Down in New Zealand, the government has now recognized the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to officiate wedding ceremonies. They are still waiting to be allowed to register as a nonprofit religious organization. At least, that’s what The New Zealand Herald reported over the weekend, First Pastafarian Wedding on the Way. So good for them! Weddings are solemn occasions, and they become even more so when colanders and pirate costumes are involved.

I understand that for actually religious people — especially those of the literalist bent — groups like the Flying Spaghetti Monster represent a bit of a challenge. How does one distinguish between, say, Christianity and Pastafarianism? Usually, any attempts come down to nothing more than: “Well, the idea of a flying spaghetti monster is just silly!” But is it really? Here is what Christianity is in its most basic form: humans are born sinners; to rid them of their sins, God impregnated a woman so his death would wash those sins away; those who accept the martyred demigod get to go to heaven. That is silly to anyone who hasn’t been indoctrinated into it.

The similarly inclined Satanic Temple creates an even bigger problem for Christians, because it uses the exact same mythology, but turns it on its head. So all that Christians can do is say that the Satanic Temple is wrong and “evil,” but they can’t dismiss it as silly. I’ve long been of the opinion that the Satanic Temple offers much better moral guidance than any of the Abrahamic faiths. But the response to it by Christians is to dismiss it because the book they’ve been given says that Satan is bad. Obviously, the Satanic Temple views things very differently. This leaves Christians with nothing but tradition on their hands: this is what they were taught and what their parents believed, so it must be right.

Ultimately, the big knock against both of these religions is that their followers don’t really believe it. But this reminds me of something I heard Robert M Price say. Christian apologists explain away earlier cults that were pretty much the same as Christianity by saying, “Satan knew Jesus was coming so he created these cults just to confuse people.” Price remarked, “What is this?! Salvation through gullibility?” Nonetheless, people claim that freedom of religion means freedom for Christianity and not for the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But what they are saying is that just because the followers of the former are deluded, they should get some kind of special rights that those with less common belief systems should not.

The reason that we have freedom of religion is because people’s religious believes have traditionally been a major source of oppression. And that’s certainly true for atheists and agnostics and mystics. It’s probably even more true for them. So let’s suppose that the followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster really are just involved with it because they are atheists. They still deserve religious protection for the same reason that theists need it. What’s more, why is it that atheists have to hire some professional to get themselves married when their theist friends can get it done on the cheep?

Most atheists hate in when theists say that atheism is a religion. But in the only sense that matters, it is. It is a belief system regarding the unknowable. That’s not to say that atheism is irrational or anything else. But it is in this sense that we can think most clearly about what our rights mean. It shouldn’t be necessary to create the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to make this point. Although it is a lot more fun. Intellectually, I’m pulled toward the Satanic Temple. But my heart pulls me to Pastafarianism — and not just because I look so damned good in a colander.

I came upon a short video conversation from a couple of years ago between Andrew Brown and Daniel Dennett. They are both atheists. But Dennett is a New Atheist and Brown is what I’ve always called an old atheist. This is what I am too. I’m just not interested in converting anyone. I don’t believe in God in the same way that I don’t believe in fairies. But I don’t especially care that other people do believe in fairies. Where religion becomes dangerous is where it becomes political. And as we know from the history of the anti-choice movement in this country, the religion isn’t really what’s important. It’s just a cultural signifier. The politics come first and the religion is used to justify those politics.

But I learned this New Atheist term for my kind of belief: “atheist but.” This is based upon people like me saying, “I’m an atheist, but I don’t care if other people believe in God.” In the conversation, Dennett is highly presumptuous. He claims that such atheists are saying that the “little people” need the fantasy of God and so should be allowed to have it. Brown counters that this is not his position. Among his Christian friends, everyone knows the arguments for and against God and there is no reason to argue about it.

Dennett then gets into a blatantly bigoted tangent about how good churches do harm by giving cover for the bad churches. Brown harmmers him on the issue by turning it around: does that mean that good atheists are worse than bad atheists because the good atheists give the bad atheists ideological cover? I think it is better to think about it in terms of race. Do African Americans who feed the poor do harm by making it seem like there aren’t African American murderers? What’s most offensive about Dennett’s statement is that he implicitly equates all religions: a Christian is a Muslim is a Jain. This is the kind of ignorant hubris that so defines the New Atheist movement.

