Why Atheists Hate Christ
A reader with the chaotic but anthropomorphic name name of RandomDude asks:
“Actuay, thats a question I wanted to ask for a while – why did you hate Catholic Church and/or religion? I mean… I get that you were an atheist and a fan of Rand, but that still doesn’t explain it.”
This is not something a literal answer will convey. Let me tell it as a story instead.
Suppose you woke up one day to discover that everyone around you suddenly believed that Santa Claus was conquering the Martians.
Your parents and teachers, and every book you read, every authority whose is allegedly an authority, solemnly says that the fat, jolly old elf in his magic sleigh soars skyward nightly, pulled by eight or nine tiny flying reindeer, and combats the monstrous three-legged fighting machines, four-armed green savages, and other denizens of the dry canal beds of the dying planet Mars.
Your first reaction might be one of incredulity. Santa Claus is a children’s story, and Martians are make believe.
So you ask questions and express doubts. How can reindeer fly so fast? How do they breathe in the vacuum? Santa Claus has no weapons, so how can he fight a three-legged fighting machine taller than a steeple? If there are canals on Mars, in order to be visible on Earth, would they not have to be hundreds of miles wide?
Instead of getting any sort of reasonable answer, you are told that if you do not believe in Santa Claus, not only will he leave you sticks and coal in your Christmas stockings, but you are hindering the war effort against the Martians. The Martians will come get you!
The sole protection against the Martians is to be saved by Santa Claus. You have to join the Alien Defense Organization, and get dog-tags, and then the flying deer with his shining red nose will protect you. Anyone without dog-tags who are not saved will be burned by the Martian heat ray.
And, as it turns out, if you lack the dog-tags, Santa will sit by and do nothing as the heat ray burns you forever and ever, with infinite torment, because the Martian heat ray also contains an immortality ray, to keep you alive to be tormented by fire forever.
And any little babies who are captured by Martians shortly after birth but before getting dog-tags, or illiterates dwelling in remote jungles who never were told about the dog-tags, none of them are protected by Santa, and so will burn and burn forever in the heat-ray.
When asking about how your teachers know these things, you are directed to the 1964 film SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS, and told this is the literal truth of things.
You point out that other books and stories have Martians in them, and other poems and Coca Cola ads picture Santa.
You are are informed that the parallels between these false and heretical versions, and the true and orthodox version is confirmed by an ancient institution known as the Tower of Grift, ruled by the Grand Imperial Grifter of the Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defense Organization, who wears a rocket-shaped hat.
And the High Grifter is Infallible, so no one can question him. The claim of Infallibility pester and annoys you to no end, because it means the High Grifter cannot be cross examined, and no claim of his, no matter how absurd, is open to question. It makes him almost a God. How can someone claim never to make mistakes?
But the mistakes are obvious. There are no canals on Mars. In the modern day, we have sent rockets to Mars and landed probes, and retrieved television pictures. No Martians. No water. Amundsen, Cook, Peary and other expeditions have crossed the North Pole, satellites have photographed it, and intercontinental planes have overflown it. No Santa’s Castle. No workshop. No forest of Christmas trees. The thing is impossible.
So you watch the allegedly sacred movie, and it is a kids movie, made on the cheap, and obviously fake. Not even a kid would believe it.
Nothing in the movie says anything about war machines or four-armed green savages: that material comes from H.G. Wells or Edgar Rice Burroughs.
You can clearly see the things the Grifters borrowed from other make believe-stories, but which are not part of their original sacred source, the dumb movie.
Then you find that the Grifters have quarreled. The quarrel itself is over a trivial point, namely, whether Rudolf the Red-Nosed reindeer means the magic sleigh is pulled by nine flying deer, or only eight.
The Grifters split into two groups of anti-Martian forces over this silly issue: the Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization, or SHADO are eightists, and the Men In Black, or MIB, are ninetarians.
More cause for doubt arises: because if the Martian threat were real, the SHADO and the MIB would surely join forces. If Santa Claus were real, he would pop down the chimney at MIB and SHADO headquarters, and tell them how many deer pull his sleigh.
But, no. Instead the two groups come to blows, and fight wars over the issue.
