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These days we seem to define ourselves through a
color coding system. There are red states and blue states, yellow ribbons and
green cars. We have Black Mondays, Ruby Tuesdays, and Orange Alerts. I want
to add a new color to the mix: I am a Pink Atheist.
Recently, with the rising voices of atheists
everywhere, it is easier for me to say that I am a non-believer. The many
books that have come out in the past few years have helped strengthen my
resolve in non-belief and have made me feel less isolated.
These atheist writers are mostly men. With titles
like The God Delusion, or Why God is Not Good, there can be no
mistaking their message: religion is bad and un-provable, science offers
better answers than gods, and anyone who is religious is misguided. I call
these guys the Navy Blue Atheists.
I am pink for the simple reason that I am a
woman. But the reason that a pink atheist is different from a navy blue
atheist is more complicated than a gender difference.
I have no scientific degree. I know nothing about
biology, neuroscience or sociology. I have no interest in telling anyone what
they should or shouldn’t believe in. What interests me is how people come to
believe what they believe, how they got to where they are—whether they dwell
in a place of religious belief or not. All I really have to add in the
dialogue is my story of how I came to be comfortable with being nothing,
which means having no religion
As a child my religious identity was that I was
vaguely Jewish, due to the fact that my mother’s family was Jewish, and
distantly Catholic since my dad was Italian and had been raised going to
church. But really, I was told we were nothing. I learned to avoid the topic
of religion early, and I adhered to the rule of agnosticism for many years.
That meant that I shrugged when asked any questions about my beliefs, and
then I changed the subject. But I was never really comfortable with that
avoidance of the topic, I was curious and the question mark was not satisfying
as an answer.
It was when I was an adult, with kids of my own
that I really started to question what I was; not what my parents had said I
was, but what I was all on my own. One thing I knew was that I was not a
believer. My husband’s sister and her husband are devout Christians, and
there was a point when they insisted that I become like them, so we could
share the love of Christ as a family. The anger that arose for that situation
made it clear to me that I would not go down the path of salvation with them.
The harder they pushed me the more sure I became.
So I became an atheist, no more hiding behind the
“maybe” or the “who knows” of the agnostic. But I am not interested in
disproving anyone’s god. I just want to be able to coexist with the believers.
As a person who values community, I would rather focus on our commonalities
than on our differences. As a person who values other people and wants to
know, wants to listen, wants to understand, I cannot make a blanket statement
of who is right and who is wrong.
So I’m pink because I favor the personal
narrative instead of the cold, hard-edged logic, and because I seek to bring
people together rather than separate everyone out. When that’s combined with
my lack of religion and the fact that I am content and comfortable with that
lack, I become the first pink atheist.
From my pink point of view I see a happy world
where everybody gets along despite their religious differences. There are no
wars and no conflicts or petty disagreements. Just harmony: pink-tinted and
delicious.
But like the spun sugar from the summer fair—dyed
pale and still warm as it melts in your mouth—the fantasy is fleeting. The
sugar disappears, the fluff and puff of sweet is gone. You throw away the
paper cone, licked clean of any wisp of pink, and disappear into the crowd.
The world is still full of conflict and hatred, much of it over religious
beliefs, but for that moment you feel hopeful, the candy brings you back to
the child within: curious, open to ideas, wondering and sure that best is yet
to come.
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