You're Doing It Wrong

It's been a while, I know. I have had some serious computer issues and was using a different computer, which is really no excuse for not posting, but it threw me off of my general life routine.

Anyway, during the days of slumming it on Facebook and watching banned commercials and weird Japanese game shows on YouTube, I did occasionally read the news, and I ran across an article more disturbing than anything on Japanese television. Unfortunately, I cannot find the article now, and I am not going to go on a great big hunt for it since it really isn't going to be necessary in order for me to say what I have to say.



I am an atheist. I firmly believe in my right to be free from religion, do not believe that religion has a place in government or public education, and feel strongly that my lack of belief deserves the same respect as someone else's belief. While I do not belong to any atheist organizations, I do see the point in atheists banding together in order to protect those rights, which are very often trampled upon by the religious. However, I begin to have a problem with the organizations which turn atheism itself into a religion.

According to the article I read, there are atheist groups that have created an unbaptising ritual which is exactly what it sounds like. Using a hair dryer dubbed "Logic and Reason", participants are blasted on the forehead with hot air and declared officially unbaptised.  The stupidity here should be glaringly obvious, but let me just break it down.

Atheism is defined by a lack of belief in a god, and rejects all forms of religious ritual. Therefore, the ritual of baptism should be utterly meaningless to the atheist. I know that it is for me. I was baptised Catholic and it has no bearing on who I am or how I live my life. I really don't care that the Vatican considers me a Catholic for life because I do not live my life as a Catholic. I do not need a ritual to undo something that holds absolutely no meaning for me to begin with.

As an atheist, I am perfectly comfortable with who I am - more so than I ever was when I did believe in a god. I don't need to give religion the finger with a ritual because I have already done that with my set of beliefs, as well as the knowledge that I live a moral life without the fear of a deity to keep me in line. I am not bitter toward the Catholic church, nor do I need to go out of my way to publicly slam it. The Catholic church, and indeed, most religious entities manage to damage themselves without the help of outsiders.

What is the point of abandoning religion only to create a new one out of non-religion? This reminds me a bit of the Communist state that declares itself atheist, when all it's really doing is replacing one object of worship with another.Isn't part of the beauty of atheism the freedom from organized ritual and the embracing of logic and reason? Where is the logic and reason in this unbaptising movement? It's embracing the very symbols that atheism rejects.What this tells me is that there are atheists out there that are only atheists because they are bitter or simply out to be edgy or trendy. That isn't atheism, that's just a person's inability to deal with religious trauma and attention whoring.

It makes all atheists look bad because it gives those vocal people that would happily deny us our right to freedom from religion ammunition with which they can say, "See? This is as much a religious movement as any other because people need something to believe in." And that is so wrong.

We don't need this bullshit. Stop it.