Nearer my Darwin to Thee

Mack Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

Nearer my Darwin to Thee

In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis mentions that the elderly tutor who helped him prep for his university admissions exams was an atheist who remained such a dour Ulsterman that on Sunday mornings he wore his best suit for working in the yard.

Similarly, a recent movement among atheists, a movement perhaps enhanced by a gentle softener, is to gather on Sundays to kinda / sorta play at church. These Sunday assemblies are becoming popular, even to the point of mega-not-churches.

One wonders what exactly one does at an atheist kinda / sorta church. Does the service begin with the traditional “I will go to the altar of me, me, me?”

A really scary matter for the children of atheists is that the story of the slaughter of the Holy Innocents would be read with approval, with perhaps a round of applause for Herod’s freedom of choice. Following the reading, the assembly sings “Ave Margaret Sanger.”

Other atheist hymns and carols might include:

The Old Rugged Hammer-and-Sickle
How Great I Art
Good Comrade Wenceslaus
Nothing We Have Heard on High
Nothing Came Upon a Midnight Clear
Go Tell Nothing on the Mountain
At That First Wine-and-Cheese Tasting
O Come All Ye Faithless
O Little Town of Silicon Valley
O Go, O Go, Emmanuel
There is a Health-Care Plan in Gilead
We Gather Together to Ask a 504C Blessing
Amazing Graceless
Play-Doh® of Ages
This Little Energy-Efficient Light of Mine
Shall we gather at the Sewage Recycling Plant?
Nearer my Darwin to Thee
I Heard the Shopping Carts on Christmas Day
Joyful, Joyful, I Adore Me
Away in an Abortion Clinic
Now Thank we all our National Security Agency
Just a Closer Walk with my 4G Connection
All Hail the Power of Hubris’ Name
These Forty Days of Self-indulgence

If the atheist not-a-church thing becomes fashionable, will cowboy atheists and trucker atheists agree that they don’t worship the same God who doesn’t exist? Will rural atheists disdain town atheists? Will some atheists not worship God in Latin, while others not worship God in Greek? Will atheists argue whether L. Ron Hubbard should be read in Elizabethan English or in modern English? Will atheists abstain from food and drink an hour before not taking Communion?

That anyone would gather to worship as a way to deny worship is curious. People who don’t believe in Klingons don’t form associations denying Klingons, and those who don’t believe in fairies and pixie dust don’t put up posters desperately trying to explain how their lives are full, rich, and rewarding without accepting fairies and pixie dust.

But a group of lonely people who have no place to go on Sunday – isn’t that pretty much what those fashionable, overpriced coffee shops are for?

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