Today I put in my resignation at work. This is a big deal. I thought this would be my job until I retired. But there is no room for growth and since my last supervisor left, I have become more and more of a scapegoat for my department. Admittedly, I make some rather repetitive mistakes, but I am a dedicated, hard working, perfectionist who does a fairly solid job most of the time. After a mid-year evaluation that had absolutely no positives written in it, I knew it was time. My husband makes enough to float us for a while and I am going to make a go at freelance editing and writing full time. Maybe monetize several of the podcasts and blogs that my husband and I have going. Even a little bit of money from ads and Amazon is better than nothing. I may pick up a part time job. Maybe not. The real goal though is to get a book published. I've written several middle grade and young adult books. I used to have an agent, but she sucked so I need to find a new one. I know that if I just have the time to write, I can get things done. But working a full time job, especially one that has become super stressful lately, means that I have no mental energy to write at night or on the weekends. I just want to sleep and veg and paint miniatures.
As I do, I ran the idea of quitting through several friends and family before actually doing it,each person bringing their unique perspective and questions to the table. Husband is analytical and knows our budget, but seems confused by my fear of failure. My mother is always super supportive and thinks I should do what makes me happy. My best friend has never had a solid career of any kind so he is more prone to suggest you quit if you aren't happy. One friend, *Kelsey knows about my deconversion and is the one I have written about in the past who considers herself "spiritual" which loosely means she calls herself a Christian while making up her own religion. To quote her (as best I can remember), "I know you don't really believe in God anymore, but perhaps this is what you are meant to do. Maybe this is God leading your path even though you don't believe." I reject this notion of divine intervention in our lives for several reasons that go beyond me not being convinced there is a god. The first is simple, If this god cared so much about what our jobs are or our general happiness as humans, then he is doing a really shitty job of it. South Sudan is one of the first examples I think of. A country, predominantly Christians is ransacked by those from the north who commit war crimes that rival the Nazis. Women aren't just raped, their breasts and lips are cut off, mutilated for reasons that are mind boggling. You don't think those women didn't cry out to God? Those who survived began to walk. Without food or water, thousands died along the way. Once they arrived in their neighboring country, they were turned away. So they walked on, many dying of starvation and dehydration. You don't think those cried out to God? Once they did arrive, they became stateless, refugees in a country that could barely support them, living in poverty that many Americans can't even comprehend. You think they didn't cry out to God? And you are trying to tell me that that God, the same one who those South Sudanese refugees cried out to, gives a shit about me quitting my job and "being happy". This idea that the Christian god cares about its followers and their happiness is born purely out of a place of privilege and wealth. If you look outside our own culture, the evidence is clear, if there is a god he does not give a single shit about the happiness of his followers, let alone those who don't believe in him. The second reason I reject this idea of divine intervention controlling my decisions is because it takes away all agency and responsibility. This was a decision that weighed on my very heavily. I researched for months how to start my own editorial business. My husband and I crunched the numbers several times, looking for the right time financially for me to quit. I talked to my family and friends, particularly those who had run their own business. Heck, I even went to lunch with my former boss to get her perspective on this. Pros and cons were weighed and at one point I even pondered the implications of regret. What would I regret more....quitting and perhaps failing or staying in this dead end job? I decided the second would hold bigger regrets for me. There are some scary things in this too, like the loss of a retirement plan so that too had to be considered and a solution found. To suggest that none of this was hard or shouldn't be hard because there is a divine being controlling my actions and will probably maybe might help me out, takes away any culpability on my part which isn't okay with me. I made this decision, the consequences are on me. This may or may not work out. I'll work hard and fight to keep afloat, but that is on me and I am okay with that. Besides this world that Christians like to talk about where this god of theirs actually cares about people just doesn't match up with the world around us. It may match up for the middle-class white people going to Evangelical churches, but most of the world doesn't live that way and it takes a lot of hubris to suggest that everything you have is because of a god, because by default it means the people who don't get special attention must be doing something wrong.
