ARCHIVE: This I Believe (Or Don't)

*** This entry was originally posted to LiveJournal August 20, 2007 ***


I've recently decided to be open about my atheism, and to call it what it is. When not long ago I moved fully into the view that any and all concepts of god are nothing more than Jungian archetypal projections onto some imagined being or beings that must necessarily be bigger and greater than us, I realized that's no longer agnosticism. That's atheism.

In other words, I don't doubt for a second the reality of the experiences that people consider to be religious or spiritual experiences or the voice of god or anything like that. I argue only about the source of those experiences. Religious people believe those experiences have an external source. I believe they have an internal source--that they come from ourselves. So, I am officially an atheist. With a nod to Sam Harris (http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/200512_an_atheist_manifesto), I do think it's a bit strange to proclaim myself as NOT something. As Harris points out, society obliges no one to declare him- or herself a non-astrologer or non-alchemist. I threw it in here in passing, but I do HIGHLY recommend the article that is to be found at the link I just included. Change your mind or don't; that's your prerogative. I do think it's good food for thought, at least.

I also realize that in this society admitting that one is an atheist is, as a brilliant and eloquent friend of mine put it when he talked about telling people that he's never seen the film "The Goonies," rather like saying, "I didn't have a mother!" Suddenly people look at you as if you've just declared something about yourself that is utterly impossible and that defies all known laws of the universe. Well, as it happens he's never seen "The Goonies" and I'm an atheist. It's not only possible, it's true.

Spinning off my friend's analogy for an aside, many of these same people have no trouble whatsoever believing that there was this dude once who had no (human) father. It seems to me to be far more plausible that it's possible not to believe that than it is for that to be true. But that's just me.

Anyway, I decided that atheism will continue to be viewed as somehow freakish until enough of us unapologetically stand up and say "I am one." So here I am. And yet, I am still opening this entry only to my friend list. The world at large has a ways to go yet--and so do I--before I'd put this ALL the way out there. It's not that I don't stand behind every word I've ever posted to this blog, but considering who all looks at these things these days I'm not quite ready to invite prejudicial judgments in people's minds before I've ever even met them. When I get to the point at which I no longer care about that--and I'm getting there--perhaps I'll come back and open up this entry.