Hi, my name is Dima, I'm 24 years old and I am what some call a "combative atheist"... or is it "militant atheist"? I've gotten both here and there and I don't really get what they're supposed to mean. Unlike militant animal rights activists, I've never thrown paint on anyone, never broken into a church to burn literature, and never so much as defaced anyone's religious bumper sticker. Like most average people, I'm a peaceful guy not looking for a fight or to get in anyone's face. If I wanted to do that, I'd be visiting churches or Christian sites and arguing with clergy or believers. I'd start conversations with "So, your religion is full of shit, huh?"... but frankly, I can think of more enjoyable ways to waste an afternoon.
And yet indeed, I do get embroiled in plenty of religious arguments. I don't seek them out. But every so often, someone brings up their God, their religion, or whatever other nonsense belief and injects it into the discussion. I rarely hesitate to reply with all sorts of approaches (depending on what was said): ranging from calmly pointing out factual errors to calling the believer a disgusting scumbag. It is for this, I believe, that they call me the "militant/combative atheist": Because I hear religious baloney and, more often than not, routinely denounce them with whatever approach I deem appropriate. The passion and ferocity can vary, but the firm rejection remains consistent.
So the statement that usually immediately follows my diagnosis as a militant is something along the lines of "Why can't you simply believe what you believe and let others be, like so many moderate Christians, Jews, Buddhists? Why, you combative atheists are just as bad as the Bible beating nuts you are up against! Coexist!"
Here's the problem: most rational, progressive people don't seem to mind that most religions of the world offer blatantly incompatible explanations for eternal life, truth, God, etc. ...and therefore implicitly call the others full of shit. I mean if a Christian believes that Jesus is the one and only way to heaven, then clearly anybody who think it's actually Muhammed is wrong. Or if keeping Kosher is so important to get in God's good graces, then anyone who ignores it is essentially a fool. These are the inevitable corollaries that arise any time you make an affirmative statement of fact: If you have the truth, then anyone who says different is full of it. But you're perceived in a good light just as long as you focus on speaking about the truth of your beliefs instead of the fallacy of others'.
My old college had something called the The ALANA Center. ALANA stood for "African American, Latino, Asian American, Native American" and the center was basically a resource to enhance the campus experience of the students with these racial backgrounds. That worked. But how do you think it would sound if the center was called something like "Non-White" or "Everyone But Caucasians"? After all, that's essentially what it was. But a name like that would piss everybody off, so once again, they focus on the affirmative rather than the negative and make the name an awkwardly long list of those they include rather than the much simpler "list" of groups they exclude (us pasty crackas.)
And so are the world's religions: living side by side, reading their respective texts, going to their respective churches, all the while knowing themselves to be right and everybody else wrong, yet somehow coexisting in harmony*. It's a blissful interfaith paradise... and thennnnnn there's us atheists.
Ah, atheists. Caught between a rock and a hard place.
On the one hand, we're just like any other religion: treating other religions as misguided, ever so confident that they don't have the right answer about the ultimate truth in the universe.
On the other hand... well, we're not a religion. No rules, no doctrine, no dogma, no One Truth to assert. No affirmation of fact. Just a rejection of theirs. So how exactly does an atheist avoid being perceived as a crabby hater out to voice nothing but negative rejection?
He doesn't.
It basically comes with the territory. I mean just look at the word itself: You can't spell "atheist" without "theist"... and you can't have atheists without theists. There can be no rejection of the existence of God without someone to have first proposed him.
Not our fault, really. You theists showed up first with that half-baked God idea you yanked out of your butt and have never been able to let go since. We were all living in pure blissful agnosticism, worrying not about any cosmic creator or judge who helps us and smites our enemies. But the first theist had the bright idea that it must be so... and the first person to tell him he was full of crap became the first atheist. And so the line was drawn and the course was set. Ever since, those who peddled the idea of God were theists, and those who refused to swallow became atheists. Perhaps someday in the future when we as a species evolve past the idea of God, theists and atheists will be forgotten by history and we'll return to the pure agnosticism we came from, pursuing more worthwhile answers to the mysteries of the universe. (At the heart of the matter, this is really the ultimate goal of any so-called "evangelical atheist": to work themselves out of existence.)
In the meantime, how can any real atheist be anything but combative? By definition, rejecting theist claims is what we're about. I haven't yet found a way to politely tell someone that I think their deeply-held spiritual beliefs are baseless fairy tales. If I had my own idea about The Ultimate Truth of The Universe, maybe I'd focus on that instead and be viewed more favorably by others. But I guess until then, I'm stuck wearing the "combative/militant" label and I'm trying to make my peace with it. I guess it helps to know that in truth, we're all combative simply because we all fiercely believe someone else to be wrong. The more religions stress the truth of their perspective, the more they imply the fallacy of those who differ.
So can we all truly coexist? Only as long as everyone is okay with being told implicitly and explicitly that our affirmations of truth are fantasies. However, I doubt this is the kind of "mutual respect" the Coexist folks have in mind. What they're looking for is something that can never be: A world in which everyone is right. And until that impossible world appears, they'll settle for a world in which everyone pretends that nobody is wrong. And as an atheist, you can imagine that I'm hardly in the mood to play along with more make-believe. So call me combative -- I'm ready for a new kind of coexistence.
P.S.: Today my Darwin fish emblem was ripped off my car while parked at the mall. Yes, apparently some Christian just couldn't live with the fact that there was a guy driving around poking fun at his religion. This Christian would rather break the Commandment of "Thou Shalt Not Steal" than allow someone to freely contradict his beliefs. And they call me combative.
* that's a pretty big fucking asterisk