You cannot ignore the fact that these two groups are fighting each other, when each is allegedly helping Santa fight the Martians, when there is no Santa and there are no Martians. You find it hard to believe they really believe it.
None of them seems to act they way they would if they thought Santa were real. They cry and pout all the time, even though their own songs tell them not to.
And then to make it more obvious the whole thing is fake, you find out there is a whole different group of Santists in Australia, where it is warm during Christmas, and also countless local militia groups, differing on hairsplitting nuances of interpretation of their make believe story.
Some say since Santa is an elf, he must have pointed ears. Some say Santa’s wife is named Mary, Samantha, or Carol. Other say her name is Jessica, and she used to teach school.
Some say the enemy is not the Martians, but the Burgermeister Meisterburger of Sombertown, who has outlawed toys. Each group has hates the others, and claims to be the only one true and official group helping Santa protect and save the Earth.
You are told you have to contribute money to the war-effort of the war against make believe Martians. The money is needed to buy Tinkerbelle dust to make the reindeer fly.
But you want to keep your money for yourself. You are told this is reprehensible greed. The High Grifter need the money so that he can live in a palace with a golden floor, filled with marble statues, beneath a ceiling painted by Michelangelo.
You are told not to voice doubts. Such a thing is disloyalty. Santa knows when you are sleeping, knows when you are awake, he knows when you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake!
You are pretty sure you can be good without any help from a fat elf, thank you very much. And there is nothing wrong with visiting a bar, or a gambling den, or an opium den, or a cathouse. These are perfectly innocent pleasures harming no one.
Such things used to be illegal, because they displeased Santa, and, even now, a stigma attaches to them, and your parents and authorities scowl and scold.
Laws against things, such as sodomy and miscegeny , that once were forbidden solely because Santa frowned at them, are still on the books, even though such laws are no longer enforced.
You discover that the time long ago when Santa enforced unhappiness and fasting during Advent is not so long ago: and the Santists are eager to inflict those rules again, the moment they gain the power to do so.
The matter becomes personal when you the girl you want to date says she cannot go out with any fellow who does not believe in Santa, because she does not want to get sticks and coal in her stockings.
She also has problems, medical problems or otherwise, which she will take no efforts to attempt to solve, except by writing a letter to Santa. She writes a letter to Sant every night, telling him what she wants for tomorrow. They are never answered, of course.
Santa also tells everyone to be nice to each other, and the Santists use this as a reason to hate, fear, and kill each other, for the crime of not being nice.
And they all hate and fear you, the scoffer, the skeptic, the freethinker, the doubter, because you and you alone are bold and fearless enough to contemplate the doubts that scare their feeble little brains into paralysis.
And the world around is a funhouse mirror maze of illogical belief in the unbelievable, and otherwise perfectly smart and wise people are deceived by Grifters, or self-deceived, into the most childish beliefs imaginable — except that their hypocrisy means none of them actually follow the Santa Rule saying you’d better not cry and better not pout.
They seem so afraid. They seem to wallow in misery. It is as if they enjoy misery, and so cannot enjoy the true and lasting pleasures in life, which come from the saloon, the opium den, the casino, and the cathouse. Poor fools!
You are Prometheus, and they are the heavenly tyrant who wishes to punish you for bringing the torch of enlightenment to men made wretched by these lies.
You do not fear these people, because they seem so weak and confused, but you would fear if ever they regained the power they enjoyed only generation ago. But you do maintain a withering contempt.
Who among us, living in the world of the Grifters and Santists, would forebear hatred?
Perhaps you think hatred is too strong a word, and that you would only indulge in contempt. But his is a difference of disposition, or perhaps only of wording.
Contempt is cold hatred. Contempt is hatred mixed with sloth. It is the hate reserved for what you do not fear. Hot hatred is for what you loath and fear, and is hatred mixed with wrath.
Suppose all this happened to you. Perhaps you think you would not fear and not loath such absurdities and cruelties provoked by such obviously superstitions. Perhaps you think you could forgive such folly, live in peace with the superstitious gulls, and love your enemies.
I say unto you that any man who loves his enemies does the will of his Father in Heaven, whether he knows it or not, admits it or not.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
