Where Did All the Happy Atheists Go?

When I was a growing up, and as a young adult, I would occasionally meet a person who claimed he didn't believe in God. It didn't happen often, and because I lived such a sheltered life, while I didn't care much one way or the other, I felt bad because I grew up calling God Heavenly Father, and who wouldn't want an all-knowing Father looking out for them?

Since we obviously didn't share beliefs, faith wouldn't end up on the short list of things to discuss; we picked up the shattered pieces of our disillusioned lives, and somehow found a way to move past the breach of this major schism in our world views.

Of course, that was before social media.

Back then, my impression of an unbeliever - agnostic or atheist - was that they didn't really care all that much that I believed - much the same way I didn't care that they didn't. They were no more invested in convincing me that I was disillusioned in my belief system than I was in convincing them that they were.

In fact, if you'd asked me back then what my impression of an atheist was, I would have conjured in my mind a person who - at worst - had feelings of condescension towards me - dweeb believer they imagined me to be. Or best of all - maybe they didn't waste the brain power thinking about me at all, as it should be. Those who thought condescendingly, when confronted with my belief in a God and Creator, I imagined their attitude would have been communicated - not necessarily in words - along these lines:

"Isn't that cute? YOU GUYS are adoooorable - you think prayer reaches someone else - and that someone else hears you? That is SO. SWEET. And hey. If it gives you comfort in a weird world, more power to ya!" Maybe followed by a little pat on the hand.

I don't know anyone like that anymore. They're probably still out there, and kudos to them for not being sucked into the vortex of anger that generally surrounds this conversation anymore. But to call this conversation a vortex of anger might be dialing back what I've seen at large in the last 10 or so years.

Those happy atheists of yesteryear? They feel nearly extinct in my world. Now, all I see - or hear - are the ones who want you to SHUT UP about your beliefs because THEY don’t believe it. Almost like a little kid who puts his fingers in his ears and shouts, “LA LA LA LA LA” to drown you out.

For ages, believers and unbelievers have managed to live side by side and help each other, care about each other, be friends with each other. But it's almost like the schism in beliefs became a literal schism in the earth itself, leaving one of us on one side of the widening gap, and the other one of us on the other side, the schism growing into an impassable canyon.

In 2007, David Kupelian wrote:

"I conducted a little thought experiment a while back, while looking out over the Pacific from the Oregon coast. Drinking in the vast expanse of the ocean, the pounding surf, the seagulls, the salt air - ultimate serenity and ultimate power all in one timeless moment - I asked myself: How can one experience all this magnificence without believing in a Creator?

"So I tried, just as an experiment mind you, to conceptualize the existence of the fantastic creation I was beholding, yet without a Creator. I consciously tried to adopt an atheistic worldview, even for just a minute, to see what it was like.

"What I got was a headache, a psychic shock, a momentary taste of another realm - an empty, prideful, appalling dimension of hell-on-earth, masquerading as enlightenment and freedom. [emphasis added]

"That's why the conflict between theism and atheism is not just a philosophical topic for polite debate over tea. It's a spiritual war of the worlds. That high anxiety I felt momentarily, as I tasted the 'other dimension' that animates those who reject the very idea of God, was minor and passing. But I'm quite sure hard-core atheists feel agony when the opposite happens to them - that is, when they chance to experience a fleeting moment of realization that God exists, and that they are accountable ultimately to Him.

"This would account for the near-explosive emotion that always seems to surround this 'objective, scientific' subject. Underneath all the scientific pretension, it's all about man being master of his own destiny, about freedom from accountability to God, about being released from Judeo-Christian sexual morality, about making up your own rules, about sustaining the life of pride and individual will.

"In a very real sense, it's about being your own god."

David Kupelian, "How Atheism is Being Sold to America," October 11, 2007 (https://nicholicious.wordpress.com/2007/10/11/how-atheism-is-being-sold-to-america/)

Which brings me to a new thought I've had recently about happy or unhappy atheists. I believe the happy atheists are the ones who still have a fairly neutral opinion, if not condescending, towards believers. But unhappy atheists? I've decided maybe what they really are is dishonest atheists.

Kupelian sort of nailed the description of the angst certain unbelievers surely live in: what if there really is a God, and what if I really must face Him one day to account for my life?

That's troubling enough information for believers! - sans Jesus, that is. But what if you don't believe that there really is a Creator, and that Someone was sent to intercede for you, be your advocate at that judgment bar, have your back, and give His back to the smiters for you, because you chose to give your heart to Him?

If Kupelian is right, such people live in the worst sort of cognitive dissonance: I don't want there to be a higher power in the universe, because I like being my higher power, and doing exactly what I want and living my life as I please.

But what if...? As Kupelian said, what if his little thought experiment leaves atheists a little less than happy, and gives them something a little more than a headache upon contemplating a universe with authority and consequences?

No wonder they're ornery. If unhappy - or somewhat dishonest atheists are even a little nervous there really might be a God, then even the slightest mention of His existence might send them over the edge with an anxiety they might not even be willing or able to admit they're experiencing.

The biggest reason I feel badly that anyone lives with this kind of suppressed terror isn't simply because that's no way to live, but because - at the risk of expressing an irreverence I absolutely do not feel - I think God is truly the coolest Person I know.

I cannot get over how God does things. He does art projects every single day - sunrise and sunset, tides, etc. Then there are thunderstorms, and dew, and water in general. And there's music - explain that one without a Supreme Intelligence, please.

And babies. Don't even get me started with the babies.

God's love for us is RIDICULOUS. If you read the Old Testament, listen for the voice of a spurned husband pleading for His unfaithful bride; you will hear a voice of love and devotion that will absolutely melt you.

He. Wants. Us.

And not only does He want us, He wants US to want Him as much as He wants us. He wants a faithful partner in this relationship. And the history of the Bible teaches that He is willing to wait for millennia in order to give His children as long as they need to learn, and practice, and grow into the marriage.

"For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still." (Isaiah 5:25)

I like to imagine unbelievers - happy and unhappy alike, honest or slightly dishonest in their hopeful denial of God's existence - having the inevitable moment of discovery that He is real. I get excited to consider them realizing He has walked beside them every day of their lives, protected them, given them brilliant ideas, provided them more strength than their native strength in difficult seasons, and almost like a wallflower at a junior high school dance, waited patiently for His beloved child to notice Him, pick Him, stay with Him.

Because He is God, every single unbeliever's story of discovery is going to be epic - truly, one for the books. For THE book - the Book of Life. Every story is HIS story - the HIStory of God in each life He created.

Then all the thing that looked like happiness will become true joy - the real thing that never goes away, because its source is eternal: our Creator, God, and Papi.