Cartoon by Brian Mór
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Cartoon by Brian Mór
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An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support - John BuchanLast week we had a priest friend over. He is the first cleric to cross our door since moving here but he was in secular dress and the children were none the wiser. Had they asked what he did I would have told them but they didn’t. Had they wanted to discuss religion with him they would have been free to. But he and I had other fat to chew and they didn’t bother. Had I been called away on some unforeseen business I would have said to him, ‘mind the kids till I get back.’ Were he to have discussed religion with them while I was away it would not have mattered. He and they are free to discuss what they want. We don’t hide behind closed doors and drawn curtains, keeping the religious at bay. Our secular household is not filled with non-spiritual angst but is quite relaxed.
Nevertheless, I have sought to protect my children from religion. I consider it a virus which I do not want polluting their lives. They don’t attend mass, make communion, or engage in any of the rituals that are meant to groom them for Catholicism. The five year old has no clue. Heaven would only interest him if there were cars in it. Conversely, my nine year old is quite adamant about her non-belief. Her friend once told her that people who don’t believe in god die. Her response was simple; she had not believed in god since she was born and she was nine now and was still alive. What, if anything, her young superstitious friend thought about that he did not say.
One day in town we were shopping for a DVD. I picked one up about the pope for a laugh and suggested she take that home for the evening’s viewing. She shouted at me ‘I hate religion.’ A woman looked on as if she had just witnessed a lewd act. I stood ready to bark if she as much as opened her holier than thou gob. She remained silent. A good example for preachers to follow.
I tell my daughter that she is free to do what she wishes in terms of her beliefs. If she opts for religion at a later stage it will her own choice and I will not stand in her way. She knows that if she joined the Church, discrimination on misogynous grounds would bar her from becoming a priest and she would be expected to become an anti-gay bigot and oppose the use of condoms even where they might save lives. She would have to pretend that some man in the Vatican is infallible but no women are. But she is in charge of her own beliefs. She likes science documentaries about the beginning of the universe and forever asks questions about causes behind effects. She has difficulty in comprehending the finality of death but I don’t bluff her with afterlife fairytales. I tell her I am so glad that I am able to die as the only things that don’t die are those that never lived. And had I not lived I would never have experienced my wonderful journey through life with her. She is not convinced but in time she shall understand.
But is she an atheist child? I don’t like children being labelled with the belief of their parents. As Richard Dawkins points out there should be no Catholic children or Marxist children. Irish Children or British children yes, but not the other types. She is just a child with no religious belief. I would not call her an atheist.
It is as good a start as I can give her. It is much better than her falling for the old saw about a man living with his mother until he was 33, all the time believing she was a virgin and she believing he was god. Whatever she believes I trust she never comes to believe anything as screwed up as that.
Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge
Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge
Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours - Stephen Roberts
Sometimes when sitting flicking though the channels at night I end up with those hateful religious evangelicals venting their biblical bile from the screen reminding us of all the horrors that await us if we don’t share their opinion. It reminds me of zombie movies, although nowhere near as viewable, where the lead zombie works the stupefied mob into a torpid trance. There is a collective lip movement accompanied by unintelligible mumbling and then they all go off to hate happily ever after: their pockets lighter and the wallets of their preachers bulging. I find few things in life as genuinely phoney as evangelicals professing to be brimming with something called Christian love. Love and televangelism seem a chalk and cheese combination. Ted Haggard and Christian love? Nah, Ted Haggard and boy love has a more authentic ring to it.
Whatever motivates the shower of hate blusterers it is not love. Although I think they are much more representative of their god than the other sickly sweet lot who run around with false faces and ersatz smiles, blessing people with the sign of the cross and offering forgiveness. The evangelical lot seem more at one with a god that hates with a perfect hate, the only type of god that could exist given the hatred he seems to inspire. As has been said, you always know god is on your side when he hates the same people you do. To people like me, the idea of a god of love is incomprehensible. It would make more sense if believers were to tell me ‘god exists and he hates us all; he is the god of hunger, hate, war, poverty, natural disaster, child rape and genocide.’ I could sort of make sense of that without conceding the existence of a deity. But when they tell me he loves me and he will burn me in hell if I don’t love him, I tend not to get it.
The hate is howled and the venom spat while I sit scorning them. Whatever the bible bashing merchants of Hate TV believe in I have no interest in listening to them spout it so the channels are flicked through rapidly. Money features a lot, with their buckets bigger than bibles. As George Carlin was fond of saying, the one thing god can’t manage is money; always a dollar or two short and forever in need of a little top up. No loaves and fishes equivalent there.
Last night my five year old son asked if I was watching ‘the mad’ again. He likes to watch ‘the mad’ probably because he enjoys my reaction to them, and would on occasion ask me to turn the mad channel on. I asked him if he liked ‘the mad.’ He replied ‘they are always shouting.’ At home here we still laugh from the time when he said to his mother ‘mammy, daddy is watching the bastards.’ Can’t blame a five year old for copying what he hears shouted at the television whenever the holy creeps appear.
At least I can honestly claim to have given him a good start.
Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge
Cartoon by Brian Mór
Click to enlarge
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