My April Fools' Day prankPeople who say religion is useless clearly haven't discovered that it makes an excellent butt for a joke. In case you didn't catch the drama in real time, yesterday the front page of this blog was taken over by my performance of Kris Kristofferson's classic tale of self-hatred and redemption, "Why Me Lord": And who out there was April-Fooled by this apparent announcement of Brian Flemming's new love affair with Jesus? Well, not any of my godless friends, thank God. Most called or emailed with sarcastic congratulations. Apparently very few even thought that I thought they'd be fooled. They didn't see it as that kind of joke -- they saw it more like I was playing Opposite Day than trying to fool anybody. But certain people were indeed fooled. Do you have to wonder who they were? Some Christians apparently found it completely plausible that a declared atheist would suddenly be overtaken by wonder-working power. I made many unlikely friends yesterday during my walk with Jesus. Here's a typical email (per usual for this blog, I don't reveal the identities of non-public Christians who email me): Now this time, please find the TRUE all powerful, all-loving, ever-merciful, all-wise Jesus who knows how to save those he died for, not the Jesus that loses almost all He paid for. No, I don't understand it, either. I didn't understand most of yesterday's Christian email. But I felt the love. The Jesus juice didn't only spurt into my email inbox, however. Journalist Peter Chattaway, a Christianity Today film writer, joyously trumpeted my conversion on his blog as soon as he saw the video. However, I'm not sure we'll ever know the exact wording of his original blog post. Hours after he posted it, when he realized he'd been had, Chattaway deleted his entry and posted this message in its place: I hate April Fool's Day. But if what I posted in this space before turns out to have been genuine, I'll post it back. Alteration of the record to suppress embarrassing facts? Peter Chattaway clearly has studied the techniques of early Christian historians. It was Chattaway's commenters who got him up to speed. This is my favorite comment: Nope. I'm sorry, but fervent atheists do not announce their conversion to Christianity by putting a video of them singing an earnest hymn on their website with no other explanation. On the other hand, fervent atheists playing April Fools Jokes would absolutely announce their conversion to Christianity with a video of them singing an earnest hymn on their website with no other explanation. Yep. That's exactly what we fervent atheists would do! (It's nice to be characterized accurately for a change.) At first Chattaway argued against the skeptics on behalf of his first impression, but he eventually conceded that he was probably fooled. You're not alone, Peter. Early this morning I posted a new video with a message for the credulous: So why is it that many Christians were fooled by my conversion while atheists were not? I'd guess the cause lurks in a mistaken assumption made by every Christian: That religion is powerful. It isn't. Religious dogma loses its power the moment you start to think about it. That's why it's extremely rare for a declared atheist to become a Christian*. You reason your way to a declaration of atheism, and once you do it's virtually impossible to pull enough of a mind-fark on yourself to believe that God writes books, as Sam Harris puts it, or that people really do rise from the dead and fly into the air, as I like to put it. It's like trying to believe in Santa Claus again. It doesn't happen. And atheists know it -- which is why they knew instantly that my "conversion" was a skit. The only prominent atheist scalp that Christian warriors have hanging from their belts is that of Antony Flew. The Christian opportunists who descended upon the literally defenseless Flew and manipulated a slight "conversion" story out of this mentally compromised old man demonstrate just how hard it is to convert a declared atheist. You have to wait until they can't think straight anymore and trick them into signing a document they haven't read. I suppose a case could be made that I'm as bad as those evangelical exploiters, fooling Christians here on this blog yesterday for my own amusement. And I'd love to hear a Christian make the case that his religious beliefs are the equivalent of losing brain cells. I would disagree. The two are similar in their effects, admittedly. But the Christian bears a tad more responsibility for his deficiencies, considering that they are self-imposed. *People who rarely ever thought about religion, then convert to one and look back and say, "I guess I was an atheist back then" don't count. Most people who were just "no religion" before they got religion would not actually have called themselves atheists back in their no-religion days. "Agnostic" or "spiritual but not religious" or "[fill in religion of parents], I guess" would have been more likely labels if they were pressed to offer one. "Atheist" just sounds too scary to someone who's never thought it through. A publicly declared atheist, on the other hand, has applied enough thought to the matter to accept the label without fear. And it's these people who are practically immune from conversion. Julia Sweeney, after going through a painstaking process of testing claims and evaluating results, isn't going to suddenly say, "You know what? Jesus did turn water into wine, because an ancient book says so." Declared Christians becoming declared atheists? Happens every day. Declared atheists turning Christian? Not so much. That's why Christian evangelists despise atheism far more than Christianity's theistic rivals. They know atheism means goodbye. (See: Europe.) UPDATE: For the record, the morning of April 1 I did send out an email directing readers to an important announcement on my weblog, and Chattaway received this notification. One indignant respondent believes that fact mitigates Chattaway's gullibility, so I didn't want to fail to mention it. UPDATE 2: The original blog entry that Chattaway attempted to conceal is here. Thanks to self-described "web geek" Adrian Hayter for the detective work. Share your comments |