I find it hilarious that when one is an atheist and, in writing and conversation, treats the Christian story the same way that they treat any myth, they are subject to assaults to the effect of “Stop mocking people’s beliefs! Just because someone doesn’t agree with you doesn’t mean you have the right to make fun of their faith!”

This is curious, because it’s such an us/them assertion: It fails to recognize that belief is a personal thing that some people believe that the story of Christ (or any other religious figure) is just that – a story. In the same way that so many love to parody The Matrix or Lord of the Rings, Christianity is fair game for satire. If my beliefs are that there is no God, no higher power, no old man in the sky or omnipresent power connecting all living things, than I should be permitted to express those beliefs to my heart’s content. Don’t yell at me for making fun of your beliefs when, in doing so, I am expressing my own.

If you believe differently than I do, I respect that – but it doesn’t mean that I have to automatically assume that your beliefs aren’t a steaming pile of feces. I respect everyone automatically, but their beliefs are subject to question. When someone comes up to you and tells you that tiny frogs live in their ears and tell them how to live their life, the response is generally “Bwhahahahaha! You’re fucking NUTS!” and I have no problem with this. When someone says something that you consider to be absolutely unfounded and crazy, you should say so.

Therefore, when someone says to me “This carpenter got nailed to a tree 2,000 years ago and therefore, we’re all free of ‘sin,’ but have to follow inexplicable rules in order to remain so,” I just have to laugh, because – in my mind – that’s ludicrous. I’ve read the Bible dozens upon dozens of times. Biblical study was one of my focuses in college. It’s a fantastic and beautiful set of stories, and the character of Jesus of Nazareth (whether he actually existed or not) had innumerable words of wisdom, from the likes of which many people would surely gain valuable insight; but when YOU choose to believe that these stories are unquestionably true and to try to emulate their message in every aspect of your life, you start to resemble those Trekkies who wear Starfleet uniforms to jury duty and take classes like Speaking Klingon 101.

If you choose to believe, without any outside evidence, that the Bible is historical truth, that there is only one means by which one can be saved, that there is only one source for a connection to something beyond yourself, that is your prerogative. You’ll just have to excuse the rest of us who don’t feel that we need a book to tell us how to be good people. You’ll excuse us if we can’t help but notice that while your religious views may help and comfort YOU, they happen to be beliefs that are not based on the reality in which we live. If you choose to believe such things, as is certainly your right, you should be prepared to be perceived as naïve, superstitious, and reliant on crutches that make dealing with the horrors of the world less painful, but also less human.

It would be nice to believe that there’s someone who loves us watching over us, but we’ve seen no evidence of that, aside from the assertions of myths, worldwide – all of which cropped up as man was suddenly able to use his imagination. The story of Jesus Christ is inspiring to me, not because I am gullible enough to believe that an invisible and elusive deity sacrificed His only Son in order to save humanity from this “sin” business, but because the story came from a human being, who thought “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were willing to give our own lives, such that the lives of those we leave behind would be made better?” and that human being was kind enough to pass that idea on to future generations. That’s it. It’s a great story. It has a lot to teach us. We should all read it. We should not, however, feel obligated to believe it, or patronize the beliefs of those who strangely want to label it as literal history. Cope.

M-A