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I listen to a lot of Podcasts and YouTube while working, getting dressed, making dinner, etc. I am aware that YouTube is videos, but I don't watch the videos, I just listen. There are quite a few atheist activists that I have discovered during my deconversion journey. Some were great in the beginning. I used to love The Atheist Experience, a call-in show where believers can call in and talk to atheists about belief. It's basically a debate show. In the beginning I loved it because people were asking the questions that I had and the atheists made some really good points. I saw how flimsy the arguments were on the part of the believers. However, the show also raises my blood pressure. It makes me uncomfortable to listen to people argue and some of the believers had such stupid/illogical/brainwashed ideas that I would have to fast forward through the show. I also don't always agree with how the atheists on the show treat their callers. I understand that they have listened to the same dumb arguments for years, but they will get angry at a believer for interrupting them and then do the same thing a minute later. I've heard the reasoning behind this and I still disagree. I don't really watch/listen to the show anymore because of it, although occasionally I'll click on a clip that sounds interesting. My personal favorite is The Thinking Atheist as he is usually very measured and informative.
One thing I do not do is listen to any of this around my husband. The first reason is simply that he is super defensive when it comes to anyone trying to disprove religion or if they claim to be an atheist. He flat out dislikes the idea of anyone trying to destroy the faith of someone else. Although he believes himself to be very rational in this area, the evidence I have seen is that the minute atheist is tacked onto something, he becomes extremely critical of everything they say. He speaks about them as hateful or angry people, pushing the stereotype of angry atheist onto all of them, whether they are being hateful or not. On Sunday morning as I was getting dressed I mistakenly assumed my husband had gotten out of bed and was downstairs making breakfast as he always does on Sunday mornings. So I turned on Mr. Atheist's newest video.
I like Mr. Atheist. I don't always agree with him mind you. There probably isn't a person on this planet that I agree with 100% of the time, but I like his platform and his delivery of information. What I didn't know was that thanks to Daylight Savings Time throwing him off, my husband was laying in bed listening to the entire episode. And he had a problem with it. Later he told me, "That guy you were listening to this morning. He was so hateful. I mean, you can just tell he is so full of hate and loathing." I turned back the episode in my head and was confused. Hateful? Loathing perhaps, but hateful? Watch the video above and tell me what you think.
Husband's logic was that because Mr. Atheist was happy that Cardinal Pell is finally getting his commupance, he is a hateful bad person. Good people don't rejoice in people going to jail, especially if they haven't gone to trial yet and haven't been convicted. My husband is the epitomy of Lawful Good, or so he says. I think he is Lawful Neutral. He absolutely downright refuses to be a part of any side until the law has gotten involved, evidence has been presented, and a conviction has been declared. This does mean that he doesn't agree with things like the #MeToo movement. Not because he doesn't think that it can't happen or even that it is okay, but because they are baseless accusations with no evidence, which means that they mean nothing. Accusations aren't fact. Without facts it's just a rumor, although certainly a rumor that could destroy lives. I agree with him in that we live in a society where we try people through the media long before they ever arrive in a courtroom. I also know that we, the laymen, are often not made aware of certain evidences that lawyers, judges, juries, and police are made aware of. Like half of the country, I was completely on board with Michael Brown being innocent and having his hands up and not deserving of death by cop. That was until all the evidence came out showing that an office had been attacked by Brown inside his vehicle and a gunshot had gone off IN the car. Then the fact that he was shot from the front, not behind and that the bullet wounds were consistent with a person charging head first towards someone. That started to paint a very different picture. Not one full of innocence. I was forced to face the idea that I had chosen the wrong "side" in this debate. It was a humbling experience. One could start being a conspiracy theorist at that point and refuse to believe the evidence because it doesn't line up with the narrative you wanted to believe. A lot of people I know did this. The cops lied, they planted evidence, witnesses said (eye witness accounts are not evidence), etc. If the evidence is true though, then we have a police