Discrimination Most Of You Won't Care About

According to the Tennessee State Constitution, I cannot hold civil office in this fine State. Why? Because I am an atheist. And it turns out there are six more states where that's true. May I tell you a bit about me?

Very briefly, I grew up in the Catholic Church. (Catholicism and Judaism seem to be the two main breeding grounds for atheists. Why, I do not know.) I went to Catholic school in the first through third grades. My third grade teacher was Sister Mary Andrew, whom I still remember fondly more than three decades later. She wept on the last day of class because she was going to miss us all so much. I was an altar boy in our church, and even knew the Latin Mass by heart. Some church elders praised me for being a good altar boy.

What they never knew was that I was mostly enjoying the view of the girls from up next to the priest! I was more in love with the formality of the proceedings than the liturgy itself. As I got older, I naturally had questions about why evil existed if God created everything, why a loving God allowed suffering, and that sort of thing. The answers I got made no sense to my teen-aged mind, and frankly seemed more like equivocation and rationalisation to me. It made no sense. I slowly came to reject what I had been taught, which technically makes me an apostate.

I went out and searched on my own. As I learned more and more, I saw that plain old science, as a way of looking at the world and as a framework of evidence and theory, satisfied nearly all of my questions. Also, I discovered that nihilism described my worldview, though not as the empty amoral place most think of. To me, the universe had whatever meaning anyone cared to fill it with. Even seeing God as the meaning and purpose of life was a choice the believer made. Our purpose in life wasn't meaningless, but was up to us to create and fulfill. I quickly found out that this was an awesome and enormous responsibility. To me, though, the universe needed no God or gods to make any sense. I came to understand that I was an atheist. All this happened before my 21st birthday.

I've since been pretty comfortable with it. I've been the target of folks who see "converting the atheist" as a way to earn bonus points with God, or as a badge of merit for themselves. I've had countless arguments with people who demand that I justify, explain or "prove" my beliefs. (Please don't do that in comments or emails, OK? I don't bother you; please return the favor.) I'm pretty much live and let live. I don't usually bring up the topic, and will discuss it gently if it's broached. But it rarely comes up anyway, which is fine with me.

Once, I completely baffled a super-Christian co-worker. She had a terrible fear of blood. When she accidentally cut herself one day, she began to freak out. I went to her and said, "Why don't you go pray about it." She did, in a whispering huddle off in the corner. When she calmed down, she came back to me. "Thanks. But, I thought you didn't believe in God? Why did you tell me to pray?" I replied that while I didn't believe in God, she did and I knew that would help her. She couldn't wrap her mind around that concept and always suspected I was hiding my "true" beliefs. It was just that I understood and respected hers.

I did, in my thirties, seek out some non-theistic kind of religion. I was (still am) in a Twelve-Step program, which emphasises belief in a Higher Power. I had always used the Fellowship as mine, and it worked fine. Some people thought I was filtering my HP through the Fellowship to protect my pride in my atheism. It wasn't true, but I felt honesty and openminded-ness required me to consider it. The closest I could come was Confucianism, which is an ethical system with no requirement for God or gods. It was pretty attractive, I must admit. But it was mired in a lot of sexist and archaic stuff I don't find acceptable. I haven't found a modernist, neo-Confucianism yet, but I don't think I need it. Atheism works just fine for me.

So where does my morality "come" from? Mostly my Catholic upbringing. I was instilled with "treat others as you would be treated, if not better" from an early age. Also, "leave things better than you found them." Both, it turns out, have their biological basis in what's called the "prisoner's dilemma." (You can find a very technical discussion which explains why The Golden Rule is inevitable here. The first paragraph will explain the minimum you need to understand.) Basically, it shows that there are strong biological and logically determined reasons for cooperation in social animals like humans. It doesn't have to be God-given.

Same for "where did the universe come from?" I can't answer that, but I ask my Christian friends the same question and the answer is God. So, I reply, you don't believe in an eternal universe, but do believe in an eternal being who created it somehow. Why not just cut out the middle man? That's sort of how I look at it.

What all this leads to is that I really try to be a moral, ethical person these days. I didn't use to, but Alcoholics Anonymous fixed that. Nowadays I try to follow the law, do well by others, be a credit to my friends and community, and so forth. Heck, I even gave up eight of my most income-productive years to work for less than minimum wage in an alcohol and drug treatment center, something which is still affecting me today. It's not a decision I regret at all. I'm proud to have spent some part of my life repaying the selfishness and destruction I once wrought. Admittedly, it's also fun to tweak those who reflexively assume I'm a greedy, selfish, pig Republican who gloats in the misery of others. When I share this part of myself, it always shuts them up, heeheehee. Part of the reason for this blog is that I'd like to make my world a slightly better place with my talent for words and my persuasive abilities (if such I have).

Plenty of "Christians" hold office who are dangerous, thieving, lying, adulterous scum. But, because I don't acknowledge God as the Supreme Being, I can never hold elected or civil office in Tennessee. I'm not whining that it's unfair; it's what a democratic society created, one in which I'm in a distinct and frequently unwelcome minority. I'm a small-l libertarian, meaning I believe in the right of people to fashion whatever kind of society they want, for good or ill, free of government coersion. This law is the ironic and awful payment for that belief. I support the system of laws which allowed such a thing to pass, and loathe the mindset that sees this as good. It becomes up to me to work to change that.

While I will never challenge that law in court, I wonder when someone will. I have too many things in my past, from the drinking days and from the early sobriety days when I was still making mistakes, that prohibit me from stepping into the merciless glare of public scrutiny that political life requires these days. I would be decimated by political opponents. Heck, even as a political pundit, social commentator and "media critic" via this blog, I'm open to maliciousness such as the Commercial Appeal has occasionally employed. But I'm no longer worrying on that account. I have a big enough ego to want to share my thoughts and opinions with you, and believe it has some effect, but I also know I'm small fry. The whale eats a lot of krill, but a lot of krill also escape.

Well, I've certainly been more forthcoming than I usually am about myself. I hope this hasn't put me beyond the pale for those of you for whom your Christianity is a defining thing. I'm not satanic or communist or amoral, as I've found many people think. I'm a regular working joe just like everyone else. A proud, patriotic American. I live a quiet, dull life, I go to work and I relax, and am generally thought a good person by most folks who know me. In fact, most folks who know me don't know I'm an atheist. It just doesn't come up. When someone says they'll pray for me when we discuss a problem, I know just what they mean. They think enough of me to devote a part of their prayer time to my problem. I take it as the compliment it is, and as the sign of genuine caring it is. I'm humbly thankful, as I should be. What I don't do is what some militant atheistic types do by loudly denouncing the other person for offending their atheistic sensibilities. That would be wrong.

See what I mean? Why should this one thing bar me from participation in Tennessee government? Why am I so awful that a law must segregate me from others? Kindly explain that for me.