{"id":2047,"date":"2015-08-06T17:32:07","date_gmt":"2015-08-06T17:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/?p=2047"},"modified":"2015-08-06T17:32:10","modified_gmt":"2015-08-06T17:32:10","slug":"black-atheist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2015\/08\/black-atheist\/","title":{"rendered":"Black atheist"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s this huge elephant in the black america room: religion.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I grew up non-religious in my foster family and then my Catholic dad adopted me, tried to get me into it but gave up when I just didn\u2019t believe. As a kid it was easy for me to dismiss religion: God is good? Then why don\u2019t have I my parents? He ain\u2019t good with me so fuck him, I didn\u2019t start the beef. Pretty sure a black church \u2013through the power of music- would have converted me to a bigger extent but you know, white Catholicism in Europe is probably the best way to not make you religious, ever.<\/p>\n

But it was deeper than that. Religion just didn\u2019t fit the 80s, technology, rockets etc. Like, not at all. Go home religion, you\u2019re drunk.<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s why Ta-Nehisi Coates is more feared than appreciated for his glacial and fear-inducing vision of a world where there\u2019s no god. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s where I connect with his writing, when he\u2019s not pushing anything but as pure as possible reasoning and simple facts. Chirurgical, devoid of emotions, precise. He demonstrates that  sorry to be blunt, your prayers didn\u2019t do shit and won\u2019t, that black person will still get killed within systems \u2013street, police, employment- that are all, all of them, human made.<\/p>\n

This, is all there is. As Ta-Nehisi writes it down so well, it is scary to acknowledge that but oddly comforting to know that we humans made this. Because it means we can unmake this too. It\u2019s not hope, a vague notion, it\u2019s a fact like rocks in the desert: we can change what we made. It\u2019s not hopelessness nor a focus on struggle, it\u2019s a focus on the real, big work\/tiny chance we have. That\u2019s all we have. People always seem to prefer fantasy and we\u2019re paying with flesh for that. So much inaction or action that doesn\u2019t change anything.<\/p>\n

I know, around 80% of black people in the US are into religion and go to church. I also know how messed up the relationship has been between black people, Christianity and  History.<\/p>\n

\n

You must resist the common urge toward the comforting narrative of divine law, toward fairy tales that imply some irrepressible justice<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Christianity to me growing up in Europe and studying there, is kind of a cancer that screwed an entire world up. Imagine a bunch of dudes going down Africa like \u201chey lil nigga, you heard about that book?\u201d<\/em>, tricking people into something. The church as a powerful institution is a failure of the state, supposed to provide. So I never had a great, positive view of religion besides watching black people dancing and harmonizing here in the US. We don\u2019t need religion to sing and dance though.<\/p>\n

In the end what frightens me the most is the future and  how religion isn\u2019t helping black people, like making them averse to science for example. It\u2019s still true in 2015 and knowing how the world is shaping up I really don\u2019t like seeing that. It makes me feel I will have to wait more and I don\u2019t want that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s this huge elephant in the black america room: religion. I grew up non-religious in my foster family and then my Catholic dad adopted me, tried to get me into it but gave up when I just didn\u2019t believe. As a kid it was easy for me to dismiss religion: God is good? Then why […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2047"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2048,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047\/revisions\/2048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}