Monday, September 27, 2021

My life as an Atheist Part II: Eccentric Boogaboo

 

 

So last year, I did a post explaining my path to becoming an atheist. As of 2021, I am still an atheist and a no-good heathen. So let's continue where we left off.

I had moved to Savannah with my mother at the age of sixteen due to owning some property left by my grandmother who died in 2005. Getting down there, it was a gradual experience and I was slated to do my last year of high school there. It was around this time where I really questioned if god existed or not and doing my own research and looking at the state of the world, I ultimately decided that there was no god.

December 2008 was the moment I finally came out as an atheist to my mother. And that was a bad idea. As I learned years later, the black community in America and hell, most of the world are devout worshipers and blind supporters of an invisible man in the sky. I questioned my mother on why he exists and what has he really done. She simply told me "There is a god." 

That's it. That's no way to really explain it, but it also reminded me that most black people voted for Barrack Hussein Obama simply because...he's black. 

See the trend?

My mother never stopped loving me, and that shows that despite our differences, we still could come together and act as family. But I dare not mention this to my other family members, and thankfully she didn't either.

However, I made another mistake of trusting my beliefs (or lack thereof) with my brother, who came down to Savannah a year later. Around the area we stayed in, there were at least five churches within the vicinity. Yes, five. All within walking distance. We went to a church only two minutes away for a brown bag program, a program where you show your ID, sign a paper and get a grab bag of random food items donated. It was an ideal system for a newfound adult trying to find his own place and job, and the church makes an obligation to accept everyone through their doors...something that one church in South Carolina would regret many years later, but before I get to that, the incident with my brother.

I only went because of the free bag of food. I asked my brother if he believed in god and told him I didn't. Suddenly, he becomes biblical and starts questioning me ten times over. Fine and well. We had a brotherly conversation.

What I was not expecting was him telling a stranger about my lack of beliefs and then that stranger told her equally strange friend about my lack of belief. So I had to endure ten minutes of these two people who I never saw again basically chastising me for not believing in god. I expect this from my family, but some stranger, fuck that. And the worst part is this was someone I trusted. You don't do that to your own family. Personal matters like that should stay within the people you trust, not someone you barely talked to for a minute.

Thankfully, he didn't relay my lack of beliefs to other family members. But still, that was uncalled for.

Dialing back to high school, I casually mentioned that I was an atheist to some of my classmates. No fire or hell tossed my way, but I did get a very good insight on why people don't like atheists.

The phrase "Oh my god" is thrown casually among just about all of society, in varying ways. Saying the lord's name in vain is also present. So, to counter that and this was something that I did anyway, I told him that I would use substitutes in place of "Oh my god" or "Jesus Christ". Jiminy Cricket was one. At the time of my obsession with Pokemon, Arceus was also used in place of god. So you'd get "Oh my Arceus" or "Thank Arceus". It was fun. I never did this in public, but hey, if people can believe in a bearded man in the sky, celebrities or now, corporations in the same manner, what's the harm in thanking the Pokemon equivalent of god for the food I ate?

Give praise to The Original One  

After the incident with my brother, outside of some isolated nagging from my mother, no one ever got on my case with my atheism, and I was smart enough to not show it or force it down other people's throats, the same way I didn't want Jesus shoved down mine.

And I really had to ask myself this, and I thank Tyler Perry for keying me on in this dilemma, though he supports it rather than try to address it. If we have so many damn churches on every corner of the black community, and all this money comes into said institutions, why the hell are the streets so run down and the 'communities' so barren and devoid of prosperity? Why is that pastor not actually putting money into programs or causes that could actually benefit us in the long run?

That's when I realized it, again thanks to all the black sitcoms and media: The Black Church is not a place to go for help, it is a front for the pastor to get money and access to the overwhelmingly female attendance. That scenario with the pastor making a pass on that woman I mentioned in the last post wasn't a sick joke, it was the norm. I also discovered deism was a thing, you didn't need to go to church to believe in a god or higher power. He's got a lot of names which should tell you how messy this whole scenario gets when wars are enacted over the interpretation of god. 

