So like many other faiths, Atheism is extremely denominational. Our roadblock, however, is the rather large fact that, unlike the religious, Atheists don't bother to declare their specific belief or bother to search out those who feel the same. They simply make the declaration that they don't believe in God, and then keep all the details to themselves. I suppose that this is one of the only solid consistencies amongst Atheists. We all tend to be loners in our 'practiced' beliefs.
It's this loner aspect of our lives that makes it so difficult for each Atheist to know what the other believes. And with our difficulty, we simply choose not to care. So imagine, then, how hard it must be for the religious to know our differences when we ourselves are incapable of knowing. The poor religious, only trying to understand what it is that we believe and why we believe it, are thrown up against a brick wall of communication that moves for nobody.
Occasionally, however, one will stumble across a fellow Atheist who is very willing to talk, sometimes endlessly, about what he or she believes. But like I have stressed over and over, this individuals beliefs are not the beliefs of us all. this particular Atheist could talk for hours about what he or she considers the essential or true Atheist, but just like no Christian belief is more right than another, nor are this Atheist's beliefs more right than any other Atheist's.
All this dodging and weaving around what makes up an Atheist only raises one question, one I can hear others screaming constantly in their heads whenever I try to explain this to them. We are a creature of knowledge, and that knowledge is born of experience and question. The question you are most likely asking now is: 'Who the hell are you, and what the hell do you people believe then?!'
I promise, I will do my best to explain. I will do my best to answer your question, along with any other questions you may have as we progress through the rest of this book. But before I tell you who I am and what it is that I believe, let me first tell you about some of the Atheists I have come across in my life. Some of them I have loved, some I have hated. AS I said before, there is no community amongst Atheists. I make each decision on whether or not I will like a particular Atheist based on each one I meet. They are no different than anyone else. their beliefs do not sway my perception of them one bit. It's all about the personality.
That being said, let me begin with a type of Atheist you all probably know. This specific 'denomination' tends to be the most vocal. They are the only type of Atheist that I have met which forms up into pseudo-communities in order to achieve their goal; to make others believe that there is no God. Though their intentions could be paired with the intentions of any religious convert, it's their actions that separates them from these other groups. We will call this type of Atheist, thanks to their behaviour which will be further explained, the 'Hostile Atheists.'
My first prolonged experience with Hostile Atheists wasn't until I attended University. I went to school in San Antonio, TX, south of what is known in the United States as the 'Bible Belt.' There are plenty of Christians in Texas, much more than anywhere else I've lived. Largely because of this, there aren't many Atheists, or if there are, they don't make themselves known. I was in a graduating class of over 700 people in high school in Houston, TX. I was the only Atheist I knew.
I believe that it's largely because of this Atheist isolation that so many Hostile Atheists sprung up in University. You throw a large collection of similarly aged and minded students together in their first parent-free environment, it becomes almost inevitable that you will have people acting in ways that they never were able to before. It's not really their fault most of the time. If you suppress self-expression, it has a tendency to violently erupt when the restraints are removed.
It's all these characteristics of development that produces Hostile Atheists. These particular Atheists voice their opinions in rather insulting ways. They use guilt and aggression to attempt to sway others. but oftehn, their goals are not to convert. They don't care about making you believe what they believe. They already have their fellow believers, and they consider themselves elite in their understanding of the world. So instead of converting or sharing their beliefs, they focus on segregation and isolation. Like children in an elementary school, Hostile Atheists bully the religious with slogans like 'Without god there would be no more war!' and 'You can't believe in science and God!' Their goals aren't to convert the believers, but instead to rally support targeted towards making the religious feel unwanted. Hostile Atheists are manipulators, and quite often cruel ones at that.
We aren't all bad. I know I started with one of our least lovable denominations, but I'll try and redeem us a little here. Another type of Atheist is one which tends to keep all beliefs hidden. We will call this denomination the Secret Atheist. Secret Atheists have their beliefs, and then keep them all to themselves. They believe what they believe, but don't have any desire to share it with anyone. My grandmother was once a Secret Atheist, until the years rolled by and she became a little more vocal. Once upon a time, no matter how hard you probed her for answers, she wouldn't even give you a hint. That's just the way the Secret Atheist lives. Like Atheism requires, they live alone and silently, going about their ways with friends and family, but keeping their social lives and religious lives separate.
