What a bunch of pricks we are.
Of course, we soothe ourselves to sleep as we swallow a philosophical placebo of "freedom." We tell ourselves, only people that agree with us can be truly free because people who have faith in irrational things are slaves. Since slavery is abominable, we fancy ourselves as freedom fighters, crusaders for rational thought and intellect. We tell ourselves that the end justifies the means, so even if we acted like pricks high on our own farts, it's all for the greater good of the world. In this way, we absolve ourselves of our sins yet we don't realize that we've enslaved ourselves in that mindset.
The mindset of, "I am right, you are wrong and I get to judge and mock you for it. We will never be friends and I will never respect you because you're obviously too stupid to be worthy of my friendship and respect," might as well be concrete walls and metal bars. We're removing ourselves from the majority of society, forming our own little gangs, and making shivs out of scraps of what we think is wisdom.
Then, just like herpes, our overinflated sense of superiority spread to other areas. What started with non-faith has migrated to politics. Because we're used to thinking alike when it comes to non-faith, we're shocked to learn that not every atheist thinks alike. Not every atheist supports the same cause. Not every atheist is a liberal. Not every atheist supports abortion. Not every atheist supports healthcare. Not every atheist is against circumcision.
It angers and confuses us, so we fight each other, because we've all convinced ourselves we're right and infallible, and anyone who dares question that is worthy of a hearty stabbing or two. So, the liberal atheist gang attacks the libertarian atheist gang. The libertarian atheist gang attacks the communist atheist gang. The communist atheist gang attacks the socialist atheist gang. Meanwhile, the one, lone republican atheist cowers in the back corner of his cell, fearing he will be outed as a right winger and that all of the gangs will unite and slaughter him unmercifully....and he's probably right.
Yet, somehow, even with all this internal conflict, we seem to think we can go to battle as a small herd of wounded cats and claim victory over 80% of the global population. Then we wonder why we make no headway and why religious folks think we're all angry, crazy, hateful, and dangerous, but not so dangerous that we have too much of an effect on things. Sure, one or two of us might bitch about a prayer banner hanging in a public school or make a controversial billboard, but, eh....who cares? We're all going to rot in hell anyway.
While Christians hypnotize themselves into believing think they have a monopoly on compassion, forgiveness, and cute little quote books, atheists should be perfectly capable of espousing those ideas. Yet, so often we don't. We quote their book and say, "Judge not, lest ye be judged," to them, just highlight their hypocrisy, but then we quickly turn around and abandon the principle when it comes to ourselves. Worse, we do it to each other.
There aren't a lot of us in the world, at least not that are "out of the closet," yet, we don't stick together. As much as we want to stroke ourselves saying it's okay to be different, we afford the right to be different only to ourselves, which breaks us up into smaller and smaller gangs and causes more and more dispersion. We scattered ourselves about the earth, and because of our self-proclaimed "enlightenment," there we shall remain, with closed minds and closed hearts.
But, hey, look on the bright side. At least we know we're always right.
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