And frankly, my mother wasn't really going to church like that anymore. So hey, live and let live.

I did more research on the Black Church and came to find out some rather interesting information and this one affected me directly because of how profound it is. If I remember right, at least 80% of black women believed in god or identified as a christian. Hmm. For that many black women to believe in god means I have only 20% of the women to go to if I want a relationship with one.

But wait. These same holy women are also partaking in various acts that the church would normally denounce...but that would mean the pastor can't get his piece of that sweet hair pie. And even if you don't believe in god, you can still get with one of these women. The notion that having sex with a man will tame him and show him the right path to godliness.


Or so they think. The Black Church is overwhelmingly female, and those women seven times out of ten will have their children present. With no father. But then you see them in public with those same children...and no father. Some people will say "HE'S AT WORK" if you question them when they show up on the news being abused by whoever or whatever. So, why are these god-fearing women committing adultery and having bastard babies out of wedlock? Wouldn't this be the opposite of what a church would want? And why the hell are some of these women coming in the church dressed as if they were going to a strip club, which is right around the corner from a church coincidentally...

...or is it?

I question this because these same people who would ask you fifty questions about your lack of belief in god are also the biggest sinners to walk the earth. Kinda damning that the atheist shows more virtue than the ones who take the oath of virtue. Having kids out of wedlock, having affairs, prostitution, stealing from a store to support your bastards, worshiping a celebrity glorifying a destructive lifestyle and based on the outro of the single "None of Your Business" by Salt-N-Pepa:

So the moral of this story is: Who are you to judge?
There's only one true judge, and that's God
So chill, and let my Father do His job



Another quote that resonated with me was something Tupac mentioned about what Thug Life meant.

The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody. Thug Life.

Basically Pepa, because of your provocativeness and outward sexualized life at the time (And probably still living that life with that awful plastic body), you more or less gave the okay for young girls to do the same and while I'm not sure if you had any children or not, what you feed young minds as seeds will grow into the product you see in the future. And looking at the slut-shaming fiasco that took place in 2014, I'm inclined to say the people judging you were correct in doing so and in my case, because I'm not doing so around a basis of faith, but morals. There's too much spoiled fruit to go around and this is my time to harvest and there's nothing to eat. You bury spoiled fruit or feed it to the worms, as I did when I started composting back in the day.

But only god can judge you, right?

If these are the women I have to pick from, I'm good. Finding a black atheist woman is hard enough, but the few I've seen are very indistinguishable from the god-fearing black woman. In addition to the overwhelmingly christian populous, the majority of black women are overweight if not outright obese and you have the Black Church to thank for that.

One of the traditions of the church was to serve food after a service. This particular food isn't exactly something you'd eat every single day. You can eat it every now and again, but every day? That's where the problems kick in.



The food presented is indeed delicious. But to eat these meals every single day is not a good idea. The only healthy item present are the collard greens, and that's already fouled by the heavy amount of sodium and fat it's commonly mixed with. Take into account that the Black Church is overwhelmingly female, and you have a recipe for disaster. The worst part is, a lot of the fat that some black women have gets distributed to other areas. And I'll leave it at that, because it damn sure won't be leaving her anytime soon. So if I do find an atheist secular black woman, chances are she'll already be fat.

But reminder that I did say I lived in Savannah for eight years and everyone down there regardless of race is fat, overweight or obese. And I have seen many obese people walking around. I smelled them before I saw them. Southern cuisine is delicious, but it's not ideal nor sustainable for a healthy population.

Going back to the Black Church, the amount of infidelity and adultery that takes place can be deadly. It was a big story around 2013-14 and I can't find it anymore, but there was a man who killed the pastor of the church his wife went to. I imagine that the women at these churches are also in relationships if not married, and it's damning that these women talk a big game about serving a god, yet refusing to serve the man they choose to have kids with. That amount of hypocrisy would turn any rational person away from the Black Church and I sometimes ask myself if I'm being irrational or is the world around me irrational and I'm barely hanging on to my better judgement.

