This article originally appeared as part of SSA eNews No. 14 - Challenges & Opportunities. 

Joe Dixon is a New York-based comedian who has appeared on Infidel Guy Radio and at presentations across the nation.  Listen to the SSA’s podcast interview with Joe at http://www.secularstudents.org/node/472.  Here, he explores some of the reasons he’s an atheist…or at least, some of the reason’s he’s not Christian!

I am not Christian for the reasons some might think.  I am not mad at God.  Or, if I am mad at God, I’m mad at God in the exact same way I’m mad at the Green Goblin for killing Gwen Stacy in classic Amazing Spider-Man #121.  Actually, I’m probably more mad at the comic book because that plot line helped to usher in those awful clone storylines that made Spider-Man suck so hard.

Okay, on second thought, I am mad at God. I am mad at God for not smiting the idiots at Marvel for making Spider-Man awful. But, if you want to talk about being mad, that would be more God’s thing, wouldn’t it? I mean, having your only begotten son bumped off because two naked people in a garden ate from a tree? That is so not cool.

To tell you the truth, it’s really freaking ‘tarded. For one thing, why would God place a tree of knowledge where humans could get at it if he didn’t want them to eat from it? What, people aren’t supposed to eat? I mean here’s a huge tree with some delicious fruit on it, Mr. Divine being declared you the master of the earth (and by you I, of course, mean men. God is a horrible sexist.) and you can’t have a nibble? What a jerk. And anyway, here He is all powerful and all knowing, you’d think he’d find a better hiding place. When my brothers would bring pot into the house, they didn’t try hiding it from our mother by sticking it in the fridge. God could have put that tree in a place no one was likely to visit, like Mars or San Antonio.

While I’m on the subject, can someone tell me why the snake is the bad guy in that story? How exactly is he tempting Eve? Everything he tells her is true! Read the story of Adam and Eve. The snake is totally honest. He says that the tree is the tree of knowledge. He tells Eve it’ll open her eyes. How can he be evil if he’s right? Oh, wait, now I think I understand why fundamentalists truly hate evolution! It’s the truth. If everyone reads The Origin of Species and accepts it, we’re only going to discover that we’re naked. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are just trying to spare us some embarrassment. I mean, how many of us really look that great with no clothes on?

But hating God is not REALLY why I am not a Christian.  

I am also not un-Christian because I think Jesus was a liar. I most certainly don’t think Jesus was a liar. I think Jesus was made up. I think Christians are the liars. By the logic of believers, death is just one more trip we take. We don’t just decay  when we die: no, we actually go to another place. A happier place! But if they truly believed that then funerals and hospices would be the most fun joints in town. I mean, when I take a trip and it’s one where I am going to see someone I haven’t laid eyes on in a long time, my friends and family don’t make it a habit of  gathering around my body and breaking out into tears as I depart. Wouldn’t a true Christian actually cry at birthdays and laugh at funerals?  I mean, a birthday is just the anniversary of yet another day when you’re not hanging out with Jesus, whereas a funeral is a “bon voyage” as you go off to your dead grandma’s house in the sky.  So why be upset? In fact, why even be against abortion? Let’s say a clump of cells devoid of a central nervous system is really a baby.  Wouldn’t killing it be doing the little tyke a favor? Why isn’t abortion considered just an express trip to Disneyland?

But not thinking Jesus is a liar is not REALLY why I am not a Christian.

I most certainly am not a Christian because Hitler was an atheist. Hitler wasn’t an atheist. We can prove Hitler wasn’t an atheist because, unlike atheism, Hitler at least was popular.  It should also be pointed out that Popes love to denounce atheists. Yet, I don’t recall the Catholic Church being terribly upset when old Adolph was alive and doing his Houdini act of making Jews (and gypsies and homosexuals) disappear. Were atheists running around Europe doing such a thing it’s hard to believe the Church wouldn’t have spoken up.  Or at the very  least, made a speech that would inadvertently piss off the Muslims.

But Hitler is REALLY not why I am not a Christian.

The reason I am not a Christian is because the Bible says we should have faith. But the people in the Bible didn’t have faith. Every time they turned around, there was God.  He was usually bitching and moaning, but there he was. I insist upon the same amount of proof the people in the Bible got. If the Lord isn’t going to stop war or disease or death He could at least make Saturday Night Live funny.  Till then, I am not a Christian.

This article originally appeared as part of SSA eNews No. 14 - Challenges & Opportunities.