I'm So Goddamn Happy...

This is a guest post by R J Evans at American Heathen®

(Editorial Comment from the American Heathen® radio show – Air Date 04/30/10)

I’m so goddamned happy! My life is full, exciting, challenging. It has its ups and downs, good times and bad times. It’s an adventure laced with moments of raw emotion and jam-packed with intellectual stimulation and wonder. I’m so goddamned happy… I have a wonderful wife, and a few really good friends. I’m so goddamned happy… I enjoy health, wellbeing, and do not fear death. I embrace the inevitable and live in the moment, never the care for what will be, but for what is. I’m so goddamned happy… For all their condemnation and vitriol… for all their prayers for my salvation… for all their fear of reality… my goddamn happiness is what christians can’t resolve. Why? Because I’m Atheist and I’m goddamned happy!

I always wonder what it is in the christian mindset that precludes them from understanding that Atheists can be goddamn happy. They insist that we must be miserable, without purpose, loathing life and angry at the skydaddy. In their confusion, they pray for us, wistfully hoping for our capitulation to dogma, and ultimately a life of servitude, guilt, shame and misery. They can’t stand the fact that goddamn happiness doesn’t truly exist in their alternate reality. Bound by the slavery of religion, bound tightly by the shackles of humility in the shadow of myth, christians crave company. And, indeed, misery does love company. Therefore it severely ruffles the feathers of christians when an Atheist steps boldly into the batters box and hits a grand slam into the bleachers of goddamn happiness.

“RJ! You’re deceived by the devil! You aren’t really happy! You’re living a lie! Really! You’re living life selfishly, and for all the wrong reasons!” Ahhhh… the Jesedi mind trick! I see. I’m deceived by a myth, created by your skydaddy myth? I’m not really goddamn happy when I smile, laugh, soak up the sun, admire the moonlit sky, the stars? I’m not really goddamn happy when I stand in awe of the power, simplicity, and complexity of nature? I’m selfish even though I know and show compassion, empathy and sympathy? I’m selfish even though I give when I can, and expect nothing, nor care for, anything in return? Wow! What part of my goddamn happiness do they not understand?

Skydaddy belief is the equivalent of a small, immature child needing parental guidance. It is fear of the big bad world which manifests itself so clearly in christianity. But, instead of parental fears, (an impossibility in this case) the child (i.e. the christian) is afraid to grow up. Clinging to it’s skydaddy’s ankle (or mother Mary’s bosom if they are catholic), the christian never grows past the terrible two’s. Forever dependent, forever afraid, forever living life in a high chair, the christian becomes a permanent resident, latch key kid in skydaddy daycare. Occasionally they’ll change their own diaper (read denomination) when the shit (read doctrine) gets too stinky, mushy, and intolerable, but they never get to the toilet training (i.e. making conscious, reasoned, logical decisions and trusting in themselves). So, they wander through life, miserable in their squishy diapers, snot dripping from their nose, food all over their face, crying, whining, pouting, throwing fits… How happy can they be?

But, I’m so goddamn happy… I’m reminded of several lines of a rock anthem from the 70′s that best describes my journey from belief to non-belief, and my arrival at my goddamn happiness. From Alice Coopers “I’m Eighteen”…

“I got a baby’s brain and an old man’s heart. Took eighteen years to get this far. Don’t always know what I’m talkin’ about. Feels like I’m livin in the middle of doubt. Cause I’m…Eighteen, I get confused every day
Eighteen, I just don’t know what to say. Eighteen,I gotta get away…

Lines form on my face and my hands. Lines form on the left and right. I’m in the middle the middle of life
I’m a boy and I’m a man. I’m eighteen and I LIKE IT. Yes I like it. Oh I like it. Love it. Like it”

… because I’m so goddamned happy… that I grew up.