officer whose life and career have been destroyed because people want to believe their own truths when it comes to certain situations. Not to mention the countless businesses that were destroyed by raging mobs and people who were hurt. So I completely understand why my husband is loathe to take a side without evidence. It makes sense. The question then is, Is it hateful to want people to be convicted of crimes? Is that revenge or is it wanting justice? By wanting Cardinal Pell to be prosecuted and imprisoned, is that a hateful act? Husband says that no one should be happy or rejoice in someone going to prison. That is a tragedy for everyone involved. It's a life wasted, a failure on someone's part to help the accused. There are victims who, even if the person is jailed, still have to suffer through this for the rest of their lives. If you claim to be better than someone, then you can't go around gloating and seeking revenge. You have to be better. You have to want to help both victims and victimizers. They are all people who are deserving of love, pity, and redemption. I would posit that Mr. Atheist never said he was "better" than anyone, although it is implied that he is better than a child molester, which in all first-world countries, is a given. But who is making that rule? That you can't be happy when a known child molester goes to prison and is off the streets? Husband? I would say it is very human to breath a sigh of relief and experience some kind of euphoria when someone who is bad has gotten their just desserts. (To be clear, Cardinal Pell has not been convicted of anything. In the eyes of the law, he is still innocent.) Does it make someone hateful? Perhaps if the person was being cruel for no reason or wanted people to get hurt because they disagreed with an idea or something, but to suggest someone is hateful because they are happy that a rapist is going to jail? Even without a conviction, I would say this is a normal response. It becomes hateful when you refuse to accept evidence of their innocence and continue to declare that the person is guilty just because you say they are. It is hateful when you continue to vilify their name because you decided that there was some evidence that the judge, jury, and lawyers missed and that this person who has been deemed innocent deserves some kind of mob justice. I absolutely believe that Michael Jackson is being tried through the media via a documentary after having been declared innocent of the crime he was accused of. The man is dead and the only people who this is hurting now is his family. That's not justice. That's cruelty. It is also hateful that after someone has been to prison for a crime, they continue to be persecuted for their crime and are unable to work or live normally again because in our society we seem to think people need a lifetime to pay for crimes that the law says only deserve 10 years in prison. I personally don't think Mr. Atheist is being hateful in wanting a priest to be prosecuted for his alleged crimes. The way the Catholic church has handled it is not the way an organization should act if someone is innocent. Sadly, because so many priests have been caught diddling little kids, he IS being lumped into a much bigger problem, innocent or not. Perhaps the evidence will show that he is innocent. If that happens, there will be people who will refuse to believe it. There will be atheists who, despite being huge proponents of evidence for a god, don't hold the same convictions when it comes to law and justice. A small personal story: When I was a teenager a friend at church told me that her step-father had been molesting her for eight years. I was the first person she had ever told. I knew immediately that this was beyond me and I found an adult who I knew had suffered through something similar who could help. A few days later he was arrested. I was supremely happy that this man had been arrested and was going to be prosecuted. My friend could have been lying. In the eyes of the law he was still innocent. But I knew that she wasn't lying and the fact that he could no longer hurt her filled me with so much relief and happiness. He ended up being convicted of his crime and served five years in prison for what he did. I was not a hateful person for wanting him to be imprisoned and prosecuted. I saw firsthand the devastation it brought to my friend and her family. It destroyed a marriage. And I was still glad it happened because it was right. Lesson learned though....be careful what you listen to around your husband who thinks most atheists are angry and hateful. If he hadn't found this thing to knit pick over, it would have been something else. Double-check to be sure he is not sitting in the next room otherwise you will have an uncomfortable conversation about the morality of justice seekers in the parking lot of the grocery store. |
AuthorThis is a personal, but secret, blog archiving my deconversion from a Christian to a non-believer. Archives
December 2020
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