I was commenting on Dinesh D'Souza's column when a comment caught my eye. In reply to one of my comments a poster made an issue of my practice of writing "G-d" rather than spelling out the word*. This reminded me a bit of the many atheists who tend to become so irate when confronted by believers. Now, I have no problem with atheists. People are entitled to their own beliefs, and far be it form me to tell others they are wrong**. However, there are quite a few atheists out there who are every bit as missionary as the religious believers they detest. And, in their missionary zeal to push atheism, they make a number of arguments. However, one particular argument has always puzzled me***.

Often, when asked why they are so upset with believers, atheists will explain that they are upset at the amount of time believers "waste" on religion. They will talk about how horrible it is that so much effort was spent on futile activities such as theological disputes,  religious philosophy, yeshiva, seminary, and so on.

Now, I suppose this might be a believable argument, except that there really is no definition of "waste" to these atheists. They don't decry those who spend their time perfecting their karaoke performances, try to learn Klingon on Quenya, or spend weeks on end playing World of Warcraft, they only dismiss, and are angered by, those who spend their time in religious pursuits. The atheists will say it is because religion is a "fantasy", but so is Tolkien's elvish language, yet that doesn't bring on the ire of atheists.

No, the truth is, it is not the "wasted time" that upsets this particular type of atheist missionary. They are simply upset by religion itself. They do not mind if individuals waste time or not, but they are upset to see anyone who takes religion seriously. Why? That is the topic for another post, perhaps several, so I won't get into that here. All I will say is that this particular brand of activist missionary atheist should not be taken at face value. They do not deplore religion for the reasons they claim, what they say is very rarely what they really believe. And a few minutes spent questioning their beliefs will easily show that to be true.

And that deceptiveness, more than anything else, is why I find them so unpleasant. An honest atheist, even one who is antagonistic toward religion, does not trouble me. If they are honest, they can be reasoned with, at least to a degree. But someone who hides his real thoughts and adopts a facade to win over his listeners is not someone you can reach. They have already decided and are not open to persuasion.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* To explain my practice: The reason I write "G-d" is found in the Mosaic prohibition against effacing the divine name. Since we cannot control what happens to something we write, we tend to avoid writing out the divine name. In Hebrew we write "HaShem" (the name) in the place of the four letter name of G-d, in English we tend to replace a letter of the word G-d with a hyphen or asterisk, though some still write "HaShem", though to non-Jews that tends to be confusing, so I don't follow that practice. Of course, many rabbis have argued that electronic media are not effaced in the sense of the prohibition, so there is no need to avoid the divine name in electronic media. On the other hand, as I know, computer files are erased and recreated all the time, as is the image on the screen by retraces, so technically anything stored electronically is probably "effaced" endlessly, which to my mind would argue against ever putting the divine name into an electronic format. So, though it is not mandated, many consider it a show of piety and respect to not print out the full name, even in its English form, and, as I think it right to show some respect to G-d, I try to always remember to write "G-d", though I admit I have made errors from time to time. (Wikipedia is actually pretty accurate on some of these matters, and their page on the Names of G-d in Judiasm is actually not bad. There is a very short summary of the relevant Jewish law here as well.)

** As a recurring theme in most of my posts is the endless trouble caused by assuming one is right and everyone else wrong, and as I both argue liberalism is rooted in arrogance and that humility is the ultimate virtue, I could hardly argue that atheists are definitively wrong. I may disagree with them, but I also shared their views at one time in my youth. So, rather than argue that I know everything, I would much rather dispute their beliefs, as they dispute mine, and hope that one way or another such arguments would lead to a slightly more truthful position. Then again, very few atheists I have met recently are interested in debate, they are much more didactic than the atheists I recall from my youth.

*** Most atheists do not make this argument, at least not at first. This is the argument of the less confrontational atheists. Most of the "in your face" atheists who seem to predominate today prefer instead ot list the societal harms supposedly attributable to religion, ignoring that they are denouncing human systems and not religion itself. Admittedly, if all religious institutions are damaging it does suggest religion is flawed, but they have hardly proved religion universally harmful. Most often they have linked a few particularly dramatic ills to a few specific religious bodies and think that enough to denounce religious belief entirely. For people so dedicated to "rationality" and "science" they certainly take a very emotive and irrational approach to proof in many cases.