Brown wrote an article about the conversation, I’m an Atheist but… I Won’t Try to Deconvert Anyone. And in it, he gets right to the heart of this issue of hubris. Even Richard Dawkins admits when it comes right down to it, he is an agnostic. He doesn’t know that God doesn’t exist. But he is as certain of it as he is of anything. I suspect that Dennett believes the same thing. So why the utter hostility toward religious people?

If atheists are against anyone, it should be those who wish to push their religious doctrine onto our secular society. There certainly are a lot of religious people who want to do just that. But my experience is that most religious people do not want to do this. My main interactions with religious people are Jehovah’s Witnesses, and they don’t even believe in voting. I’m really pleased about that! I fear the active aggression of the New Atheists are most likely to make the religious loons more active politically. I don’t think this is offset by more people admitting to their religious doubts — which is all that I think is happening with the growing number of “nones.”

But it isn’t just about organized religion. As I’ve discussed before, there are a lot of New Atheists who are like Tracie Harris. They think that the tepid thinking of New Age people act as some kind of a threat to society. But does it? Isn’t such intolerance toward anyone who isn’t an atheist just another form of tribalism? Whether someone believes in Allah or Yahweh or the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn’t matter to me. I’m interested in more important matters.

Ultimately, I am a humanist. To me, that implies atheism. It also implies allowing others what I consider their minor delusions. But the interesting thing is that I know “spiritual” and even Christian people who are actually humanist. Most of the Sermon on the Mount is humanist. And I know atheists who are most clearly not humanists. If I’m going to get tribal, I’m going to do it with humanism, not atheism. Last weekend, Ted McLaughlin published some data on religion. And it showed that only 33% of Americans look to religion on issues of right and wrong. That’s in a nation that is roughly 75% Christian. Clearly there are a lot of “religious” Americans who aren’t very religious.

As a tribal identification, atheism is uninspiring. And it isn’t surprising that one of the biggest outgrowths of the New Atheist movement has been Islamophobia. Humanism leads us in a better direction.

Do you ever worry that Sharia law is coming to the United States? If you are like most Americans, you don’t even know what Sharia law is — other than some Muslim equivalent to Levitical laws. Regardless, most people don’t worry about Sharia law because, well, there are very few Muslims in America. In fact, there aren’t many more Muslims than there are Hindus. Worrying about Sharia law is about as rational as worrying about Vishnu law. Of course, no one worries about Vishnu law or Buddha law or whatever. There’s really only one group that worries about Sharia law in the US: fundamentalist Christians.

Not surprisingly, it is a matter of projection. You know how it goes. Ever since Watergate, the Republicans have been obsessed with fake scandals involving Democrats because they just know the Democrats must be up to the same things they are. Or look at organized voter fraud. Every time an actual case comes up, it turns out to be Republicans. This is why Republicans know there is widespread voter fraud: because they’re doing it! And when it comes to worries about Sharia law, it comes from the Christian nationalists — because they want nothing so much as to force Biblical law onto our nation.

Case in point: Kim Davis. She’s the charming woman who refused to grant any marriage licenses because God’s law trumped the law she was paid to administer. Well, recently, the Associated Press got its hands on her office email (it is available by Kentucky law). And it shows a woman who is deeply delusional. For example, “I know it, but God is still alive and on the throne!!! He IS in control and knows exactly where I am!!” I still find this kind of thing odd. In the past, people thought that God actually helped them, say, win a war. Now, it doesn’t matter how low they sink, they still think God has their back.

But this is the kind of thing that really disturbs me, “September 1 will be the day to prepare for, if the Lord doesn’t return before then.” For one thing, it is such hubris. As if God really does circle around the trials of Kim Davis’ life. This is what Jesus has been waiting all these years for: someone like Kim Davis to step up and take a bold stance against secular marriages that most churches don’t respect. This is, in fact, my biggest complaint about American Christians: this unwarranted certainly that comes ultimately from them believing what others have told them. Does the Bible say that the soul enters the fetus at conception? No. It’s just something a preacher they trust says.

What’s terrifying is that Kim Davis is not just some freak. We have four men (Of course!) running for the Republican presidential nomination who are also Christian nationalists: Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal. And most of the rest of them support the same policies, and would doubtless become Christian nationalists if they saw it as a way to win the Republican nomination. And it is certainly possible that one of these men could become president. Like I said: terrifying.