The Antisocial Socialist

symbioid  asked: "Existential origins, big bang, cosmos, where it's all going, shit like that? That's my question for you.
How do you feel you relate to the all o' this shit.
Do you feel any sort of "spirituality" with that or is it pretty secular atheist (I imagine the latter, but I've been surprised by friends I thought were pretty non-believing in any sorta afterlifey stuff ending up believing in something beyond, at least on a personal/psychic level). Cosmic horror? Cosmic Pessimism? Does it matter even if we have beliefs on that?"


I am in some ways fascinated and in other ways deeply uninterested by these questions. I remember when I used to get car rides all the time home from work with a colleague, who was a massive stoner. He'd often wonder things like "but what caused the Big Bang?" or "how will the universe end?" and he was baffled by how little I thought about them, since they don't affect me or anyone I know, and since there are smart people who went farther than Grade 11 science class who spend a lot of time looking into it.

I'm an atheist with caveats, which is that I don't actually care if there is a god or afterlife. I don't feel any spiritual phenomena or vibes, I've never had a genuine religious experience despite having tried to induce them by various means, and thus I think that at a very fundamental level, I am incapable of believing in gods. How do I behave basically feeling what awaits me after I die is a meaningless void? I try to make my life on earth meaningful in every way I can. How would I act if there was a loving God who cared about their creation? The same way I do now. How would I act as if there was a judging God who condemned sinners to a fiery pit for all eternity? Exactly the same as I do now, and when I'm condemned to Hell I will organize my fellow non-Christians, sodomites, and D&D players into a militant union with the demons and then we will storm heaven and make war on said judging God.

That said I despise 90% of vocal atheists in ways that I do not despise 90% of religious people. Most of humanity believes in some sort of religion or spirituality and I'm not interested in writing them off or condescending to them. Meanwhile the loudest atheists, both on the internet and at the state level when they get into power, just believe in a secular version of Christianity without the God bit. They push for economic and political policies that are identical to those proposed by Christian extremists. I came to this position during Elevatorgate when I realized I had more in common with my friend smhwpf 's church at the time, which sheltered refugees facing deportation, or my friend M's Sikh temple, which fed homeless people, than I did with anyone who professed lofty ideals about human potential but didn't consider 50% of the population human. 

I also believe in the value of ritual. I keep trying to connect with Jewish religious practice, and am put off by 90% of other Jews, but I do think there's something to be said for the value of ritual and community. I think having been raise secular Jewish makes me very chill about religion in general but wistful for a spiritual community. I would have liked to have been a Yiddish-speaking Bundist; that would have been perfect for me.

Ultimately I care about one thing: the actions we take in this world, with this planet and our nonhuman relations, in the here and now. If you are doing good things because you think God wants you to do them, that is rad and good, actually. If you think you're superior to people who do that, I have no time for it. If God is your excuse for bigotry against queer and trans people, or folks who get abortions, or poor people, I hope that a literal reading of the Bible is true and Jesus greets you in the afterlife with a steel chair to the side of the head for not listening to him when he was in fact pretty clear about this shit. 

Philosophy aside I low-key believe in ghosts and supernatural phenomena, not as a literal material thing but as a narrative device. I would have also been quite happy being a 19th century occultist.

So this happened. Lest I be accused of jumping to conclusions, I will state that I am not absolutely sure that some New Atheist Reddit troglodyte cracker fuck murdered three innocent young Arabs in a vicious racist act of terrorism, but it looks like that's what happened. And if that's the case, it's not really surprising; I know people like this IRL and not a one of them is all that far from a newspaper article that ends with, "...before turning the gun on himself." Pity this jackass didn't have the decency to do the last bit, but that's besides the point.

The point is, like any other white man that kills women or POC because just having straight white male privilege isn't enough for his special snowflake self, he is now mentally ill, a lone wolf, and the act will not be classified as terrorism even though it totally is. Other people made this point, and in a less ragetastic way, before I managed to get home to my computer, so let's talk about the other thing, which is the connection to New Atheism.

New Atheism, as I've said before, is Western imperialism by other means. The history of Western imperialism has consistently been one of smug, know-it-all privilege. Libertarianism being a strong current in American political culture, and one linked to atheism, it's not surprising that there's a substantial population of über-privileged, slighly educated, entitled shitbags who still hate and fear brown people but just can't get behind the whole Onward Christian Soldier thing. And these people increasingly have a voice. If you spend a lot of time online, you'll discover that they in fact have most of the voice. They certainly—particularly through their figureheads like Dawkins, Harris, Maher, and before he died, Hitchens—seem to be adept at grabbing the mic and speaking for all atheists everywhere, and in light of what appears to be a hate crime carried out by an atheist, I feel the need to speak out about it.

I'm an atheist. They don't get to take that label from me. Nor will I accept them being labeled as "fundamentalist atheists," or "atheist extremists" or any variation thereof, because no, they are not, I am. I'm not a moderate just because I get along with religious people and think the Flying Spaghetti Monster is lame and unfunny. I am, in fact, the most fundamentalist atheist you will ever meet. At a very basic level, possibly even at a genetic level, I am not just unwilling to believe in God, I am incapable of it.

So incapable that I do not feel the need to shout from every rooftop that I don't believe in God, because I actually don't give a fuck. As Elie Weisel put it, "the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." I am indifferent to religion. Accordingly, I do not feel the need to go around converting everyone to my way of thinking, and I don't think I'm superior to believers (except New Age types; fuck those guys). It's maybe because I'm Jewish and most of the so-called New Atheists are from Christian backgrounds and feel kind of insecure, maybe, or feel the need to evangelize even though that's really fucking stupid, but it grates. There should be no atheist organizations, no atheist church. Should one spring up, all of the atheists should be run out of it (I volunteer to do this; just call me Atheist Jesus) and the building should be converted into affordable housing for the homeless.

The murders in Chapel Hill were only a matter of time. Violent racism—and in particular racism directed at Muslims—is socially acceptable amongst whites of means and education in a way that it wasn't a decade ago. (Of course, it was always there, but it was institutional; the personal variety was on the wane, as white robes and burning crosses were a bit of an embarrassment.) It has found, among other channels, an outlet in what BoingBoing termed the Redpill Right, that fetid swamp of conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, MRAs, and GamerGaters. These are people who are tolerated to a degree in circles that I am tolerated in, and it scares the shit out of me.

Hold the would-be leaders of this would-be movement accountable. Drag them into the sunlight. Demand Maher and Dawkins apologize for the excesses of their followers, just like we demand apologizes from Muslims every time some unhinged asshole who shares their religion kills someone. When they sprew their bile on the internet, dogpile and shame them. Turn being a Redpiller into something as socially unacceptable as being a soulbonded otherkin who never leaves their parents' basement. It was social media pressure that turned these murders into a story—I mean, Buzzfeed broke the story, ffs—and as this is primarily an online movement, it is probably up to us to do something about it.