Smug and Sad

I am a newly admitted atheist.  There are a range of emotions I have experienced as a rookie non-believer that in many ways surprise me.  Feeling smug and feeling sad are among those new feelings.

Fourth grade at Christmas time and I knew Santa was not real.  So did others in my class.  But many believed him to be real and looked forward to the gifts he would bring and looked forward to setting out cookies and milk for him to consume when he entered the house on Christmas Eve.  I felt smug.  I knew those other kids were fools and simpletons and that someday their eyes would be opened and they would see that Santa as portrayed in poems, and movies and songs was a mythical figure.  Yes, there was evidence he was real:  the cookies were gone, the milk consumed, and presents appeared under the tree.  But I knew that evidence was the result of an adult conspiracy to perpetrate the myth.  In hindsight, when I believed in Santa I should have been totally freaked out that some strange man would enter our house undetected in the middle of the night.  Scarier still is that he watched me all year, all the time, to determine whether I was naughty or nice.

But I digress.  Santa is not real and I felt smug in that knowledge when surrounded by peers who still believed.  I did not puncture their bubbles or pour out their Kool-Aid.  I waited, confident that they too would know someday.  I was smug.  And I was right.  Despite what one may see on the Hallmark Channel, few adults believe in Santa.  I did not shift from a belief system that supported the existence of Santa to another belief system.  I discovered the veracity of the fact that Santa was a myth.  Moving from belief to knowledge is, or should be, part of ongoing human evolution.  But I really do not care if you believe in Santa or not.  I will not attempt to persuade you to reject that belief.  I will not engage in arguments to demonstrate that his existence is mythical based on science and what we know of reality.  I would only do so if someone engaged in an effort to convince me that Santa was real.  Otherwise, I believe you have the right to be wrong and that I have the right to be right.  Smug.

I feel the same way about those who hold religious beliefs; who believe that there is some sort of supernatural entity behind some curtain who knows all things and created all things and is capable of a personal relationship with well over 7 billion humans.  The science denying such a notion is obvious.  The human experience confirming the lack of divine intervention by such a being is profound.  The very notion that there is in each of us an eternal, ethereal consciousness called the soul is pure wishful thinking based on ego.  I had no existence prior to birth and will have no existence after death.  If there was a part of me that was eternal it would not have had a beginning. 

Human cultures are rife with gods and always have been.  From Hunab-Ku of the Mayans, to Ra of the Egyptians, to Zeus of Greeks, to Mohammad of the Muslims, to Jesus of the Christians there are a multitude of so-called divine entities, prophets, demons, and supernatural beings.  Humans have created these gods in their own image to answer questions about our existence, explain phenomenon, and provide some respite from fear of the unknown.  No faith believes in the existence of the deities of the other faiths, so everyone is an atheist when it comes to religions other than their own.  For Christians specifically there is no tangible evidence to support that Moses, Abraham, or Jesus ever existed.  The Bible is so riddled with both false and inconsistent information it becomes unbelievable.  No, there are no god or gods any more than there is a Santa.  But I will not attempt to persuade you to reject your beliefs.  I will only do so if you attempt to convince me Jesus is real, god is real, Zeus is real, Ra is real, etc., etc. I know what you believe is false and know what I know is true.  Truth should always trump belief.  Smug.

And yet I remain sad.  I watch the funeral of President George HW Bush in the National Cathedral and feel sad.  Not for Bush.  But for the millions of us who believe erecting such an edifice was appropriate.  Those who believe that the robed religious leaders are somehow tuned into a supreme being, that the Armed Services choir and orchestra playing religious music is OK.  That we had the gall to stamp “One Nation Under God” on our currency.  Might as well have said one nation under Zeus.  We present ourselves as fools and charlatans.

I am sad that for many of the people I know and love my lack of belief upsets them deeply.  I have been unfriended on Facebook and have been told unless I believe as they believe I am not an appropriate friend.  Amazing.  It saddens me.  In fact, it adds proof to my lack of belief.  If all those who are close to me would simply pray for me, or pray that I would have a sign like becoming blinded on the road to Houston or receiving stone tablets from a mountain, or even getting a divine email, then if there is a god I should be converted.  Not gonna happen.  If that many believers request something from their god and noting happens how can they remain believers?

I am sad at the loss of friends, family, loved ones.  I am sad that this commercial, secular time of year must be wrapped in myths like virgin births, stars hovering over villages, choirs of angels singing, etc.  I know it is all nonsense.  And yet, there are those who are more committed to those beliefs than they are to Santa.  That saddens me deeply.  Why we cannot simply enjoy a holiday season that emerges from the notion we give to each other because we care for each other without all the messy ridiculous religious crap I do not know.  And I shop downtown and note that the City Council is broadcasting religious Christmas Carols through speakers on the sidewalks paid for with my tax dollars.

Christmas time.  Smug and sad.

Not yet mad.