(Disclaimer - this isn't a "meta" diary about DKos piefights. Don't anyone take it personally, please.)
Rant alert.
I'm normally pretty live-and-let-live about my religious brothers and sisters (literally - I have a sibling who is a minister) but when they get to the harassment stage, I get miffed and a little defensive, so forgive me.
I am going to address my comments to my hypothetical Christian friends in a spirit of more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger, and I promise no-more-hyphenated-cliches. If you're not the sort of Christian I'm directing my comments at, good for you (GREAT for you), and don't direct comments back at me. You know perfectly well that the ones I am talking about exist... just check the rec list today.
Why do you care what I believe or don't believe? I'll tell you why... because nonbelievers make you worry, deep down, that you're being very, very foolish.
Why else do you need the constant reinforcement? Why do you NEED to hear about Jayzus during every important event in your life? Why is it IMPORTANT to you that the Almighty be praised in every single public gathering? Why do you have a little subroutine in your speech that runs off to Heaven and praises Jesus every sentence or two? It's so clear to the rest of us. If you didn't brainwash yourself, you might start to think, and we can't have that.
Do you really think it's important to Him that He be mentioned in every public forum on the planet? Do you picture Him sitting back, pleased, on a comfy cloud, happy that He got His product placement in a graduation speech?
Is your God really that small?
I'm picturing some sort of cosmic Donald Trump whose childish ego must be massaged constantly and whose temper must be appeased lest he FIRE (and brimstone) us. THAT'S what you want me to worship?
I'd as soon worship a tree. At least trees are benign and don't have the manners and temper of a precocious child (apologies to Robert Heinlein).
We don't understand your proselytizing. You don't get it that you can't make people un-figure-things-out. (Oops, I did it again.) You can't unsee the truth. So why do you try? Why do you care what we believe in?
Most atheists couldn't care less what you want to waste your Sundays on, believe it or not, until you start harshing our buzz with your Christian social engineering. Let me explain.
I'm a kind-hearted soul. I don't WANT to convince people of the things I think I've figured out. It's not a pretty picture, it's a frightening and depressing picture. But some of us would rather stare at the ugly truth than continue to delude ourselves with fables and fairy tales. However bleak the world is, surely we are better equipped for it when armed with the truth. But we're not cruel about it. Why would I want to convince my elderly mother that her chief comfort in her old age is a fantasy?
From my point of view - I don't claim to speak for anyone else - religious people are, quite literally, not completely sane. They believe in things that simply aren't there, and never realize the reductio ad absurdum created by the mere existence of other religions. Having purposely and determinedly shut down their reasoning powers in avoidance of the huge array of logical absurdities found in any religion, their mental machinery is broken; their most common, daily thought patterns whoosh off to Heaven every sentence or two to be censored.
This insanity can manifest itself in hatred and violence against unbelievers. We are not just wrong; we are, by definition, EVIL. All because we make them question their own beliefs.
When my son was dying of cancer, I got a call from a Christian "friend" who thought he was doing the Right Thing by telling me that this was happening to him because, unlike the rest of my family, I was not a churchgoer. That's the kind of helpful Christians we have today. Jesus would sneer at them.
I quite like this Jesus cat, by the way. If you blank out twenty centuries of bullshit and spin, he had some great ideas. Someone should build a church based on them.
Addendum: Whoa, the rec list again? Two for two! Booyah! Thank you!
Let me say once more that I am VERY AWARE of and VERY GRATEFUL for the "other" kind of Christians, who are the kind I've been lucky enough to be around most of my life.