I was going to title this “What’s it like being an atheist in the hyper-superstitious US Midwest?” but that was too long and the title I chose answers that question in a nutshell. For the majority of my 76 years, I’ve had to waste far too much time idling away the minutes after some arrogant nutjob mutters “Let’s pray.” One of my fondest memories of living in southern California for almost 10 years was that never happened one single time. Midwestern faux-Christians might squall about the “godless heathens on the left coast,” but I’d just call that good manners. I found no shortage of religious people in southern California, but for the most part they were not particularly fragile types who required me to pretend along with them to maintain their faith.
If you are a superstitious Christian tribalist/primate-trooper, you might imagine that Californians are harboring “deep feelings of fear and guilt from a sinful life and turning [their] back on God,” but you’d be as nutty as usual. It’s impossible to “turn your back” on an omniscient imaginary friend, for one thing; if he’s everywhere that would be physically impossible. But, mostly, the Californians I knew were incredibly hard-working, talented, and driven people who were trying to live their lives as best they could.
Before the Reagan Revolution did its permanent damage to the California education system, the highest percentage of adults I’ve ever known were taking night classes at the community colleges and the many University of California facilities, working one or many side hustles, trying to improve their neighborhoods and communities, and enjoying the best weather and recreational opportunities in the country. The mega-churches were still stuffed with Midwestern robo-people, but it wasn’t hard to find people who had useful things to do. Outside of a few marginally civilized cities, the Midwest is nothing like that. And I lived in Orange County, the L.A. area’s most conservative nuthouse! The more rational parts of the state are even less infected with delusional Christian cults.
What it’s mostly like living in the Midwest, especially in the burbs or rural areas is lonely. It’s also scary because the one thing the followers of “the prince of peace” are best known for is intolerance and violence. Humans, like most other primates, are a herd animal. Chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and monkeys live in “troops.” Although orangutans are mostly solitary animals, just watching freeway traffic will make it pretty obvious that humans are inclined to pile up in tightly packed herds, even when we are going nowhere. Put generously, we’re a “social animal,” more honestly we’re a herd animal easily spooked into following the lead steer over a cliff.
All religion is about producing conformity, but Christianity and the other Abrahamic religions and cults are about forcible conformity. So it is entertaining, at best, and incredibly disappointing, more accurately, to hear someone whining about atheists asking some sect of the Christian cult to behave at least marginally-legally and morally. The US version of Christianity has been as ruthless, ethnocentric, racist, and self-centered as any cult in the history of humanity. That is not to imply that Christians have behaved particularly well since the Roman emperor Constantine commissioned the first edition of the Christian Bible and invented Christianity in 330 CE.
The fact that the majority purporting to be Christian (representing 68% of the US population) could be terrorized by the miniscule 4% of the population representing atheists should be hilarious, but it is mostly disturbing. Christianity is a religion based on conformity of thought and speech, not necessarily actions. From simple observation, it is clear that those Christians are so shaky in their faith that they require universal conformity to cling to their fragile beliefs. As one academic author explained, “The Church so fiercely opposed heretics, i.e. those who did not conform to the articles of faith that they espoused, because they believed that their existence threatened society and would undermine the Church.”
So, those of us who aren’t terrified by our mortality and gave up on Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, fairies and angels, demons and fire-breathing dragons, and other imaginary terrors are forced to try to be invisible in this fading empire of superstition, kleptocracy and capitalist feudalism. I have lived in western Kansas, north Texas, rural and urban Nebraska, urban California, suburban Colorado, urban and rural Minnesota and the only place I felt I was safe without my constant mask of anonymity was California. If I could have afforded to stay there, I would still be there. Nobody moves to places like everywhere-else-I-have-lived because they want to be there. If we all had the necessary skills, motivation, and drive to be in California, we’d be there. We pick lessor places because they are easier, the competition is less fierce, the standards of performance are practically non-existent in rural areas. That makes the place where I currently live less demanding, but far more lonely.
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