"Does anyone else find it odd that atheists are just as passionate about religion as Christians?This question has been put to me quite a few times since starting this website, so I thought I would try and address my take on it here.
I mean... if you don't believe, why are you so passionate? Why do you care?
Since Jesus was fond of answering questions with questions, I want to ask a few myself. If someone has never run for political office, why would they be passionate about politics? If someone has never played a musical instrument why would they be passionate about music?
Or better yet, if someone once held political office, and then quit politics for one reason or another, shouldn't they stop caring about the political process? Or if someone used to play a musical instrument and then quite, why would they ever have an opinion about music?
It seems to me that people are just plain interested in the things they are interested in. While that may seem a simplistic explanation, I challenge anyone to easily dismiss that reason. While it may seem to the fundamentalist that a lack of belief in their particular god would necessitate a total lack of interest or at least a lack of passion about the subject, I totally disagree.
Quite often thoughtful people find themselves in the ranks of one religion or another. Because they are thoughtful, they research and study their particular faith with a vengeance, and with passion. If, like many who visit this site, they come to have doubts about their chosen cult, they may become even more passionate. They might even get mad - mad at themselves and at those who either from ignorance or intent have misled them.
It seems to me that the same thing that made me passionate about Christianity is the same thing that still makes me passionate about Christianity. I simply have an insatiable appetite and curiosity about the things I am interested in. Christianity is definitely one of the things that has caught my attention throughout my life.
Of course the fundamentalist thinks of these things in the frame work of supernatural forces, natural man and spiritual man and so forth. The natural man is blinded to the things of GOD, so why in the world would they even show the slightest concern, unless of course they are being controlled by some miscreant demon.
I feel no quilt or confusion at still being interested in Christianity. Christianity is a huge force which has made dramatic changes to human history. While the modern fundamentalist believes it has been an ultimate force for good, a real study of the past 2000 years reveals simply a force for intense mind control. For most of the Christian Era, resistance to Christianity was met with the same type of behavior exhibited in our own day throughout the middle east under the banner of Islam. To contradict the ruling flavor of Christianity in any country for over 1000 years and you could kiss your ass goodbye.
While I was a Christian, I noticed that very few Christians were even minimally interested in Christianity per se. They were more interested in feeling good, feeling important, feeling loved, feeling the spirit move, feeling high on Christ, feeling, feeling and more feeling.... Not a whole lot of brain work going on in that camp, from my experience, just searching after a god high. And that "high" can be quite addicting. "Just put your mind on hold, do what you're told and open a cold refreshing "chick tract."
A thoughtful atheist should be passionate about Christianity and every other form of theism because it is a direct threat to a thinking person's freedom. Far from being anti-passionate when it comes to religion, people who use their brains recognize religion for what it potentially and really is - a mind numbing drug.What do you think?
