Am I a Fake Atheist?

Atheists often say Jesus was a myth.

Occasionally, some of my fellow atheists accuse me of being fake. Sometimes they say I’m a Christian going undercover and trying to undermine atheism from within. To one guy, I’m a wannabe Christian, which at least is a little more imaginative. Or I’m a fake atheist, whatever that means. It feels weird to have someone from the tribe declare me an outcast, but I try not to take it personally. It’s just what I deserve for flouting tribal boundaries. 

Online and at atheist gatherings, I’m likely to challenge atheists when their criticisms of religion are unfair. For example, saying that there’s no evidence for a historical Jesus is a flat-out error. Identifying religion with mental illness is another popular misconception. It’s natural to be unfair to the “enemy camp,” so errors like these are common. In terms of tribal politics, my criticizing a fellow atheist’s attack on religion is tantamount to treason. It’s just the sort of thing that gets you cast out of the tribe. But I’m not really defending the “enemy.” It’s not religion that I’m trying to protect. I'm trying to protect atheism—our secular community, such that it is. Humans in any group are prone to think negatively and speak unfairly about “enemy” groups. In fact, people generally love to hate the “other,” as everyone generating propaganda knows. Atheists are no different. The humanity we share with the believers makes us more like them than different from them. It’s no surprise to see us atheists engaging in the same simplistic, us-versus-them rhetoric that we accuse believers of indulging in. 

So does that mean I’m wasting my time, fighting human nature like this? Sometimes it feels like I am. But it’s not healthy to build a community around negativity, and I have reasons to hope that atheism can lose some of this bias. Why should I hope? 

• We atheists pride ourselves on being evidence-driven. Even though this principle is often neglected, it’s still an ideal that I can appeal to. We atheists humbly acknowledge that our evolved minds sometimes trick us into seeing things that aren’t there and believing things that aren’t true. 
• Young atheists from secular homes don’t necessarily have the same chips on their shoulders that so many of us older atheists do. 
• A number of atheist writers, such as Alain de Botton, have pointed out that there’s more to religion than oppression. 
• As for human nature, if it is our nature to be tribalistic, it is also our nature to be adaptable. Western civilization has made great progress in terms of self-awareness and broad-mindedness. 

All these factors give me hope, and I’ll keep expecting reasonableness from my fellow atheists. At least until they take my atheist card away and kick me out of the tribe for real. 

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