The Secret Atheist has a very close cousin called the Quiet Atheist. The Quiet Atheist is much like its cousin in many ways. They're non-confrontational, relaxed in their beliefs, and unwilling to share what they hold to be true. The only difference really is that Quiet Atheists will actually discuss what they believe when probed by people they trust. This is the type of Atheist my grandmother became in the later years of her life.
Now we are starting to get to Atheists who are more like myself. This type of Atheist we will now discuss is one I like to call the Conversational Atheist. This particular Atheist tends to be quite willing to talk about his or her beliefs, even if he may not fully understand them himself. Education and culture aren't part of the Conversational Atheist's arsenal. He isn't smart or worldly or wise. he is just a regular character who has, for whatever reason, chosen not to believe in God and wants you to know about it. Fortunately, the Conversational Atheist is a harmless breed. Often he has chosen to become an Atheist because he feels wronged personally by God. I find this to be most common with Conversational Atheists; when a person falls from religion, he most often ends up here in the Conversational Atheist corner. They are unable to convert others because most of the time their beliefs are grounded in personal history rather than logical reasoning. So though a Conversational Atheist may seem as though he is trying to sway your opinions, he really isn't. All he really wants is a bit of your time to talk to you about his life and where he's coming from.
This next denomination I would like to call the Evolutionist Atheist, but thanks to people not understanding that evolution isn't debatable, it's proven science, people have decided that 'Evolutionists' are a faith-based group rather than just people trying to progress human knowledge. So, I will instead call this denomination of Atheists the Darwinist Atheists. These Atheists are the next step from Conversation Atheists. They also enjoy talking about their faith, but they have chosen Atheism because their education has taken them there. They simply can't juggle faith in God and an extensive education. This happens a lot with people who follow the researcher or life-time student track. I think it has to do with the fact that they spend so much time focusing on what they can know for sure that they forget how to just believe in something. Without solid evidence, they are unconvinced, and the less grounded in reality that evidence is, the harder it is for them to believe. It's either that, or after a lifetime of education and studying how the world works, they lose all hope in both humanity and God. All I know is that these Atheists are one of the most common types of Atheists in the world. They have the most varied belief system and all come to their beliefs in different ways. They are the missionaries of the Atheist faith, using what they have learned throughout their lives to teach people how God simply cannot exist. They are probably the strongest willed Atheists as well, because no matter what anyone says, a Darwinist Atheist will never change his mind. He will always be an Atheist, no matter what, and he will try to tell you why he's right with equal dedication.
Which brings us to the final main category of Atheists that I will be talking about in this chapter. This denomination is the title denomination, and the type of Atheist that I consider myself to be. We are Religious Atheists. The Religious Atheist believes that there is no God thanks to a life of Religious exposure. I am not talking about experiencing just one religion, or two, or three. Religious Atheists have experiences countless different faiths from all reaches of the world. It's this extreme religious exposure that overloads the senses, rendering us unable to believe that with so many different faiths out there, how could it be possible that any one of them is the correct one? And so it seems to us that religion must be the creation of man, not the requirement of God. But the most important part of being a Religious Atheist is this: We will never say that you, regardless of your faith, whatever it may be, are wrong. Like you, we have chosen a particular belief system that works for us, and our is simply to not believe in any God at all. But it's still faith. Just like for whatever you believe, this is what works for us.
So, by doing my best to scratch the surface of the Atheist faith, I believe I have given you some of our most commonly occurring denominations. But there's an extremely important side note here that you must pay attention to in order to fully understand how we work. Unlike with religious denominations which are secure in their beliefs, the Atheist's lack of community allows for a pick and choose quality to our denominations. Any aspect of any of these faiths can cross over into another, depending on the believer. For example, I am a Religious Atheist. However, I have a hint of Darwinist and Conversational Atheist in me as well. I absolutely love to talk about God. Unlike Darwinist and Conversational Atheists, however, I speak of God as if I believed in him myself. But that's a subject for a later chapter.
