I have been reluctant to call myself an atheist. Mainly because I associate the label with many negative qualities and find many atheists to be perpetually 14 edgelords who claim to be pro-science but seem to think the scientific method is composed of running into a church and yelling “Fake!”

I could go on if it were my intent to chase away my audience with a stick so I’ll mostly leave it there.

How can I see such angry arrogant bullies chanting “Sky Daddy!” and go “Yes I am one of them?”

It is illogical.

But I have no choice but to wear the label, because God is not real.

If God were real, Christians would be the kindest and most giving people in the world.

I don’t need to tell you how far from the case this is.

I don’t need to tell you about the cruelty of Christian movements. About how all their good will and charitable acts begin and end at “Believe in our God and stop complaining!”

They do not stop suffering, they deny it even exists. Claiming it to be part of God’s plan and how God doesn’t make mistakes. The latter is true because the former isn’t. God doesn’t make mistakes because there is no plan, there is no God.

This is insanity

While I have known Christians who are truly kind people, some of them I call my dearest friends… these are the exception not the rule. And even he, one of my best friends, will ignore his conscience and choose cruelty if he believes it the will of his God. Even if his Pope says it isn’t.

If God were real these Christians would not be so angry that non believers and transpeople exist. They would be fearful of his wrath and joyous of his love.

The rich would not horde wealth but spend it in service to the poor, for the riches of Heaven would be far greater and far more permanent.

If God were real he would heal the sick, we would hear of the miraculous healing of amputees. We would hear of gender dysphoric teenagers who awoke in a new body. We would hear how the angels themselves condemned Israel’s genocide of Palestine.

God would have saved my Christian friend who became brain dead in a hit and run, and actually dead two weeks later.

God would have halted the actions of every man of faith who decided to prey upon children, nay they’d be too scared of his wrath to even have thoughts of doing as such.

But God will never lift a finger to help anyone. Not because he is cruel or indifferent. But because he isn’t there.

Should I hear a voice with an otherworldly glow say “It’s me, the Lord your God. I am sorry for my absence, but I need your help to make this right.”

All would be forgiven and I would bow in reverence to Christ.

But that day will not come.

I am an atheist not because I am heartless and reject him… but because my heart calls out to him and receives nothing.

I have pondered if maybe God is around and some can hear him more clearly than others.

But then I remember how Conservatives behave, either using God for a selfish agenda or being suckered by false holy men…

And there goes that hypothesis.

God, if you’re willing to talk I am willing to listen. But sadly you aren’t because you don’t exist.

  • henchmannumber3@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    3 days ago

    I wouldn’t worry about the label. Your association will be different than others, so it might be taken several different ways by many different people. Labels become shorthand but also a bag full of various and sometimes contradictory concepts, so they’re primarily useful when they’re very simple and facilitate communication and meaning rather than make it harder to understand and more confusing. This is true of every label you think might apply to you. The label isn’t what’s important. It’s important to understand what you think, feel, and believe. It’s just as easy to say, “I don’t believe a god exists,” as it is to say, “I’m an atheist.” There are a lot of people for whom labels become a sense of identity, but that often seems to involve adopting things that don’t apply to them simply based on the association. Be yourself, determine for yourself who you are and what you think. Don’t try to shoehorn yourself into someone else’s confused bag of meanings and associations.

    • QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      32·
      3 days ago

      Like I said I really don’t want to be an atheist. I have seen many atheists apologists and speakers, very few of them come off like they aren’t constantly flipflopping between screaming at the world like a child throwing a temper tantrum and getting high off their own farts.

      If anything people like Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher make me wish there was a God even harder.

    • QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      21·
      3 days ago

      I truly have nothing nice to say about the stereotypical Reddit Atheists. Honestly God being real would be worth it just to shut their self-righteous douche bag mouths.

      Reddit Atheists are so insufferable they make me crave Christ in ways missionaries wish they could.

      This is how not real God has to be for me to accept he isn’t.

      • henchmannumber3@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        What I’m saying is it seems like you’re concerned too much with outspoken atheists and you’re letting your experience with them cloud your perspective. You shouldn’t believe or want to believe anything other than because you have reason to consider it believable. There are cringy atheists and cringy theists. That’s just people. It’ll be true of any association.

        Believing something just because you want it to be true, or worse, believing something out of spite just because you don’t like some people, is not an authentic approach to matters of belief.

        You can block a subreddit. You can ignore people you don’t like. Don’t let them define you. They don’t represent the concept of atheism. They are just prominent voices on the topic in one particular place. There are significantly more you never hear from because regular people don’t make it their identity and they don’t look to talk about it all the time.

          • henchmannumber3@lemmy.worldEnglish
            11·
            2 days ago

            The thing is, you can believe in a deity without having to accept a specific deity. Being an anti-theistic atheist or a Christian aren’t the only two possible scenarios. You don’t have to be an atheist in the sense that you actively don’t believe in a god. You can be agnostic and accept that you don’t know for certain and you may just not have enough information to draw a conclusion either way.

            If you’re comfortable with believing something primarily based on your desire for it to be true, then you’re free to believe anything you want. You don’t have to pick a specific cosmology. Believe in ghosts and faeries and the hidden folk and kobolds and dragons or whatever. Believing in Christianity because some non-Christians are obnoxious just doesn’t make a lot of logical sense.

              • henchmannumber3@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                2 days ago

                This might not be a philosophical issue for you. You seem to be having an emotional response to your dilemma, which means the solution may not be to find belief, but to find hope or solace or even just a temporary distraction (and distractions can be productive). If the cognitive process doesn’t yield desirable results, maybe look at the issue from a different angle. If you can imagine this state of disbelief mixed with desire for belief never going away, what circumstances might make the dilemma less distressing? If it might be around for a while, you can always come back to it later when you’ve had new experiences that may change your perspective.

                Something I experienced when I was younger was my certainty about what was wrong with the world and I felt righteous in raging against it as if being angry at it was a worthy excuse not to have to put effort into improving things. The older I got, the more I saw that it was “yes, and…” in that I wasn’t wrong, but there was a bigger picture I just couldn’t see at the time. I was hyper focused in pointing out what was wrong as if I was the only one who could see it, but then I realized I could be doing something about it, even if the world was never going to be a sane or just place or my efforts weren’t going to be highly impactful.

      • CXORA@aussie.zoneEnglish
        3·
        3 days ago

        Well yes, thats what stereotypes are for. To make you hate and dispise the target.