Merry Crispness

Posted on December 24, 2006 in Agnosticism

I think the reasons why we don’t see more stories of atheists performing acts of zealous destruction are twofold: first, atheism just doesn’t appeal to unstable states of mind, which savor the archetypes of religiosity. Second, there just aren’t as many atheists out there as there are Christians, Muslims, etc. As an agnostic observer of the recent rise of atheist fundamentalism — which can be summed up as “there isn’t a god, belief in God is the root of all strife, and allowing others to believe in God only perpetuates human misery” — I was not entirely surprised to read about the Bakersfield man who set himself afire to protest the renaming of winter and spring holidays to Christmas and Easter breaks by a local schoolboard.

Thanks to Richard Dawkins and his revisionists followers, atheism has divided into camps, one of which follows the classic liberal model of toleration for others as a model of toleration of one’s self-image and another jihadist/fundamentalist formulation which attempts the conversion of all humankind. It was this perspective which provided the element of religiosity that led a man to douse himself with gasoline and set himself afire — to see himself as a martyr.

This is Dawkins’ doing, though he will — if he dares speak — he will write this off as the fruit of a deranged mental process. Just as sure was the response of board member and local pastor Chad Vegas who said:

My reaction as pastor is that it demonstrates the deep depravity of man and his need for the grace of God through Jesus Christ.

So narrow is the gap between fundamentalists of each stream! No wider than three letters! Instead of reading the particularities of the situation, they condemn the whole of the opposition, seeking in each signs of corruption with which they declare themselves wholly blameless. And that, my friends, is the state of the opposition of the nonreligious against the religious in this age. Any kind of zealotry can inform bizarre reactions. This is the embodiment of Dawkins’s crusade in an unwell mind. Attend to it and expect more manifestations in the years to come as the sociobiologist’s utterings become more strident and more intent on division.