Just know, as you turn the pages of this book, that though we have many denominations like many other faiths, ours are open to be twisted and manipulated based on the believer. With no one telling Atheists what to believe, I'm afraid this is inevitable. But maybe that's one of the most attractive qualities of our faith?
It's this loner aspect of our lives that makes it so difficult for each Atheist to know what the other believes. And with our difficulty, we simply choose not to care. So imagine, then, how hard it must be for the religious to know our differences when we ourselves are incapable of knowing. The poor religious, only trying to understand what it is that we believe and why we believe it, are thrown up against a brick wall of communication that moves for nobody.
Occasionally, however, one will stumble across a fellow Atheist who is very willing to talk, sometimes endlessly, about what he or she believes. But like I have stressed over and over, this individuals beliefs are not the beliefs of us all. this particular Atheist could talk for hours about what he or she considers the essential or true Atheist, but just like no Christian belief is more right than another, nor are this Atheist's beliefs more right than any other Atheist's.
All this dodging and weaving around what makes up an Atheist only raises one question, one I can hear others screaming constantly in their heads whenever I try to explain this to them. We are a creature of knowledge, and that knowledge is born of experience and question. The question you are most likely asking now is: 'Who the hell are you, and what the hell do you people believe then?!'
I promise, I will do my best to explain. I will do my best to answer your question, along with any other questions you may have as we progress through the rest of this book. But before I tell you who I am and what it is that I believe, let me first tell you about some of the Atheists I have come across in my life. Some of them I have loved, some I have hated. AS I said before, there is no community amongst Atheists. I make each decision on whether or not I will like a particular Atheist based on each one I meet. They are no different than anyone else. their beliefs do not sway my perception of them one bit. It's all about the personality.
That being said, let me begin with a type of Atheist you all probably know. This specific 'denomination' tends to be the most vocal. They are the only type of Atheist that I have met which forms up into pseudo-communities in order to achieve their goal; to make others believe that there is no God. Though their intentions could be paired with the intentions of any religious convert, it's their actions that separates them from these other groups. We will call this type of Atheist, thanks to their behaviour which will be further explained, the 'Hostile Atheists.'
My first prolonged experience with Hostile Atheists wasn't until I attended University. I went to school in San Antonio, TX, south of what is known in the United States as the 'Bible Belt.' There are plenty of Christians in Texas, much more than anywhere else I've lived. Largely because of this, there aren't many Atheists, or if there are, they don't make themselves known. I was in a graduating class of over 700 people in high school in Houston, TX. I was the only Atheist I knew.
I believe that it's largely because of this Atheist isolation that so many Hostile Atheists sprung up in University. You throw a large collection of similarly aged and minded students together in their first parent-free environment, it becomes almost inevitable that you will have people acting in ways that they never were able to before. It's not really their fault most of the time. If you suppress self-expression, it has a tendency to violently erupt when the restraints are removed.
It's all these characteristics of development that produces Hostile Atheists. These particular Atheists voice their opinions in rather insulting ways. They use guilt and aggression to attempt to sway others. but oftehn, their goals are not to convert. They don't care about making you believe what they believe. They already have their fellow believers, and they consider themselves elite in their understanding of the world. So instead of converting or sharing their beliefs, they focus on segregation and isolation. Like children in an elementary school, Hostile Atheists bully the religious with slogans like 'Without god there would be no more war!' and 'You can't believe in science and God!' Their goals aren't to convert the believers, but instead to rally support targeted towards making the religious feel unwanted. Hostile Atheists are manipulators, and quite often cruel ones at that.
We aren't all bad. I know I started with one of our least lovable denominations, but I'll try and redeem us a little here. Another type of Atheist is one which tends to keep all beliefs hidden. We will call this denomination the Secret Atheist. Secret Atheists have their beliefs, and then keep them all to themselves. They believe what they believe, but don't have any desire to share it with anyone. My grandmother was once a Secret Atheist, until the years rolled by and she became a little more vocal. Once upon a time, no matter how hard you probed her for answers, she wouldn't even give you a hint. That's just the way the Secret Atheist lives. Like Atheism requires, they live alone and silently, going about their ways with friends and family, but keeping their social lives and religious lives separate.
