Atheists: The New Evangelicals (Part 2: My experience with the Beltway Atheists)

Continued from Part 1...

So my first experience with a congregation of atheists turned out to be a bust. After watching Christopher Hitchens and Ayan Hirsi Ali on television, I was starting to think that bitterness was just part and parcel of being an outspoken atheist. Since I associate bitterness with age, I felt that perhaps a younger group might be more to my liking.

I found a more youthful local group with the Beltway Atheists. They met every so often in different watering holes in the DC Metro area, and I decided to hook up with them at a nice place called Busboys and Poets. It's a nice little place that's bar/restaurant/liberal bookstore. Basically, it's a place where people snap their fingers instead of applauding. The group members trickled in, and some ordered dinner, while others ordered drinks. Conversation was much easier with this group than with the members of WASH, and I struck up one with someone who had just passed the bar that day. He seemed a less excited than I would have been if I had passed the bar, but if there's one thing I've learned about myself is that equivocation goes hand-in-hand with being non-judgmental. At least at first.

I moved my conversation to a group who were lounging in the couches near the window, and it was at that point that the atheist discussions started. I was basically interviewed about my history, and I gave my autobiography (which is another post for another blog) and experiences with religion, which basically boiled down to this: I don't believe in anything supernatural, but I have no real problem with religious people or communities, as long as they don't harm humanity.

Well, a religious community not harming humanity was an explicit contradiction as far as some of these members were concerned. A summary of the members' attitudes could be expressed as such: "How could you, a reasonable man with a science and history background, not be outraged that people believed in imaginary sky gods and worshipped them? People should know the truth about reality, and allowing to believe in God would lead to more of the chaos and violence that we are experiencing today! It should be your duty to explain to these poor, misguided fools that they are wrong. There is an excess of tolerance, and atheists shouldn't be shy about speaking out against the mass delusion of the world known as religion!"

Where did this animosity come from? Apparently, it came from a sense of persecution, something which I found ridiculous. Sure, atheists aren't exactly the most beloved members of American society, but in recent history, the pogroms against European Jews would better fit the label of persecution than the disdain that atheists might experience. But then I began to pity some of these young men and women. Some had grown up in religious households that really messed up their heads. One young woman grew up in a home that not only didn't allow belief in Santa, but as a young girl, this woman preached to her fellow students about the sin that was Kris Kringle. Remember that brand-new lawyer? He was taught about the sin of sex and the purity of abstinence, and these teachings led him to have absolutely no clue as to how to talk to women. That night, the poor guy got sloshed on beer after beer, and it was embarrassing.

Religion messed up these people's lives so much so that it evoked a resentful emotion that I can only describe as an underlying sense of vengeance. Their Halloween party had the theme of dressing up as your favorite Bible character (since the Bible was a scaaary book), which I found to be mean-spirited. There was no room for live and let live. Someone saying "God Bless You" or "Merry Christmas" to them was tantamount to a racial slur. They considered themselves better than others, and there was a look in their eyes of righteous anger that I'd seen somewhere before.

I left the place (after expressing my well-wishes) with another sense of disappointment. Was there no place that I could just go and have fun? I don't need to talk about atheism with other atheists; I already am one, and I don't need my atheism to be validated by others.

And that look of righteous anger? Similar to the looks from members of the Westboro Baptist Church.

Stay tuned for the conclusion of Atheists: The New Evangelicals...