"Away with the atheists!"

[Difflugia]

A post in which I mentioned The Martyrdom of Polycarp reminded me of a short monologue I delivered to a Unitarian church that I occasionally attend. Each week, the pastor asks congregants to deliver short talks on the subject of his sermon before he delivers it. That week's was to talk about what we would like as an epitaph.

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I recently had occasion to read a Christian document from the second century known as "The Martyrdom of Polycarp." The account is a letter from one church to another that describes the trial and execution of Polycarp, one of the "Church Fathers," at age 86. Polycarp is described as having been brought to the arena to be tried for the capital crime of denying the Roman gods. As he stands before Proconsul Statius Quadratus, the two have one of my favorite conversations from literature.

Quadratus asks Polycarp if he is, in fact, Polycarp. "I am," says Polycarp.

"Have respect for your advanced age," says the Proconsul. "Repent and swear by the fortunes of Caesar. Revile Christianity and those that deny the gods by saying, 'Away with the atheists!' If you do that, I'll let you go."

Polycarp stares out at the crowd of Romans assembled in the arena. He then looks up to heaven, waves toward the crowd and says, "Away with the atheists!"

Now, at that moment, Polycarp knows that the Romans aren't atheists in the literal sense, just as the Romans know the Polycarp isn't an atheist either. Each is using the word "atheist" in a more philosophical sense, to mean someone that denies what they each consider to be an unalterable religious truth. The Romans call Polycarp an atheist because he denies the honor and sacrifice due the gods of Olympus. Polycarp then turns the statement ironically toward the Romans, who deny the salvific power of faith in Jesus Christ.

I see another irony. When the Romans say "away with the atheists," they express their fear that the old religious truths might be replaced with the new ones of Polycarp. When Polycarp says "away with the atheists," it is in hope of a future that he won't live to see, but that hindsight tells us prophetically came to pass. Within a dozen or so generations, Roman paganism would be replaced by Polycarp's faith in Christ.

With awareness of those ironies, I would adopt "away with the atheists" for myself. Indeed, I add a third irony in that I identify myself as an atheist in fact. I also identify myself as a humanist, however. I respect and revere humanity as a whole and the humanity of every living person in a sense that I can only call religious and that I am convinced must be true. I'm sure I don't need to provide examples for this audience, but so many of our contemporaries callously disregard the humanity and human dignity of our fellow travellers, either in service to gods or out of simple selfishness. To them, I say "away with the atheists." Unlike Polycarp, I expect to live out the rest of the day and hope to live many more, but like Polycarp, I expect that I won't see widespread conversion to my kind of humanism in my lifetime. I therefore choose "away with the atheists" as my epitaph, so that others after me may be reminded to say it and they will hopefully impart the same prophetic truth as it had when upon the lips of Polycarp.

Away with the atheists!

[Wootah]

I've never found a humanitarian that deep down doesn't think there are too many humans and actually deep down accepts the necessity of genocide either by nature, Thanos, or other means.

Is that true for you?

[Difflugia]

I've never found a humanitarian that deep down doesn't think there are too many humans and actually deep down accepts the necessity of genocide either by nature, Thanos, or other means.

Is that true for you?

I find that idea repellant.

Whether there are in reality any practical solutions to problems of population versus resources, I can't bring myself to consider any sort of genocide to be "good" in any way. This may be splitting hairs, but I see the problem as too few resources (coupled with inequitable distribution) rather than too many people.