I’m about to come out of a closet. Not The Closet, but the one next to it. I’m coming out of the I Believe in God Closet.
It is a cramped closet whose shelves are littered with relics of Christianity’s darker past: war and exploitation, intolerance and shame. Its walls are painted with the words of hate that have been flung in the name of our Lord, Amen. It smells like decay.
Every time I’ve cracked open the door, I have been met with shock and astonishment. Most recently, I encountered the words, “But you’re smart!”
“But you’re smart!” is an acceptable response to a number of statements; “Yes, I believe in God” is not one of them. This insulting response suggests that anyone who believes in God is stupid and further insinuates that anyone who doesn’t believe in God is smart. Each of these inferences is untrue.
Christians might not be proud to publicly acknowledge their faith after the recent antics of American fundamentalists, which have been embarrassing to everyone: Americans, Christians, people with any sense of humanity. But in the same way that not every Muslim subscribes to an extremist agenda, not every Christian believes that homosexuality is a choice or opposes same-sex marriage. Not every Christian believes that abortion is murder, or that all nonbelievers will end up in Hell, regardless of merit. Not all Christians believe that Jesus walked the Earth with his pet stegosaurus, that “intelligent design” must be taught in school as a legitimate theory alongside evolution, that prayer will cure what needs surgery, or that “1 like = 1 prayer.”
It is unfortunate that a minority has managed to color an entire belief system negatively just because it is louder and angrier than the rest. It’s just as unfortunate that the minority of faux-intellectual atheists have managed to taint an otherwise unassailable community.
Pointing out that rabbits don’t lay eggs or that the Easter Bunny never makes an appearance in the Bible isn’t clever or particularly insightful. It is common knowledge that the spread of Christianity was helped along by merging Christian and pagan holidays, and that traditional symbols of fertility were adopted as hallmarks of the Easter holiday.
Thank you. Move along. You are standing with your nose almost touching the painting, focusing on the brushstrokes and ignoring the story of hope and renewal. “Happy Zombie Jesus Day,” indeed.
Relying on science to disprove religion suggests that the two must somehow exist in opposition with one another just because scientific breakthroughs have disproved Biblical stories in the past. The Bible was written by many different authors and edited and translated over centuries, and as such cannot be accepted as an infallible text, free of metaphor. Disproving it isn’t necessarily evidence against the existence of a higher power. Just because the Earth wasn’t forged in a week doesn’t mean that a hand didn’t lovingly drop a quark in place to set off the Big Bang.
At its heart, the Christian message, like that of many other religions, is one of love. Love your family, love your neighbors and love the people around you. It isn’t a scientific examination of the world around us and shouldn’t be taken as such.
Questioning Christian institutions is fine. Any man-made establishment should be subject to scrutiny by its constituents, regardless of what higher power it purports to represent. Recklessly lambasting Christianity in order to join the ranks of allegedly smart and open-minded atheists serves no purpose other than to highlight insecurity, stupidity, and closed-mindedness.
I won’t throw my religion in your face if you don’t throw your lack thereof in mine.
I struggle with my faith sometimes. I don’t know why bad things happen. The “God is testing your faith” answer seems far too petty for the omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being I imagine cradles the universe in his hands.
Yes, I am smart and believe in God. It is through my intellect that I believe that there is an intelligence higher than that of Man, not despite it, and I will not be ashamed.