You Can Call Me Faithless

The Root has a good article by Prof. Tommie Shelby called "I Didn't Lose Faith. I Just Don't Have It". He explains how he lost his faith but what struck me was how he described people's reactions to his atheism.

I just don't see the justification for carving out a special exception for religious beliefs as convictions that require no reasons or evidence. Not only does faith not ground theism, but it also can't help you decide which of the vast array of religious doctrines, if any, to accept. It would be like flipping a coin.

Many black people with whom I've talked about this, including some people I love, find my rejection of faith baffling or frightening. Some feel sorry for me. Others suspect that my atheism is rooted in disappointment with a particular church or with organized religion in general, in a desire to be free to sin without guilt or in anger toward God for his failure to help when I or my people needed him most.

No doubt some feel that it just confirms their belief that higher education (and the study of philosophy in particular) is a destroyer of faith and distances black youths from the venerable traditions of their people. What the black believers I know rarely do is engage seriously with my reasons for nonbelief. Instead of regarding me as someone with whom they have an honest disagreement, as someone they can perhaps persuade, they look upon me with contempt or pity.

This reminds me of the guys who preach out on Library Mall. They use the word "love" a lot but are really contemptuous of passers-by who are treated to threats about going to hell and intimations that they are too stupid to understand that someone died on a cross for them.