In another diary, commonmass dares us to write an essay mocking Passover. I will respond to that challenge by declining it.
When my mother died in a nursing home, many of the caregivers were upset because they had gotten to know my mother, and because they liked me too. Some of them even cried. Not knowing that I was an atheist, many of them tried to console me by saying that my mother’s soul was with God in heaven. I appreciated their attempt to comfort me with their simple faith, and of course I did not let on that I did not share their beliefs.
If only that were all there was to it! How tolerant we could be regarding such childlike notions. It is easy to be considerate in such matters, when religion is just a matter of consolation. Then such harmless superstitions are endearing, and I am glad that the weaker among us have their faith, because life is full of suffering, and death is the end. Except for adolescents, few atheists would be inclined to mock religion, if that were all there was to it.
And that is why there is little inclination for me to mock Passover. The Jews have never bothered me. They seem content to practice their religion without trying to convert me or impose their views on me. Although the caregivers I referred to above were Christians, the nursing home where my mother died was Jewish. Admittedly, some of the Jewish customs were troublesome. I had enough problems with my mother’s loss of appetite without having to deal with the kosher dining room: not only was my mother not able to have bacon or sausage, which she liked, but the restriction about mixing meat and dairy was most unfortunate. Even some of the Jews grumbled, for many are not that orthodox, and one said she would love to have had a bacon cheeseburger. But it was the nicest nursing home in the city that took Medicaid, and I was grateful that they accepted my mother.
Needless to say, religion is not always a matter of people consoling themselves and others, of foolish beliefs, pointless rituals, and needless taboos. I think I can spare the reader the full litany of the dark side of religion: religious wars, crusades, inquisitions, witch hunts, pogroms, not to mention putting people to death for the slightest sexual deviation. Then religion is evil, and deserves more than mockery—it deserves to be crushed! But except for some primitive cultures in the third world, those days are gone.
It has only been a few centuries since one would dare mock religion, for the punishment for doing so was torture and death. Then, during the Enlightenment, philosophers began to dare, and for the next two hundred years, the attacks on religion increased in profundity until today religion is almost a curiosity. Whereas before, atheists had to whisper among themselves to keep from being put to death, now we whisper among ourselves to keep from hurting anyone’s feelings.
Here and there, religion still manages to display its ugly face, even in the United States. And when certain states manage to make it difficult and onerous for a woman to get an abortion, it shakes us out of our complacency. Then we become intolerant, and are all too willing to mock religion, if that is what it takes to keep it from gaining the upper hand. But viewed from a more distant perspective, we see that religion is fighting a losing battle. After all, abortion is and will remain legal. Whereas once it was against the law to teach evolution in certain schools, now fundamentalists struggle just to have a word or two in the biology text books that just maybe there is a God. Whereas once single women could not get the pill, now the religious just don’t want birth control covered by health insurance. Whereas once sodomy was a crime, now fundamentalists are trying to prevent gay marriage. Winning the war against religion as we are, we should be magnanimous in victory. It would be unbecoming of us to mock religion while it is on its knees.
The forces of religion are slowly being marginalized, and will eventually be just a nuisance, like that kosher dining room my mother had to eat in.