Words cannot even begin to describe how much I loathe the television show "Touched by an Angel." And no, I don't make a habit of watching it. However, my wife's grandmother does. (We happen to live with her, as my wife is Grandma's full-time caregiver.) So, occasionally, I catch snippets of the program. Usually, I'm forced to leave the room or offend others with my grunts of displeasure over it.
There are many aspects of the show I detest, but I think the aspect I hate most is how belittling it is to the very idea of atheism. For example, in the snippet I caught most recently, the angel portrayed by Roma Downey was talking to a doctor. The doctor was saying how religion is a crutch. Perhaps useful at times, but to be truly healthy in mind, crutches must eventually be abandoned. I, myself, have written articles to that effect, so the doctor's words were in keeping with my own views. The doctor went on to say that what she believed in was truth… things that could be known. And Downey's character then basically asserted that this attitude was the doctor's own particular method of living in denial.
In other words, she was saying that such people know they're wrong, even if they won't admit it.
The arrogance of this program astounds me.
"But wait!" my occasional theistic reader is yelling. "That's exactly how you are! That's exactly the arrogance you're displaying here!"
Is it? Sure, I admit that many of my articles contain a fair amount of disdain for theistic thought. I've made the crutch comparison, after all. But I think there's a major difference between the messages behind my site and that show.
That difference is evidence.
As has been said in any number of places, any number of times, the burden of proof is always on the person making a positive claim. In this case, "Touched by an Angel" is claiming that there is a god, and that we atheists are living in denial. But to support these statements, there is not a scrap of evidence. Not a bit.
The Atheist Attic, in claiming that religion is a crutch, is also making a positive claim. But one only has to look around to see the evidence of this. I think almost everyone knows someone who is so dependent upon their religion that they literally couldn't get through a day without it. That's a crutch.
As for the view of atheism, of course, this isn't a positive claim. This is a denial of the positive claim of the theist. "There is a god," says the theist. "Baloney," says the atheist. No burden of proof lies with the nay-sayer. The atheist calmly sits and waits for any sort of evidence whatsoever.
And since we've gone for thousands of years of human civilization without such evidence, and since study of the origin of religions always reveals a very human root to it all, as well as wholesale pilfering from older religions, it simply does not seem to be that big of a stretch to say that god is make-believe.
If we atheists display any arrogance, it is because we are sick to death of being told how wrong we are, of being told that God is real and that we're fools to not believe this, of being treated about as nicely as child molesters because we don't believe this. It's because we look at the fruits of religion… atrocity after atrocity… and plainly see how the holy books of religion support such behavior. And yeah, maybe we feel a bit superior because we see through the charade and have the integrity to not behave that way, even without the threat of eternal damnation. If we're arrogant, it's because we're sick of being viewed as deluded… by those we consider deluded.
The evidence is most assuredly not on the side of the theist. And frankly, we're tired of being told it is. We're tired of being told this by proselytizers on the 'net. We're tired of being told this by evangelists in their pulpits. And we're certainly tired of being told this by network television in melodramatic shows filled with second-rate actors trying to save our souls.
