“A Committed Atheist”

In an earlier essay, we mentioned, in passing, the description of Hugh Everett (perpetrator of the “Many-Worlds” extension of quantum theory)  as “a committed atheist”.   It suddenly struck me what an odd phrase that is.

We can certainly understand someone being an atheist, just as we can understand how someone might be a divorce lawyer, cosmetic surgeon, bank robber or what have you.   But --- “a committed atheist”?  What does that even mean?  Presumably not “committed” as in “he has been committed” (i.e., to an asylum) -- mere atheism doesn’t get you that, though prolonged exposure to the madness of “Many-Worlds” just might.

Generally a “commitment” to something refers to something tough, that you stick with against the odds.  Like, a commitment to marriage, or parenthood -- for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, through thick and through thin.   But even there, you don’t idiomatically use the adjective -- you don’t usually say “a committed husband” (though you might say “a devoted husband”).  Nor, come to think of it, do you say “a committed astronaut” (though that profession certainly requires major commitments of several sorts), “a committed Senator”, “a committed novelist”, or… much of anything, really.  

Still, nihil humani etc.; and so, in solidarity with my atheist brothers and sisters, I shall now attempt to empathize with what it must be like to be “a committed atheist”, bearing the cross -- well, the Gucci bag -- they must have to bear.

*

The stroke of noon.  An alarm clock rings shrilly, and Everett slaps it down with his hairy palm, pries open his smut-sticky eyelids, and groans.   He staggers to the window, and draws the blinds.

OH NOES !!  The splendor of the Creation stares him in the face.  He staggers back, shielding his eyes with a beefy forearm.  He hastily shuts the blinds, and flips on the bigscreen TV to “Bowling for Dollars”.  A flood of atheistic sentiments rushes into his arteries, and he sinks back into the Lay-Z-Boy with a sigh.

He gives a grim little smile of satisfaction at how he had just managed to foil the wiles of the Big Guy with his own Free Will, his own … uh-oh.  Free… -- Feverishly he hits the channel-changer and is rewarded by the splendid silver head of the Great One, none other than The Donald al-Trump himself.   The thick liquor of atheism purls through his veins, like enriched goat-sperm.   A deeper sigh -- his body feels as good as if he’d just jerked off.

But alas -- it’s a workday, and so he hastens out the front door and (squinting his eyes against the radiant appeal of the sun and the sky and the birds in their nests all warbling in praise of Him), sets his SUV in motion and is soon at the casino, where he works as a pimp.   Yet no sooner does he step outside the tinted windows of his heavily armored vehicle than -- Behold, -- in the East -- like, like a kind of shining, like

=> like shining from shook foil  <=   …

Truly, it’s a tough row to hoe.

(Those who feel their atheist faith wavering  can restore their unbelief here.)