Shattering My Identity

I am no longer an atheist

I was once a Democrat. I was later a Libertarian. I was always an atheist. And yet, I was actually never any of those things.

Loss of Innocence Individualism

When I was still young enough for my parents to read me books to put me to bed, I asked my dad who really wrote the Bible because it clearly wasn’t God. I grew up in a Quaker family and Quakers believe that they should never lie, so they told me the truth about Santa as soon as I emerged from the womb. I immediately concluded that God and Santa had a lot in common. I didn’t give it much thought beyond that other than to be perplexed how people could have such silly ideas. Yet, as I entered adolescence, my lack of belief in God became a core part of my identity. What precipitated this change? The emergence of the internet.

The internet allowed me to be part of a group. There weren’t many people in my life that didn’t believe in God, but the internet allowed me to discover other people who agreed with me. I joined atheist forums, read about the Invisible Pink Unicorn, and I knew that I’d finally found my people. It felt amazing to be a part of that group. We knew that the emperor had no clothes and we all shared that secret together. In the aughts of the new millennium, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens wrote anti-god books that fueled the New Atheist movement and I was all-in. At long last, my people were gaining steam.

In addition to being an atheist, I was a Democrat. Everyone around me was a Democrat and so I knew by heart exactly why the Republicans were wrong about each issue. As I started studying economics, I decided that I wasn’t a Democrat after all because I was too fiscally conservative. So, of course, I immediately sought a new group to join. I decided that since I was socially liberal and fiscally conservative, I must be a Libertarian. I could feel my views shifting to align with other Libertarians. If I heard someone say something that I agreed with, I read other things they said and decided that they must have merit too. I got a rush from discovering these new amazing viewpoints. Before I knew it, I supported open borders and personal freedom above all.

Without being aware of it, I had allowed my beliefs, even my identity, to be shaped by group membership.

Identity Cult Identity From Cults

cult (kʌlt)
n.
a group that devotes itself to or venerates a person, ideal, fad, etc.

Recently, I was discussing economics and my conversation partner asked me, “What do people who think like you think about this?”. The framing of the question made it clear that he was thinking of economic ideas as being broken into discrete schools of thought where everyone in that school thinks the same way. He wasn’t asking me what my personal opinion was, but rather what the opinion of the group of people that he assumes I have aligned myself with is. Truly independent thought is so difficult that sometimes people even forget it exists.

You may believe that you’re thinking for yourself because you get to choose which groups you’re in, but groups are often cults, organized around a specific idea or ideal. When new data arrives, the group chooses to interpret the data in the way that best aligns with their preexisting viewpoint. We evolved to seek strong relationships with the people around us, which is what allowed humans to form clans and succeed together. Once you join a group that is organized around an ideal, your brain wants so badly to fit in that you become credulous without realizing it. If you believe that you don’t do this, you’re simply in denial.

Defining one’s identity is quite challenging. Who am I? Well, who are those people over there? Maybe I’m like them? Oooh these people are so nice and smart, yes, this is who I am.

Atheism Has Become A Religion Cult

In the past, I heard religious people say that atheism has become a religion and I always thought it was nonsensical. It certainly is nonsensical to some extent, but I later realized that what these people actually meant was that atheism has become a cult and it turns out that they’re right. 

Religion is so powerful because it creates fervent cults that band together. For so long, people who didn’t believe in devils or deities were at the mercy of these religious cults. The term “atheist” may have been created by religions to disparage non-believers. The New Atheist movement decided to fight back against religious cults by forming an anti-religious cult so that atheists could emerge from the shadows and be loud and proud, openly criticizing religion. While this has led to people to not be afraid to be atheists, it has also led to an us versus them mentality, which is epitomized by Kate Cohen’s atheism editorial in the Washington Post.

If someone was born in Canada, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they consider themselves a Canadian. The difference is that when someone says they’re Canadian, they’re indicating that they’re part of a group and that group is part of their identity. Similarly, even though I don’t believe in any gods, I no longer consider myself an atheist. The fact that I don’t believe in gods doesn’t define my identity any more than the fact that I like pizza does. I have no need to be in a pizza cult and I don’t want to be in an anti-religious cult either. My beliefs are my own and I have no desire to define myself by clubs, cults, or categories.

I was once a Democrat. I was later a Libertarian. I was always an atheist. And yet, I was actually never any of those things.

I am simply me. What a wonderful thing to be.