Acceptance? That's It?

I was on campus the other day, waiting to meet up with my girlfriend before class, when I was approached by a trio of Christian students who invited me to one of their events. I kindly accepted their flier and thanked them. After all, I'm pretty used to people handing out propaganda these days. They stayed and chatted with me, though, and that's when things got awkward. They asked where I was from, what I was reading, and what my major was. You know, general bullshit questions people ask when they want to talk to you about something specific but want to seem casual about it. Of course, with them having already asserted that they're Christians, I knew what was coming. They wanted to talk to me about Jesus.

Then the question came. To be honest, they had me outnumbered, without a lot of time to have a real discussion, and they kind of caught me by surprise. The question was awkwardly phrased: "What's your religious background?"

The question seemed to require a one-word answer, though I would have loved to express considerably more than that. My response, of course, was "atheist." The response of the group member whose turn it was to talk is what puzzles me, and it's the real topic of this writing. "That's cool. I've got lots of friends who hold that view." With that, my phone rang, and they saw themselves off.

Now, these kids were nice, and I could tell they meant well. This isn't an attack on them by any means, but rather an expression of my befuddlement at that response. It reminds me of someone who desperately wants to make himself seem less racist by saying, "No, I'm not racist. I've got lots of black friends," as if having black friends is what keeps someone from being racist. I just found it shocking to get that kind of response in such a secular place as a state university. Have we really made this little progress? Do Christians still have to feel like they're giving me the gift of freedom to believe what seems the most reasonable to me?

Since I'm on the subject, a similar thing happened in a recent conversation with the less religious of my grandmothers. We had a discussion about how people believe crazy shit, and we came to the logical point in the conversation for me to say, "See, that's why I don't believe in God." Grandma said, "and you have every right to believe that."

I guess I should be thankful, and I am. I know plenty of atheists who would have a hard time expressing their beliefs (or lack thereof) to their families, knowing what the responses would be. I'm glad my family is pretty laid-back and secular. It's just strange how, even in my own family, any mention of atheism shifts a conversation from what is good and correct to what is permissible.

I think it's a subconscious (and probably in some cases conscious) effort to maintain the upper hand in some sense. By maintaining the position that they are allowing and accepting other beliefs, Christians are able to make it appear that their religion is somehow correct and superior to others. I'm absolutely sure that it's natural to feel and act this way and there's a biological/evolutionary component to it, but it's the core of egocentrism, which I reject outright, and for good, valid reasons

It's my assumption that these are some of the reasons why many atheists think that religious moderates are more dangerous than the extremists. That's a pretty radical assumption for me to make, but I see where the idea comes from. At least the extremists are up-front about how they feel. The moderates sometimes feel the same way but do a good job of hiding it. This has the potential to keep a dangerous ideology alive in people who are not normally dangerous. I guess it's a matter of whether you'd rather be talked-about behind your back or ridiculed directly.

Maybe I'm making a big deal out of nothing, and I'm not really trying to make a big deal out of this. It's just something I find interesting. From what I've observed and what I've read lately, it seems like the general US population used to form a near-perfect bell curve of religiousness, atheists at one end and religious extremists at the other. Now, it seems like that curve is flattening out and rising at the ends. This is the sort of trend that, if it continues, typically leads to a revolution in thought. I don't really believe the supposed prophecies of things like the Mayan calendar, but it seems like this is the kind of 'end of an era' the calendar might predict in 2012. The prediction itself is silly, but it predicts a revolution of some sort, and it's time we had one.