The Secret Atheist has a very close cousin called the Quiet Atheist. The Quiet Atheist is much like its cousin in many ways. They're non-confrontational, relaxed in their beliefs, and unwilling to share what they hold to be true. The only difference really is that Quiet Atheists will actually discuss what they believe when probed by people they trust. This is the type of Atheist my grandmother became in the later years of her life.
Now we are starting to get to Atheists who are more like myself. This type of Atheist we will now discuss is one I like to call the Conversational Atheist. This particular Atheist tends to be quite willing to talk about his or her beliefs, even if he may not fully understand them himself. Education and culture aren't part of the Conversational Atheist's arsenal. He isn't smart or worldly or wise. he is just a regular character who has, for whatever reason, chosen not to believe in God and wants you to know about it. Fortunately, the Conversational Atheist is a harmless breed. Often he has chosen to become an Atheist because he feels wronged personally by God. I find this to be most common with Conversational Atheists; when a person falls from religion, he most often ends up here in the Conversational Atheist corner. They are unable to convert others because most of the time their beliefs are grounded in personal history rather than logical reasoning. So though a Conversational Atheist may seem as though he is trying to sway your opinions, he really isn't. All he really wants is a bit of your time to talk to you about his life and where he's coming from.
This next denomination I would like to call the Evolutionist Atheist, but thanks to people not understanding that evolution isn't debatable, it's proven science, people have decided that 'Evolutionists' are a faith-based group rather than just people trying to progress human knowledge. So, I will instead call this denomination of Atheists the Darwinist Atheists. These Atheists are the next step from Conversation Atheists. They also enjoy talking about their faith, but they have chosen Atheism because their education has taken them there. They simply can't juggle faith in God and an extensive education. This happens a lot with people who follow the researcher or life-time student track. I think it has to do with the fact that they spend so much time focusing on what they can know for sure that they forget how to just believe in something. Without solid evidence, they are unconvinced, and the less grounded in reality that evidence is, the harder it is for them to believe. It's either that, or after a lifetime of education and studying how the world works, they lose all hope in both humanity and God. All I know is that these Atheists are one of the most common types of Atheists in the world. They have the most varied belief system and all come to their beliefs in different ways. They are the missionaries of the Atheist faith, using what they have learned throughout their lives to teach people how God simply cannot exist. They are probably the strongest willed Atheists as well, because no matter what anyone says, a Darwinist Atheist will never change his mind. He will always be an Atheist, no matter what, and he will try to tell you why he's right with equal dedication.
Which brings us to the final main category of Atheists that I will be talking about in this chapter. This denomination is the title denomination, and the type of Atheist that I consider myself to be. We are Religious Atheists. The Religious Atheist believes that there is no God thanks to a life of Religious exposure. I am not talking about experiencing just one religion, or two, or three. Religious Atheists have experiences countless different faiths from all reaches of the world. It's this extreme religious exposure that overloads the senses, rendering us unable to believe that with so many different faiths out there, how could it be possible that any one of them is the correct one? And so it seems to us that religion must be the creation of man, not the requirement of God. But the most important part of being a Religious Atheist is this: We will never say that you, regardless of your faith, whatever it may be, are wrong. Like you, we have chosen a particular belief system that works for us, and our is simply to not believe in any God at all. But it's still faith. Just like for whatever you believe, this is what works for us.
So, by doing my best to scratch the surface of the Atheist faith, I believe I have given you some of our most commonly occurring denominations. But there's an extremely important side note here that you must pay attention to in order to fully understand how we work. Unlike with religious denominations which are secure in their beliefs, the Atheist's lack of community allows for a pick and choose quality to our denominations. Any aspect of any of these faiths can cross over into another, depending on the believer. For example, I am a Religious Atheist. However, I have a hint of Darwinist and Conversational Atheist in me as well. I absolutely love to talk about God. Unlike Darwinist and Conversational Atheists, however, I speak of God as if I believed in him myself. But that's a subject for a later chapter.
Just know, as you turn the pages of this book, that though we have many denominations like many other faiths, ours are open to be twisted and manipulated based on the believer. With no one telling Atheists what to believe, I'm afraid this is inevitable. But maybe that's one of the most attractive qualities of our faith?
