Mary Eberstadt - The Loser Letters: A Comic Tale of Life, Death, and Atheism

THE LOSER LETTERS

A Comic Tale of Life, Death,
and Atheism

by

Mary Eberstadt

IGNATIUS PRESS SAN FRANCISCO

Previously published material is used by permission of National Review

Cover art:

Front cover photo istockphoto / PeJo29

Cover design by Roxanne Mei Lum

2010 Mary Eberstadt
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-58617-431-6 (PB)
ISBN 978-1-68149-311-4 (EB)
Library of Congress Control Number 2009935087
Printed in the United States of America

For Nick

Letter One:

Letter Two:

Letter Three:

Letter Four:

Letter Five:

Letter Six:

Letter Seven:

Letter Eight:

Letter Nine:

Letter Ten:

An open letter to those spokesmen for the new Atheism who have labored mightily these last few years to sweep aside religions paralytic webs of superstition and prejudice, and to liberate the rest of our Species via Science and Enlightenment :

Dear Sirs,

Speaking just for this Atheist convert, congratulations, guysYou really did it! Thanks to all Your hard work, the rest of us know once and for all that the so-called God, that Loser, is everything You say he is: the biggest fraud of all time, cosmic zero, ultimate no-showand after all those centuries and promises too. Its like throwing the biggest rave ever, only to cancel at the last minute after everyoned already bought tickets and drugs for it. What kind of deity does that, anyway? If this were Facebook, no one would be friending him now.

But You have to admit: that same Loser sure has been great for the book businessincluding and especially all those books on the new Atheism, Im happy to say. Almost a million volumes sold in twelve months time; covers in every major newspaper and magazine; publicity on all the best talk shows and Web sites and campuses; national and international book awards up the wazootalk about knowing how to make something ($$$) out of nothing (Loser)!

It really is marveloussorry; I almost said miraculous there (Im new to the Atheist party and hope Youll pardon any slips)how Your ideas have taken so much of the Western media by storm. Youd almost think Atheism had friends in some pretty high places! Whatever, You probably think we Atheists have earned the right to sit back and chill. I mean, its pretty clear weve won by nowisnt it?

Except, well, maybe notand thats why Im writing You this letter. Because theres one thing thats still missing from Atheisms final victory, and its something that just cant be sugarcoated. Ahem: apart from me, where is the testimony of anyone Your writings have actually convinced? After all, as one of You said somewhere and all of us want to believe, If this book works as I intend, religious readers will be Atheists when they put it down. So where are the rest of them, Im starting to wonderthese other converts (like me!) to the new godlessness?

Im not asking about the numbers to depress any of You. One of the things I love about our sidethe winning side, the Atheist side!is we get that its good enough just being in everybodys face about God not existing, even if no one but me was persuaded despite a few million more books in circulation. And I know that it wouldnt be the first time that Atheism fell short on the convert count. It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly), as our most illustrious Forebear Charles Darwin once put it, that direct arguments against Christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public. And He should certainly know!

Even so, as Your convert, in fact as maybe Your one and only convert, I worry for us. Sooner or later, one of the believers will come along and point out a fact hell think is damaging to this new AtheismI mean, that it hasnt actually convinced anyone. In other words, hes going to paint our side as somehow intellectually unfit. And the idea of being called unfit, to this newly minted Atheist, is just too much to bear. Back when I was a Christian, I was taught to embrace those kind of peopleYou know what I mean, the maladaptives. But as an Atheist, even a new one, Ive learned to despise them all as Natures mistakes. Being put on the losing side would be what You might call a personal devolution for me, something gross and unnaturallike having an opposable thumb and not even texting with it!

And so, to protect us Atheists from that charge before our religious enemies even get to it, Ive decided to write the following Letters to You. They offer up the earnest confession of one whoas someone once said of our fellow Atheist Allen Ginsbergdid not come back from Hell empty-handed. I mean Hell figuratively, of course! Little joke there! But seriously, Ive ascended from the darkness of the believers by clinging to each and every one of Your wordsand I bring with me recent firsthand knowledge of them and their ways that I want to share with You.

About the reasons for my conversion to Atheism, Ill have lots more to say in what follows. But let me first thank some of You for introducing that amped word, Brights, to describe our side. Its meant to distinguish the vigorous and healthy souls of Atheists, as one of You put it somewhere, from those of the believers (sorry on souls BTW). In these pages I want to take that logic of Brights to another levelbecause, of course, if there are Brights, then by necessity our adversaries, a.k.a. the Christians, must be known by the opposite descriptive, Dulls. And so they will be in the Letters ahead.

In short, I offer to You my own conversion storythat of a former Christian who has adapted at last to Atheism. Its a personal tale, by the way, not a point-by-point engagement with all of Your arguments and themes. After all, Im no theologian (and neither are any of You, of course!). But before getting into all that,

Ill start at the beginning: by explaining what kept meand not only me, but a great many other potential converts for our sideaway from Atheism for so long.

Above all, I want all my Letters to be useful . Ive read what Marxist Leninist Atheists had to say, back before they all went to wherever all the Marxist Leninist Atheists went after 1989. And I have to confess, at times I really miss their verve! Dont You? Especially their sense of how the highest purpose is to be useful.

Well, I think the most useful thing I can do here is to show You something of how the Dulls really think from the inside, so You can see what were truly up against in trying to convert them. Just think of me as Your own private Project Runway or What Not to Wear someone who just wants us Atheists to be all we can be.

I do hope everyone reads my story of personal evolution through. After all, its the only one You have, at least so far. But dont let the numbers bother You much. One down, and just a few billion more to go!

Your huge fan,

A. F. (A Former) Christian

The Trouble with Experience

Dear Sirs (again),

First, lets talk about something You Atheist guys all like to talk about (judging by those latest books especially!), which is sex and the role that it plays in separating the benighted believers from the enlightened rest of us.

As I get it, our Atheist position on sex boils down to this: the believers with their tard regulations are all wrong about it, while we Brights have beenIm reaching here for the words that You guys might useso groovy and hip by throwing out the Christian rule book on all that stuff. Or to put it another way: thanks to Atheism and Secularism, more generally, words and phrases like privacy, consenting adults, and behind closed doors are in; and ones like monogamy, self-restraint, and staying together for the kids are out. If theres anything we Brights are all on the same page aboutand again, Ive read all those pages of Yours pretty carefully!it would seem to be this; am I right?