Part Three: Clammy Cleavage
The marketplace of the soul in America has always been silky and smooth, especially if you buy stocks in the magical underwear business. These days, according to Pew Forum polls, a whopping 70-80% of Americans identify themselves as Christians who believe the Bible to be the word of the Creator of the Universe. When you hear it said that America is a “Christian Nation,” it’s not some vague statistic. No, it’s referring to whose blood your Grandma is actually drinking this weekend.
But the number is falling like the value of Enron stocks. Those who are unaffiliated with any religion are on an explosive rise. In the last twenty years, the number of American unbelievers has tripled to become a noticeable chunk of change. In 2007 over 15% of the nation, when asked what their religion was, kicked up their feet and responded “Nothing in particular,” and presumably went back to their slow, pointless, immoral march toward hellfire.
Those who declared “Atheist,” while impaling a wide-eyed kitten with a fireplace poker, included only about 1.6% of the population (which as a side note was similar to the number of Mormons in the country). Regardless, the body of non-participants seems to be growing fast, and not just due to the obesity epidemic.
Given nobody has done his divine duty and flown a plane into a building lately, we have access to incredible global communication and easy world travel. So some important questions rise: Why are young people dropping like flies from God’s windowsill? What effect does non-religion have upon the development of 21st century humanity?
Atheist voices are still an echoing chirp from the bottom of the birdcage. At this point, Americans would still rather stand around patting each other on the back just for having religions, since it’s in the gut of every patriot to embrace freedom to choose – as long as you choose one. If you have faith in something you’re okay. It doesn’t matter what you say, even if it has to do with an omnipresent space gerbil named Steve. The important thing is that, by God, you’re expressing your freedom of religion.
I’m this, or I’m that. I’m with these guys, I’m with those guys. I’m a Jew, I’m a Mormon, I’m a Jehovah’s Witness, I’m a Space Gerbil – check out my pointy hat and my glowy space frock. The knob on the respect-o-meter seems to jump just by being a member. When someone informs you that they belong to a religion, here is a list of what you need to do:
1. Stand up straight
2. Salute them
3. Shed your pants to reveal an unstoppable raging arousal
4. Sob patriotically
5. Sign a check
6. Give thanks to the ghost of Thomas Jefferson, who is moaning appreciatively under his space wig
It’s a different story for people who don’t have any particular supernatural beliefs; those who, like good kids being offered drugs, just say, “No.” When someone announces things like, “Er, we don’t claim to have perfect answers, but we are working on figuring them out,” he should just as well wrap his legs around his head and roll himself down an elevator shaft. Jefferson’s ghost, of course, will float beside him on the way down and beat him with his space wig.
“You don’t know? What are you talking about, you don’t know! Everybody knows how the universe began, and where you go after you die! Where’s your space frock!”
An atheist or agnostic must be a hater, a cynic, intolerant, rude, arrogant, crass, belligerent, ignorant, evil, egotistical, uncaring, heartless, mean and all-around Bad Guy. I have pulled these adjectives from a 40,000-page weekly academic newsletter put out by apologists, full of strong and valid arguments consisting of capitalized adjectives describing atheists and agnostics, such as Poop-Face and Stinky-Pants. The pages are extra sharp, to slice atheists in hand-to-hand combat if they come too close.
When someone declares that he or she doesn’t really have supernatural beliefs or special cosmic knowledge, that their Burning Bosom could be more aptly described as Clammy Cleavage, the first inclination among moderate America is to feel that this person just has a bad attitude and needs to get with the program. People give you frog eyes, cock their shotgun, tell Grandma to go back inside, and say you ought best to go back the way you came.
If it comes up, don’t say the word ‘Atheist’ because it’s laced with poison to most people. Atheists hate God, religions, their parents, Ronald Reagan and/or McDonald. Atheists are absolutely despised by patriotic God-fearing Christian Americans, even more than the shifty-eyed Muslims (and by those very same Muslims even more than that). Unbelievers have the spiritual hygiene of a trucker-motel shower plug on Valentine’s Day.
But respect people’s beliefs. This is an absolutely iron-hewn social grace. Of course, if it’s just one disease-rampant shopping-cart-dwelling bum, wearing a Mickey Mouse hat and a Christmas sweater in June while shooting streams of friendly spittle upon passersby and waving a Crayola-drawing of time-warping psilocybin-eating monkeys who fell from comets during the Ice Age – then it’s okay to point and laugh.
One man says some pretty crazy things but won’t get away with it. A large group of them, on the other hand, can say the same thing – but they move in numbers. It becomes more difficult to disagree with an idea as the numbers of adherents go up (and the federal taxes go down). If the aforementioned bum managed to establish a religion, suddenly we would all have to learn to make appreciative sounds like “Ahhh” and “Mmm” while admiring the bum’s Crayola drawing and tapping our chins thoughtfully. More importantly, children who are tricked into believing this religion should now be intellectually exempt from contents of reality which involve history or biology (which are just theories – how dare you).
“Well if the Smiths and the Johnsons are performing crotch-chafing midnight dances and howling at the moon around a bonfire, we better take the kids and appreciate it. It’s what the founding fathers would have done (especially that Randy Jackson – he’s my favorite).”
We tend to weigh our trust in ideas by how many other people approve of them; numbers of people in that organization give it more value and merit, and every participator is an advertisement of safety and respectability. I was driving down the road the other day and I saw a sign, which opened up my eyes.
“McDonalds: Now Serving 5 Billion.”
A warm, comforting glow enveloped the car and made me so interested that I steered off of the road and directly into building. Aside from the charges of manslaughter and driving while under the influence (having chosen the wrong time for a peyote-induced cosmic voyage, which is a perfectly normal tenant of my new faith, Zoromonkeyasteroidanism), I did eventually receive a glorious McGriddle.
My point is clear: The level of social reinforcement of an idea is a natural incentive to believe it’s a good one. If the yammering street bum in San Francisco pulled the exact same McGriddle out of his slimy kangaroo-like leather fanny pack and said, “Trust me – It’s fucking delicious,” I probably wouldn’t eat it.
There was a time in history when numbers meant everything. It wasn’t about ideas, it was about sheer power. Take for example the Zorro-like ways of the Spanish Inquisition. They were veritable experts at cutting things up, like people. There wasn’t really time for aboriginal heathens to say, “Hey, man. Look, you guys. Hold the phone. I know you’re pretty convinced that an invisible god wants you to ream my intestines out into this bowl, but there’s quite a few of us who don’t completely agree. And, well. Maybe we should sit down at Applebee’s and talk things over first.”
No. The Inquisitors would frequently reply that there wasn’t an Applebee’s for miles, and it was easier just to get down to the reaming. But things have changed since then; luckily we live in an age when, in most of the world, we can have this discussion on neutral grounds, without anyone getting bent over the bowl.