish it upon us. They are the ones truly waiting for God to tell them it's fine to slaughter as many men as they can. Surely, if any man listens intently enough, their God will speak and offer a justification for the crimes they wish to commit. It's almost as if the whole purpose of God is to facilitate horrible ideas...
"You Better Take Care Of Me, Lord. If You Don't You're Gonna Have Me On Your Hands."*
I can't speak for all atheists and I'm sure there are those who are indeed angry at God. In the end, though, this denotes a belief that such a being exists and that kind of goes against the first rule of Atheist Club, which is; "There are no gods.” And really, that's the only rule in this club. To be angry at God, you've first got to believe in God, and that does not make you an atheist. But there are many of us who are furious about what people do in the name of God and we have every right to be angry about that. If the religious are correct, then all this shit is their God's fault and we should all be angry about it.
There is a quote that is said to have been written on a German concentration camp wall by an anonymous long dead Jew that says, "If there is a God, he will have to answer to me." I think many of us atheists feel very much the same. For many of the same reasons that we have to say there must not be a God—such as his apparent indifference to the suffering of mankind—we can also say that if such a God exists, we want none of what he's selling. He may judge me as He wishes, and send me as far away from Him as possible. I would rather burn than live under the rule of such a vile madman.
I have been told on far too many occasions that, "You will kneel before God on Judgement Day and then we'll see who's got some smart ass comments." The abounding arrogance that it must take to utter such a statement is repulsive. First of all, they don't know me, and if they did, those words would never cross their lips. I'm the guy who would have spit on Hitler’s face before even considering bowing to his tyranny, and I'll damn sure do the same to your God. It isn't a matter of courage in the face of tyranny, but rather one of integrity. I will not surrender all that I am to anyone – including God.
“Not That We Needed All That For The Trip, But Once You Get Locked Into A Serious Drug Collection, The Tendency Is To Push It As Far As You Can.”*
Religion has been called the “Opiate of the Masses.” It is like a drug and you can become an addict. It can sink so deep into you that you need it. One of the lesser known sides of addiction, however, is the belief that anyone who tries your personal drug will crave it just as much as you do. I have unfortunately experienced this first hand.
So when the most rigid religious zealot says, “Here, man… just try it. You’ll love it, man. It’s the best stuff ever!” I wonder if they know they sound like a heroin junky. Just because they can’t live without God, they think we can’t live without God either. We can’t possibly believe there isn’t a God, that’s just absurd, they say. Instead, we’re just mad at God and we’re acting out like bratty little children. But all we’ve got to do is take our medicine and accept a god and then we’ll feel just as good as them.
But it looks like enslavement to me; and worse than that, it calls for me to surrender my reason and integrity to follow blindly, even if the path leads into a void.
* These quotes were taken from the movie, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas which was adapted from the book by the same name written by Hunter S. Thompson.
