"I am Fear! I am Evil! They Call Me... Peaches"

I've spent years wondering why some Christians are so damned scared. I mean, from my brief excursion into the church, I thought it was supposed to be "God-fearing," not "God, fearing." Then again, fearing God didn't make any sense to me either, so what the fuck do I know?

My Christian friends are of no help to me, because they're practically fearless. They're not scared of gays, lesbians, liberals, pagans, atheists, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Christians from the church down the street, evolution, epithets, the ACLU, sex, magic, rock n' roll, video games, or any of the 10,452,867,983 other things that many other Christians seem to fear. So I doubt they'll be able to explain what I sensed from Rep. Davis's little tirade.

It wasn't just contempt. It wasn't just anger. It wasn't just disgust. All of those things were there, but above all, filling my nose like a nosegay dipped in raw sewage, was naked, shitting-herself terror.

I've got theories. Maybe it's to do with the fact that someone's getting along just fine without God propping him/her up like the U.S. of A. supporting a useful dictatorship. That can't be comfortable. Here you are, letting go and letting God, and there's some schmo frolicking happily in the meadows of free thought. Manifestly not suffering. Suspicious lack of bursting into flames, or getting struck by lightning, even. Blessings abounding, despite the fact said atheist has poked ye olde middle finger straight up God's nose. You toil and sweat and suffer through those gawd-awful hymns sung off-key at church on a Sunday morning, while the atheist lolls abed or plays in the park, and yet you both get an equal share in the blessed and the cursed.

No fair, eh? Makes one wonder, don't it?

So yes, I suspect it has a lot to do with atheists giving the lie to sacred teachings, just by dint of living human lives like everybody else. But is that really all that leads to that vicious fear?

I mean, come on, ye faithful. God might just be biding His time, giving said atheist just enough rope for a good self-hanging, right? Hellfire and damnation to come, no? You'll be laughing all the way to Heaven while Satan's asking that dirty atheist "Would you like your damnation spitted or flayed?" What's to worry?

Here's a clue: "It's dangerous for our children to even know your philosophy exists!"

Except... no. It's not. Kids are indoctrinated brainwashed taught how to resist the siren call of those Christ-denying Jews and those Johnny-come-lately-to-behead-you Muslims and the they're-not-following-the-Bible Baptists down the road. There's less fear and a lot more sneer in those cases. So why are they terrified of pagans and shit-scared of atheists?

And they really are that scared. There's a subset of Christians who just can't handle the presence of one of said pagans or atheists.

It's anecdote time. Settle in and grab your drink.

So this one time, at the library, a few years after I'd given up Christianity for a bad job, I was sitting on the floor in the stacks. Doing research, you see. Had a story featuring a Native American character, didn't I, and I knew bugger-all about the Kiowa. So I had a bunch of books on the Plains tribes spread out around me. Books with titles like Red Power and Native American Myth and Legends. Which maybe should've been the first clue to the willowy young woman who came mincing her way between the shelves. But she had me dead in her sights, she did, and that cross was sparkling on her chest, and she was going to bring me to Jesus, oh, yes.

"Hi," she said in this bright, quavery voice. "I'd just like to invite you to our Bible study class."

Back in those days, I wore an ankh from Vampire: the Masquerade. Maybe that's what made her ignore the fact I was wearing all black and sitting cross-legged among all those Native American books: to the untrained eye, that ankh looks something like a loopy cross. Regardless, I slowly looked up at her eager little face and thought, awshit. I had to think fast. My first instinct was the truth: I'm agnostic. Only, if you say something like that to a prostelytizing Christian, they hear I'm wishy-washy on the whole God thing, tell me more! I didn't have time for ten hours of argument on the subject, and I had fresh in my mind the incident wherein one of my friends told some Jehovah's Witnesses he's a witch and got to watch them run away. So, in an inspired moment, I said in my most forboding tones, "I'm pagan."

She turned sheet-white, stammered out "I'm sorry!" and ran away. Literally. Ran away.

I couldn't fucking believe it.

I've mulled that little scene over for years. I don't understand it. I have no idea why they can't abide the mere presence of an avowed pagan. They'll run from those, but atheists are a different story: we godless sorts make them act like cornered animals, shaking in fear and loathing and fighting for their lives. It's incredible. Rational Christians, like my friends, just sort of roll their eyes when I proclaim my lack of belief, but Christians like Rep. Davis just go apeshit. And if you were really secure in your faith, if God's really with you, why should that be so?

Is it because atheists are better with Bible quotes? Satan can quote Scripture to his own ends, right, so maybe that's it: we're literally Satan. But if you read your Bible, if you understand what it means, you'll know that, Satan started out as just an adversary, and he and God liked to have a bit of fun at the expense of people named Job. Job clung to his faith with his fingernails and all was well. Did he run? No.



Did Christ run away screaming when Satan came a-tempting? No. They had a debate, and Jesus won. That simple.

So that's why I don't get this "I must run away before I'm destroyed by this atheist" mindset. We're not so dangerous to people of faith. Even the atheists who like to try to talk sense into Christians can't make a dent in strong faith. We do have fun trying, sometimes, but I've talked to many Christians who find it just as fun to turn the tables. I respect them. Those who are truly secure in their faith also tend to be warm-hearted toward infidels such as myself, and that's returned in kind.

So perhaps that's what it really comes down to. The most homophobic are often closet homosexuals. The most anti-atheist could just be closet atheists. We scare them because we resonate.

Interesting thought, no?

I wish I had a useful summation here. It would be nice to have the solution to all of the fear and loathing and bigotry. But I'm afraid all I can do is show a bit of understanding: yes, you're terrified of atheists, and you lash out from that fear. That's what frightened animals do. Rise above that or get the fuck out of public office, right?

In the end, we atheists may just have to revel in our status as a scourge worse than Islamofascisthomobabykilling freaks until time proves that the entire world isn't going to descend into hedonistic chaos because we gave up gods. After all, it gives us the chance to quote Rocko's Modern Life:

"I am fear! I am evil! They call me... Peaches."

...and I think you'll agree that's pretty fucking awesome.