When it comes to my atheism, I do my best to tread the line between being frank and unashamed about it and not being an asshole as I do so to those who believe. I freely admit that I have tottered off that line from time to time in the past. To be fair, my transgressions pale in comparison to how far past that line the followers of the three “great” religions have strayed. This is true even for mundane assholishness – I’ve never knocked on someone’s door and offered them a copy of Free Inquiry, is all I’m saying. All that may be changing.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to put on a suit and start knocking on doors to spread the good word about nothing. Quite the opposite. I’m saying that I might have to seriously start questioning my atheism. What?! I hear you who know me say – this has to be some sort of trick, a hook, if you will. You’re not wrong, but hear me out. You see, I’m forced to give this a hearing by the tenets of what I hold dear.
The salient one being evidence. And boy is that a biggie. You might call it the biggest. The bedrock of my atheism rests on a lack of evidence for any kind of god. I used to hew rather closely to Spinoza’s idea of a diety – one indistinguishable from nature. In fact, I had a one on one encounter with my company commander during basic training over what I chose to have printed on my dog tags in the spot reserved for religion: Pantheist. After asking for a definition (What the f#$k is a pantheist?), his central concern was whether there were any observances or practices that my religion required, especially on death (What do I do with your worthless carcass?).
They were dog tags after all. I essentially told him it was a philosophical stance and for all practical purposes non religious. (The warriors who fought for their country, and bled, have sunk to their rest, the damp earth is their bed, no stone tells the place where their ashes repose, nor points out the spot from the graves of their foes. – Longfellow). I’ll never forget the look on his face. I couldn’t tell if it was amusement, bewilderment, or disgust. Perhaps it was their combination. How does all this fit into my evidence requirement? Look around, not only is there nature all around you, you are nature. That’s pretty good for the evidence requirement. What caused me to move away from calling myself a pantheist was the realization that I could be satisfied with nature and there need not be any kind of god attached (trying to shoehorn in him/her/it needlessly complicates things), even a universally dispersed one.
My need for evidence has remained. While I see no evidence of any kind of god, personal or otherwise, I’m recently forced to admit that there is some compelling evidence for the existence of his Christian adversary, the devil. By the code I’ve adopted, if there is compelling evidence for me to believe in a god, then due to the definition of the world compel, I’d have to accept it. If Satan exists, then I am forced to accept that God does, or at least did at one time. Hey, you never know, it’s been a bit since the bronze age, things may have changed.
So what’s my evidence that the devil, does here on Earth, exist? Come on, you have to see it coming.
Instead of appearing all red, He has chosen to manifest in orange. Why not? It’s close on the spectrum. But let’s not allow judgement to rest on superficial appearances. Unfortunately for me, there is other evidence.
First, nicknames. If I recall correctly from sunday bible school, the devil is also known as the prince of lies. Given Trump and his, let’s call it acrobatic, relationship with the truth, you might think this one is a no brainer. However, I don’t know whether it is the quantity or the quality of lies that is the determinative factor when conferring royalty. If it is only the former than he must be at the very least a prince. If quality is any factor at all, I think he drops to no higher than a duke and if it is the determinative factor, he’s barely a lady in waiting. Let’s call that one intriguing and move on.
What else? Well, he murders scripture. I think I recall one of those bible school lessons saying the devil was incapable of speaking the word of God. Kind of like garlic for vampires. Also not conclusive, so what else? Surely Lucifer would epitomize the cardinal vices, right? For those of you without any Catholic school exposure (or read Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales – in this case the parson’s) the cardinal vices are more commonly known as the seven deadly sins. So how does Trump match up? Let’s go through them shall we?
Pride. Are you kidding me? This man cannot shut up about winning* the election. Or anything else which he thinks makes him look good. He holds a rally whenever it’s wounded. Need more proof? Ask him about his tiny hands.
Greed. Again, are you kidding me. Seriously. Let’s call the evidence on this one incontrovertible.
Lust. Ok, we’re on a roll here. Instead of the low hanging brea…er, fruit of the Stormy Daniels affair, let’s pick the most shining example. He likes the way his daughter looks. I think that is about all we need to say.
Envy. One need test this merely by putting up a cardboard life sized cut-out of the previous president and watch Trump’s reaction to the applause the cut out gets from the rest of the world compared to him. Now imagine how the real Obama must make him feel.
Gluttony. Christ on a pogo stick, have you seen the size of this man’s ass? Ok, ok, there’s more kinds of gluttony than just how many double quarter pounders with cheese you can stuff down your gobhole while watching Hannity. Given his proclivities though, I’m willing to bet he’s a contender here as well.
Sloth. Most people think of sloth as a general grubbiness. But as I went digging I came across this, from of course, wikipedia:
The word “sloth” is a translation of the Latin term acedia (Middle English, accidie) and means “without care”. Spiritually,acedia first referred to an affliction attending religious persons, especially monks, wherein they became indifferent to their duties and obligations to God. Mentally, acedia, has a number of distinctive components of which the most important is affectlessness, a lack of any feeling about self or other, a mind-state that gives rise to boredom, rancor, apathy, and a passive inert or sluggish mentation. Physically, acedia is fundamentally with a cessation of motion and an indifference to work; it finds expression in laziness, idleness, and indolence. Two commentators consider the most accurate translation of acedia to be “self-pity,” for it “conveys both the melancholy of the condition and self-centeredness upon which it is founded.
So, after careful consideration of the rapidly accumulating evidence (not just Meuller’s), there’s only one thing I can think of to say:
Holy shit.
I mean that.