Thomas Wictor

There are lots of differences between us and animals. We humans wear clothes, even if it’s just a penis sheath. Almost every group of us has a written language. We manufacture conveyances that defy the laws of nature, just so we can hurry from Point A to Point B. Last night it hit me that the most significant difference between us and animals is that humans hate each other for thinking differently.

I defend the religious for the same reason that I defend Israel and Jewish people: It’s always open season on them. Groupthink and the madness of crowds—the savagery of the mob—disturb me greatly. Far too many of us join mobs so that we can behave badly. I’m not a crusader; I hold out no hope for members of the mob. But my opposition to injustice compels me to speak up.

Last night on my Twitter timeline, I saw a comment about religious people and their imaginary friend in the sky. This is a deeply dishonest and reductionist characterization of religion. I’m not religious, but I am a theist, meaning that I believe in God. So I tweeted what I often say to people who self-identify as atheists.

Atheism is just as much an act of faith as theism, since the existence of God is unprovable.

If you’ll pardon a religious metaphor, the gates of hell opened. I don’t know how many hundred people responded. They had user names like “Atheist Arab,” “Atheist Bunny,” “Atheist Power,” “Atheist Truth,” “Debunker of Ignorance,” and so on.

The responses were no different from those I get when I defend Israel.

1. You’re old.
2. You’re ugly.
3. You’re stupid.
4. You’re a pedophile.
5. You’re gay.
6. You’re a liar.
7. You’re a bigot.
8. You’re a failure.
9. You’re lonely.
10. You’re a laughingstock.

People were Googling me to find things that they could use to insult me. And as always happens when I defend Israel, someone made fun of me for being devastated by the deaths of my parents. Funnily enough, when I referred to her an an “Arab witch,” she began sobbing about hate.

Cognitive dissonance. Their orgy of hate went on for hours. Not one person recognized the frenzied nature of their tweets.

The reason humans hate others for thinking differently is that an opposing viewpoint threatens to destroy a person’s entire identity. By disagreeing with you, I negate you, because you’ve made your opinions define who you are. Last night someone said, “You obviously haven’t looked at my profile.”

On Twitter, everyone has a profile that’s supposed to tell the world who you are. This is mine.

Tons of Twitter users write things like, “Activist, Humanitarian, Pursuer of Social Justice, Fighter of Bigotry, Debunker of Religion,” etc. I never look at anyone’s profile. Why would I do that? The only thing that matters is the content of the tweet. But on Twitter, you’re not supposed to make up your mind about a tweet until you can put a label on the writer. So people check profiles to make sure they’re not agreeing with something said by a JEW, for example.

Here’s another point I made that ratcheted up the hysteria to stratospheric levels.

Far too many people who self-identify as atheists don’t even know the meanings of the words they use. Believing that there is no deity is called “disbelief.”

The definition of atheism is the belief that there is no deity. This is different from lacking belief in a deity. Lack of belief is an absence; disbelief is the presence of a conviction. If you lack belief in a deity, you’re a nonbeliever. Most people who call themselves atheists say that they lack belief in a deity. Thus they’re not atheists. An atheist believes that the existence of a deity or deities is not true or real.

Well, the crap really hit the fan with that one, but what was amazing was that all the people who lost their minds over my statement—and I mean every single one—actually agreed with me, but they’re too rabidly anti-religious and dogmatic to see it.

One guy posted this.

He posted that as a rebuttal. Here’s what the Oxford English Dictionary says:

Atheism - disbelief in the existence of a god or gods.

So yes, disbelief is a belief. It’s a conviction, a feeling, an opinion. Here’s what I’d said.

Atheism is the belief that there is no deity.

Godless Spellchecker doesn’t know the definition of the word “disbelief.”

So, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, atheism is the conviction that the existence of a deity or deities is not true or real. That’s precisely my definition of atheism. Here’s what Merriam-Webster says.

Disbelief again. The conviction that the existence of a deity or deities is not true or real. But Merriam-Webster adds that atheism is a doctrine that there is no deity. Plenty of people recognize that atheism becomes a religion for the militantly anti-religious.

As I write this, the atheists on Twitter are still tweeting at me, even though I haven’t responded in over five hours. I told everyone that since we couldn’t agree on the definitions of terms, communication was impossible, so I was going to go feed my cat. Someone marveled to me that the ahteists weren’t giving up.

It’s because they hate me. They’re no different from the Jew-haters. Many are the same people.

Theistic beliefs or lack thereof are devoid of moral content. Being a theist, atheist, or agnostic is neither moral nor immoral. There are atheists in my immediate family. After our parents died, we had brief—like, one-minute—discussions about what Tim and I believe, and that was that. Countless atheists told me last night that they pitied me. I don’t pity atheists. Nothing bad is going to happen to them, unless they’re evil. Most will be fine. And even the evil ones determine themselves where they end up.

When I first met Lyle Cat and Brother Cat, they were vicious ferals who hissed and growled at me. It took me over three months to tame them. First I had to catch them and take them to the vet for neutering and vaccinations, and then I had to make them comfortable with humans. Now they’re sweet, entirely trustworthy lap cats.

Lyle.

Brother.

More engagement with my cats made them calmer and nicer. On the other hand, hate-filled humans get angrier and crazier the more you engage them. Social media makes them feral. They’re never arguing in good faith. It’s about obliterating you, forcing you into silence so that your dangerous ideas won’t make their precarious houses of cards collapse. Because that’s what this is about. All those people are living a lie. My guess is—like my parents—they’re terrified of death.

There isn’t a single thing that anybody on Twitter could say that would hurt me or make me angry. But check it out: It’s been almost twenty-four hours since I wrote my tweet about atheism being as much an act of faith as theism, and the atheists are still enraged.

I can’t imagine letting someone have that much power over me. With two tweets I took up permanent residence in hundreds of heads.

How pathetic is that?