I have discovered that there are two
types of atheists. The first type focuses primarily on attacking
organized religion such as Christianity and Islam. The second type
focuses primarily on attacking disciplines such as astrology, zen and
paganism.
The first tend to be free spirits who
don't want people telling them what to believe and how to live. The
second tend to be control freaks who do not want people to have an
existence or an identity outside of what they can control. The creed
is the same; the character cannot possibly be more different.
What about the atheists who are against
both organized religion and these other disciplines? They tend to
have features of both. I know someone who does not work, is bisexual
and lives a very free-wheeling existence, but has called me reading
poetry at a restaurant “aggressive panhandling” and called my
former girlfriend a syphilitic ho. I know someone else who has called
divorced women “brood parasites” and stated that the problem with
the world is that “the freaks don't know their place” but wrote
passionate essays in favor of sexual freedom. These people are free
spirits in some ways and control freaks in others; and the mix can be
rather difficult to predict.
What this shows is that in atheism, as
in religion, there is potential for both liberating and controlling
practices; and the fact that someone is an atheist does not mean that
he is going to be solely either or both. Just as Biblical religions
can mean anything from “kill all the Amalekites” to
“love
your neighbor,” so can atheism mean anything from a fascist to an
anarchist. And of course I have known both.
If atheists want to organize themselves
into a political force, they have a lot of work on their hands. They
include people who are characterologically nothing like one another.
It will be a ragtag alliance of people who include everything from
medical students and scientists to anarchist writers and radicals to
feminists to engineers, and they will have to be both disciplined and
creative in order to stay effective as a political group.
As for me, I started out as an atheist
but have had spiritual experiences that have proven me wrong. Call me
a loony if you want to; but I know what I've seen and I know what
I've known. I encourage people of atheist persuasion to investigate
what else is out there. Chances are, they will find their lives
vastly enriched.
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