The black community's worship for god is an unhealthy one and now in this time we're in, it's proving to be detrimental. When there's some white person who will kill a black person or some police officer that kills a young black man or any black man, any bad scenario that you can think of, look at the comments section and you will have one individual that'll say something along the lines of "YAHWEH WILL TAKE CARE OF HIM" or "THE MOST HIGH WILL SOON TAKE CARE OF HIM"

Yeah. I'm sure he will. I go back to the Charleston situation with Dylan Roof. Said massacre claimed the lives of nine people. This man was able to go in the church, pray with those black people and then gun them down. And the kicker? The survivors forgave him. They forgave a man who killed their loved ones with absolute impunity. And this is not the first example of that forgiveness bullshit, plenty of news stories where a black person was attacked or killed and said person if still alive if not their relatives, forgave their attacker. Why??? And they were all non-black. How do I know this? If another black person even dared to attack them, they'd fight back, go for the kill or ask for the harshest punishment imaginable.

Yet someone who actively seeks to harm you, you either forgive or you do nothing but take the abuse. This is the supposed backbone of the black community? Then it either has arthritis or it was never there to begin with.

The pastor has so much influence yet very little power. He'll be the first one to join hands and pray but the last one to actually prepare the black community to fight. And the few men who are present in the church are either in on the system that he operates, inept or emasculated - and that is another can of worms altogether for another fishing trip - none of which are ideal for any community to thrive. And trust me when I say, a community is only as good as its men. If the women are being put into place where men should be, that's a problem. If the women choose to worship and stand by a fictional man in the sky over the men they can touch and feel, that's a problem.

If calling out this imbalance is met with jeers and scorn, that is a problem. The Black Church has done nothing to actually uplift the black community, a community that I am a part of. This is not the reason I chose to become an atheist, but it damn sure reinforced my leanings tenfold. This matriarchy does not work. Period.

I wonder if today's god-fearing folk realized that god and the bible were tools used to indoctrinate us during slavery. The belief that if they pray to god, something will happen. The notion that god made the white man superior to the black man.

 I'm surprised the episode that image originated from had Florida reject the initial image that was there, a black depiction of Jesus. The image above is the reality that has thrived with the black community since...slavery. Funny how it took her son, Michael to educate her on his actual appearance.

Revelation 1:15 - The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace.

Now he may not have been black (by black I mean the modern terminology of black). But he damn sure wasn't a white dude with long brown hair. Hmmm.


A fun fact about the image above me: It was framed on display at my second job and within five minutes of me placing it on the wall with the other images, it was on the ground, broken. Oh yeah. And I saw no black people present at the time. I also got a lot of donations, many books that talk about god and the scriptures/proverbs. All of those books went right into the salvage bin, along with any crosses or religious imagery unless it was a really nice-looking statuette or figure, that could have sold nicely. 

But to the point of the image of the black Jesus above and the old white person it pissed off, this is how far this parasite of religion goes. 

Which made this particular sitcom even more hilarious.

I question if any of these god-fearing folk even read their bible. I doubt it. It's bad enough that it's used in the actual justice system and is present on all of our money. But at least read it and see how inconsistent it is. It condones slavery, sexism, actual sexism and not the current brand of sexism repackaged as female empowerment and complacency, all which are contributing factors as to why the black community is in the state that it's in.

Even as a piece of literature, it's not well-written, and it's had so many revisions and re-releases that the only reason you would read the bible is to grab a few elements from it and put in your own work, not to push the message, but to give it tangibility. Someone being the walking representation of Jesus or Mary with an actual character arc and character development in a coherent plot has made the bible all but irrelevant.

I'm happy to see there are some more secular if not outright non-believing black people coming out thanks to the internet, and there is a chance that we can form an actual community with ideals, morals and principles with prestige and not a bunch of empty prayers and symbolism. But based on the image with Florida Evans and No. 46, it is going to be a very long time before that ambition is conceived, let alone fulfilled.


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