Double your pleasure, double your fun.
Twitter user @AChristianWord has been touting an article that claims there are ten reasons (read: strawmen) people turn to atheism (or more specifically, “internet atheism”, whatever that is). In the spirit of giving you MOAR, I’ve raised the stakes and delivered double that number for reasons that people turn to (or should turn to) “internet theism”.
- Do you love to ask questions you don’t want the answers to? If you do, then internet apologia is for you! It’s vitally important that you never accept any answer, no matter what – in fact, you can find out how to deal with those impetuous enough to respond to you here. You don’t have to worry about the questions actually making sense or truthful – that’s for suckers! You don’t want answers to questions; you want to pretend that the answers don’t exist and that the questions are inescapable barbs. This way, you can repeatedly ask them to maintain that wonderful glow of smug self satisfaction.
- On a related note: Do you hate being corrected? FUCK THOSE GUYS. As an apologist for your religion, you don’t have to take shit from people obviously smarter and better read than you ever again. God’s right, they’re wrong, debate over! NB: What your god says or wants is, of course, completely up to you. Think of it as being a win-win scenario.
- Have you always had a shameful secret fetish of accusing people of loving infamous dictators? As an apologist, you can satisfy those dirty urges everyday without any real consequences. Don’t worry, hardly anyone will have the sense to let you know about your dead horse beating, er, activities. QUICK! Twitter hasn’t been inundated with the “atheism = Stalin” meme enough. 40,000 more tweets a day should do it! [1]
- Did you ever feel in the least bit upset that Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins, or some other atheist of note is or was guilty of the high crime of existence? You’ll make a great apologist! Imagine their scowling visage raining down pure contempt for you and let the hate flow. Ricky Gervais is taunting you right now! Do something about it, you wimp!
- Got tired of being an asshole to people on XBox Live or Playstation Network? You know what you must do.
- Pissed off that some people don’t want to pack up the SUV to desperately try to impress others at your church? Get back at them with apologetics! Why should you be the only one to take this nonsense seriously enough to get out of bed for it? Why should you be the only one to endure the crushing boredom, screaming kids, and horrible music? Vengeance is only a Twitter account away.
- Do you want to claim you love critical thinking and skepticism and apply it selectively to things you don’t like? Yep, you’re getting it! Never be afraid to posit completely untestable scenarios as you sink every conversation about god (or lack thereof) into nihilistic nonsense, then claim victory. After all, evolution is clearly a fairy tale, but burning bushes and talking snakes are completely factual. If faced with facts, put the conversation in a virtual choke hold by claiming nothing can be proven to be true (except your god). Guaranteed to work every time!
- Are you terrifically bitter because your only purpose in life is to hate people that don’t think like you and won’t do what you say? Wouldn’t it be awesome to cloak your stupidity with fake piety…and be lauded by others for it? Don’t you want a divine excuse for being an asshole? Apologetics has it covered!
- Do you enjoy conflating the definitions of words until language is nigh-meaningless? You will adore apologetics! “Faith” will become “knowledge” and “virtue”. “Atheist” will mean “filthy, no good, evil, immoral asshole”.
- Clearly your knowledge of biology, geology, cosmology, ethics, philosophy, and everything else is superior to everyone from watching two minutes worth of a William Lane Craig debate. Get out there and show ‘em!
- You’ve always wondered just how much projection you can get away with. It’s not you who makes flying leaps of logic to embrace your religion, it’s those damned non-believers! You don’t have a religion, they do! Everything came from nothing by your god is fine, but everything coming from nothing by itself is bad!
- You’re still enraged that people wouldn’t take your pretend time games seriously past age 8. Now you’ll show them. You’ll show them all.
- Even your fellow churchgoers are sick of your constant blathering about religion. TO THE INTERNETS!
- Someone got you a Bibleman action figure, and you’ve never forgiven them. How dare they not get you Twilight Sparkle!? The only logical response is to take your rage and frustration out on atheists!
- Training for the Olympics of Mental Contortionism and need some practice? If you can turn Yahweh of the OT into the hippie Jesus of today or any other insane rationalization religion requires, you can take the gold when you have to explain why Kratos from God of War is actually one of the Care Bears.
- Wish the higher-ups would recognize you for the devoted servant of Yahweh/Allah you really are? Wasn’t able to get a job at Fox News, even as a mail room intern? Build your street cred by being an internet apologist!
- Ever wanted a hobby where it’s the norm to deliberately misrepresent “the other side” because you clearly know more about their viewpoints than they do (again, ignore any protestations to the contrary)? Do I really need to recite the refrain again?
- After your parents were murdered in a back alley by a evolved mutant copy of The God Delusion, your mystical powers of apologetics manifested. After years of training, you’re ready to dispense justice.
- There is no reason nineteen. Move along.
- You obviously get into apologetics because atheism is a religion, and religion is bad! Er, except yours, of course. Again, Twitter needs to know, so 30,000 tweets an hour should do the job.
And there you have it. Twenty totally true and indisputable reasons why people get into internet apologetics.
[1] A clear variation of Nazi Tourette’s, ala this: