I’ll Have Two Pounds of Whatever You Believe In

I was around 29 or so when I started taking my very first college classes. The college experience is pronouncedly different, I think, when you start it ten years later than most kids who are fresh out of high school.

One thing that I found particularly interesting and delightful about the campus were the many organizations that students were running and participating in. It was inspiring to see so many young people truly involved in things that many of them were only just becoming aware of.

One such organization that repeatedly caught my eye was the campus’ “Atheist Agenda” organization. And true to their name, an agenda they did have – one that they were not shy about. Each week a new poster was hung on a wall in one of the central campus buildings. The poster was slightly different each time, but the message remained the same: there is no God, the Bible is fiction, and Christians are idiots. Not in so many words, but that was the gist of it.

I get people knocking on my door on occasion. Mormons, Jehova’s Witnesses, what-have-you. I admire their enthusiasm, but none of them get a foot inside my house, and it has nothing to do with my lack of interest in religion. In fact, I’m a fairly spiritual guy. I was raised Lutheran; I’m not a complete stranger with the Bible. But I do have a problem with others trying to shove their beliefs down my throat.

Unfortunately, for reasons I fail to comprehend, this seems to be the common approach among atheists: shove their “there is no God” message down people’s throats. It is almost as if every Christian believer they come across is a personal insult being slung their way. It is not merely enough for them that they have themselves found a dogma which does not acknowledge the existence of a deity – they have to bring everyone else on board as well. Yet, at the same time, any Watchtower-offering well-wisher that knocks on their door is told to “go sell Jesus someplace else.”

When it comes to Christians wanting to “enlist me” into their midst, at least I can understand it; Jesus told Christians to spread the word. Many of them, I think, are sincere in their belief that unless I do this or say that, I will be facing an eternity in a fire pit somewhere – and they want to save me from that. Okay, maybe I’m not buying, but at least I can appreciate their motivation for selling it.

With atheists, I don’t get it at all. Why is it so important that I see things their way? Furthermore, why is it necessary to literally attack a religion for the purpose of denying it?

I joined the Atheist Agenda’s website out of curiosity. One of the first things I posted in their forums about was the weekly poster. I suggested to them that spewing insults at Christians on that poster, not to mention occasionally defacing “pro-Christian” posters elsewhere, was not doing their “agenda” any favors. If you want people to hear your point of view, don’t try to outshout them. You can shout louder, they will hear less, and all you get for your troubles is a sore throat, and a lousy reputation.

Another thing I asked them was, what exactly was the point of the annual “pornography for Bibles” event. Each year, the organization set up an event where they handed out pornographic material in exchange for Bibles.

I honestly did not understand the point. Or, rather, I did, but I was hoping there was more to it than just going for cheap shock value. Judging by the response I got from the organization, cheapness was precisely at the heart of it. Cheapness and lack of real ideas. Ideologically speaking, these guys were shooting fish in a barrel, blindfolded. Any fish they were hitting were dead already.

Changing teams doesn’t mean you’re playing a different game. If you want people to subscribe to your beliefs, as opposed to those offered by others, then you better have something deeper running under your idealism than just going for shock value. Because the guy at the door will see right through you, and will close the door in your face.

Trust me.

Tagged as: atheism, religion