Christians, Jews, and Muslims have been completely butthurt about science for thousands of years — ever since they combined history and mythology like some kind of postmodern parody. Atheists, weeping and gnashing their teeth about how irrational this idiocy all is, are perhaps even more butthurt. So-called rational Atheists take the mythology even more literally than many Christians, and in some kind of more-rational-than-thou dissonance, struggle to disprove metaphorical stories as if that will bring sanity to the insane. The true christian, capable of the terrible task of extracting, assimilating, and relating to the archaic lessons out of these ancient traditions, must have a tendency towards atheism beyond that shown by this common type of Atheist.
The common Atheist talks about nature, and their MRI brain scans look just like a devoted Christian walking through the Pearly Gates of the local snake-handler den. It’s so crass to make nature into a transcendent man like God, but that was cutting-edge science thousands of years ago. People saw the stars go through their yearly cycles, recognized the underlying math, and it followed that some man was up there making rules and they should make like him. Now we know a bit more about these rules, and we know the truly pathetic scale of humankind. These rules are far beyond us, and although we’re immanent, we’re probably not created in the image of some megadude with too much time on his hands. Science won’t let us rule this possibility out yet, but it doesn’t seem like the most likely place to start with for creating relevant stories to help us understand this scary place where we don’t actually have a daddy handing us stone tablets with moral codes.
Who gives a shit if Jesus was real, made-up, or raped little boys? He’s only important as some kind of exemplary character in a morality play, and if you have to really believe he was a historic figure then you’ve got weak-ass faith that’s not worth half a shit and will only serve to turn you into some hollowed, hateful rulemonger like Sean Hannity. The same goes for Atheists who treat science in the same way. Sure, these are real rules of nature that are being revealed and refined, or at least that’s how the scientific method postures, but what kind of a hateful fuck goes around telling people how to behave based on the theory of evolution? “Yeah, we need to weed out those retards, gays, and Jews because we totally know exactly how evolution works,” said the fuck who escalated this debate to Godwin’s Law.
Now that I’ve God-Winned, I can move on to the meat. I ain’t even sayin’ that there’s some magic essence in Christian legends that must be distilled and updated to match science. Even then, common Atheists would scoff at these stories — “As if my life needs guidance from stories, I’ve got science!” Then, they’d settle into the couch and receive hours of “factual” news and “fictional” scifi miniseries only to call it a night after a quick orgasm. The common Atheism I’m describing here isn’t just a disbelief in God, but rather a lameass attitude which rejects all mystery. “We’ve got it figured out, we’re figuring it out, and we will figure it all out.” So, in one sense these kinds of Atheists are the best Christians. If you look at their attitude, it runs a perfect parallel. “My cosmogony is better than yours,” does not translate into more-rational-than-thou. The attitude is precisely the same insanity on masquerade.
Conversely, the good atheists are quite the same as the good christians. They’re atheists now, simply because they accept mystery. The christians are christians now because they explore their inner mysteries through helpful stories, no matter how archaic and outmoded. Again, but in a totally new sense, the atheists are the best christians. The bible is a gateway to mysteries for the atheist christian and not a cheat-sheet full of answers.