The hypocrisy gene

What is the difference between a religious bigot’s intolerance and an atheist bigot’s intolerance?

A proverb says that if you are not outraged, you are not paying attention. Well, we paid attention and the more we did, the less outraged we should have become. Otherwise, we would steer straight to involution. If polishing on our human features fails, than we didn’t jump more than an evolutionary step, and we still scratch our asses and smell our fingers. I actually know people that still do that. They are called men.

No matter how much you keep on telling to yourself that human race might be not hardwired for belief but it is hardwired for goodness, at the end of the day some of your fellow primates are just assholes. I wish it would be a scientific and academic term to better define this profile, but there isn’t.

The imaginative Urban Dictionary gives me “Adolf” as a synonym but I think I would rather go Tourette and personal on the definition and stick to: asshole or SOB for people who are irritating, ridiculous, narrow-minded, intolerant and hypocrite.

Little do we know about the goodness of people. It seems we know more about the wasted space of the universe than human race. As every trend, this karma theme haunted me for a short while and I tried my stupid best to help various people that seemed troubled or in need. I even set up a group named “Guerrilla Kindness” trying to persuade others to pay goodness forward, explaining that my lack of religion doesn’t prevent me from doing good. As we are good doers by nature, although we are not religious by nature. That always made sense to me and resonated with my personality. As an agnostic I can pursue a moral and fulfilled moral and valuable life, and I don’t need some inexplicable higher and abstract power to grant and vouch for my moral qualities. I just choose to live my life fully informed as an intellectual and rational human being.
Agnosticism is a sign of a healthy mind. You know what is said “when you talk to God, is called prayer; if God talks back to you, is called schizophrenia”. It is the mind over matter and an agnostic is not necessarily someone who should be looked down upon, as being unable to perceive or transcend some deity concept, but someone who makes appeal to reason and intellect in order to understand the surrounding world.

It is said that an agnostic cannot hold moral standards and are usually more inclined to have wider or more libertine views on abortion, monogamy, euthanasia, drug usage or family values. This assessment is totally wrong because it starts from the erroneous premises that religion is the only one that leads toward a moral behavior. Morals usually define the goodness or badness of human action and character and are an intrinsic side of the human construction. People have or don’t have morals independently of their religious inclination. An atheist can be a fulfilled moral person the same way a religious person can have no morals whatsoever.

A Good Samaritan is urged to perform acts of random kindness because it is said it does good for the health (helper’s high, diminishes stress, the benefits return, happy thoughts, affiliative connection). Is this why we ultimately become good doers, because it reduces stress? Where is the selfless act in it?

Wise men say karma is how people treat you and how you react is yours. Blow that. We ultimately do good because we are selfish, hoping either for an immediate payback, as in helper’s high, or in some sort of pay it forward it comes back to you, or some ultimate destination like heaven.

The selfish gene is the gene that makes us wake up in the morning, thinking of ourselves first, feeding, clothing, catering and nurturing ourselves first, craving for social recognition for ourselves, loving others because we like how they love and see us back, and ultimately helping others because are helping ourselves. All we want is to live happily ever after and reincarnate as humans and not as cats. Needless to say that cats experience excruciating pain when they copulate. We set our minds on something, and our entire being works on fulfilling that ideal. We are the masters of adaptation even if this implies character inconsistency and emotional instability. We are shameless chameleons but we call it “adaptability”. It does sound better, let’s face it, but it is hypocrisy, pure and simple. The hypocrisy gene.

We reject religion because we like to think reason backed by science is the ultimate detainer of the truth.
We reject religion because we think it is a trader and a merchant of hope, delusion and hypocrisy.

We reject religion because we reject god.

And we reject god because we love freedom and truth.

And because affiliation and social acceptance increase our chances to reproduce we look for fellow “rejecters”, hoping we’ll find in them similar traits. Much to your surprise you reach to the conclusion that some are as vehement and as narrow-minded in their “agnosticism” as your religious counterparts. Once more you are asked to take sides, as being on the middle lane is not really a viable option. You are lied off with the question “do you believe or not?” as you seem like a lower ripped fruit for both believers and atheists.

Can you be a libertarian fighting for freedom but be bothered and comment about other people smoking? Does the other’s rights end where your nose begins?
Can you claim you want your rights to be respected and have a scientific education in school without respect for the OTHER views, claiming there are no other views?

What is the difference between a religious bigot’s intolerance and an atheist bigot’s intolerance?
I thought being an atheist was living your life freely, with respect for others views, preferring a stance of science and pure reason to mysticism, pseudo science, superstitions and spirituality.
I thought that being an atheist was about being reasonable.
I thought that being an atheist was not about bashing the “other side”. The purpose of this pseudo war is not to make the other bastard die for his side, but for you to die for yours.
I thought that being an atheist was about living as a human with all the moral values, goodness, tolerance, open-mindedness, curiosity about the surrounding world.
I thought that being an atheist was about reaching out to other people without imposing your opinions on them.

Otherwise, except for the lack of god, there will be no difference between a rabid televangelist that exorcises demons live on TV in the name of an unaware and puzzled Baby Jesus, and an atheist who vehemently argues that the possibility for a teenager to choose his own path of either creationism or evolutionism is utterly wrong, as there is no alternative explanation, “it is just religion”. Well, and evolution is just a science.

Atheists like this do more damage to the “cause” of science, than a cohort of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Passionate agnosticism is one thing, militant atheism is another. Unfortunately, Atheism became more like a dogma, a religion within itself and atheists, just narrow-minded Christians with no god.

Atheists should not impose their lack of belief. They should have opinions, theories, teach, educate, explain and make people realize that if there is indeed free-will, there you are, you have it, make you own choice and live with it. Just let the other live too. As we are all looking for the truth, it is just that some will take longer to get there. Since it is not the answer that is wrong, it is the question.