The Light Generation

Here are the things that swirl around my house and my head: it's the middle of the night, and I've taken the upper amount of anxiety and sleeping medication indicated by my doctor. My body is asking for more if it's to sleep, which I cannot give. Ambient light from outside provides just enough to navigate by, but no more than that.

Laptop in my lap, because I touched the black mound on my coffee table and it answered me with an annoyed prrrt. He's not supposed to be on the coffee table. Oh well. 

I am still angry to my core; I didn't know I had an aquifer of rage so voluminous. It's not that I was unaware that horrific injustices worse than the loss of Roe v. Wade happen around the world frequently; of course I knew that people in the US and beyond have been fighting them for longer than I've been alive. I thought, especially for Taiwan, that I had been regularly tapping into that cold, clear fury. I, too, am surprised it runs deeper. I suppose this is the difference between being an ally and being a person directly affected. (Even though I'm safe as a Taiwan resident, I'm still a US citizen with a uterus that is probably capable of bearing children.) 

This is affecting not just my sleep, but my work and life. It's a vise of anger during all hours, productive and not, that the infuriating debate over which human rights I get to have, and which I don't because I was born with complicated innards -- as decided mostly by people with different, simpler innards -- has even more real consequences.

It clarifies a lot, realizing that the people out there who thought they had an honest argument for why you are more of an egg sack than a human actually won something. But then the whole room fills with smoke.

While trying to manage my ire from Taiwan -- where I'm not of much help, but have been hunting for and donating to various sources -- I've been confronted with a more troubling self-truth. So many of the dark thoughts I know I should be managing, as I did during my first anxiety outbreak in 2020, aren't going away. What's worse, that's very clearly because I do not want them to. I won't detail every violent event I've imagined celebrating (most of them circle back to Molotovs; it's actually rather boring and repetitive -- Molotov this, Molotov that, you know, the usual). 

It is hard to focus beyond this shrieking wall of inchoate rage, to try and envision a world I don't want to burn to the ground. Yes, a single court ruling taking away my basic humanity in the country of my citizenship turned a boring center-left normie lib into a flaming anarchist.

But I don't want to talk about that. Too much, anyway.

Instead I'll focus on a deeper intransigence -- family. 

Friends and social media connections are easier to deal with -- if one supports the hijacking of a uterus for any reason, in ways we don't even violate corpses, then it's blammo for you. Get out of my life; we are not on speaking terms.

Family, though?

I love them very much. Many of them, I know, understand the importance not just of a woman's right to privacy and choice. Many understand that even if you support your loved ones, if you vote for people who will hurt them -- officials who have made it their life's work to do just that -- your support is shallow and hypocritical. 

Others, however, are less clear. People who have always been good to me, but drop hints that they voted for Trump, don't think I deserve full humanity as a woman, people who love me because we're related but genuinely wish that someday I will understand that God is real, and he prefers that women have subhuman status, not equal rights. 

Of course, I will never understand that because it is not true. 

I do not know who believes what exactly, because I'm afraid to ask. I have made it clear that I do not wish to be on speaking terms with anyone who thinks it is acceptable, should the circumstance arise, to force me to give birth to a child I do not want. But I'd prefer not to directly tell family members I care about that I cannot speak to them -- not until the federal law changes, or their opinions do. It would be fairly easy from Taiwan; I don't visit the US much anyway, and these are all extended family. It's hard to pull that plug, though. I both comfort and torture myself with the realization that they probably know exactly how I feel. 

There is nothing in the modern world that offers respite, let alone answers. The drugs don't make me worse, but they certainly don't work, either. So, of course, I turned to a book I cannot read. 

Last month, my immediate family and I spent a week cleaning out a packed storage unit. Inside were a stack of my great grandfather's books, mostly in Armenian. I asked an Armenian genealogy group to help translate the titles, and most turned out to be somewhat bland ecclesiastical reference materials. A plain brown tome simply called "Sermons" by a man surnamed Papazian. "The Radiance of the Bible" had a straightforward image of a Bible surrounded by light rays on the cover. These stirred no feeling, and I set them aside. A few I kept, even though I don't read or speak Armenian: most were cultural histories, one had stunning illustrations. 

The only religious title I kept was The Light Generation. It's a history of the Armenian Evangelical Movement, bound in dark leather decorated with swooping floral patterns. 

I wasn't attracted to it just for the cover: I'd already started playing with the words. The Light Generation. The Generation of Light. The Lightweight Generation, floating away like spent dandelion puffs as the diaspora spreads. A Generation of Lightweights, unable to fight as their descendants would for what is right, instead clinging to batty old conservatism. Or maybe we're the lighter generation; after all, they survived a genocide. 

The Generation of Light -- the light we make. Things are dark now, but we can generate light. Our generation can bring it forth. Or theirs did: maybe they were the Light Generation -- the light needed for their times, not ours -- and we have the Sisyphean task of finding our own light.

I can't read a single word of this book, much as I never had the chance to meet the man who owned it, and was too young to appreciate growing up with his widow, my great-grandmother. It's on my bookshelf all the same.

In the past year, I've been working through some heavy mental stuff by finding connections to past and family through amateur genealogical research. It would be a lie to say I haven't begun to write about it as well, but I'm unprepared to discuss the type and extent of that writing just yet. 

I can say this: people from the past are so much easier to work with. Most likely, I disagreed with almost all of them on social issues, perhaps even more strongly than I'd disagree with my conservative relatives now. 

But they are gone, and they did things I will never do. Surviving a genocide, watching your father led off to die, engaging in vigilante justice against criminals in your village, leading a church, raising three children, emigrating as refugees to the United States, rebuilding a family separated for months by arbitrary quota systems. Bringing their lives and images back into a living person's memory means I can accept that they (likely) believed things I wound find abhorrent, but I don't have to have a conversation with them, and considering their historical legacies in their own right is worthwhile regardless. It's a route back to family when I am not sure what extended family I can actually talk to right now. 

Certainly my mind could use the generation of some light. Rather like the dark living room, made moodier from the cool blue screen of a computer that should not be open, I don't know where to go from here. I've donated to all the resources, rage-posted for days straight. I don't know that any of it generates a speck of light. Maybe I'm a lightweight. I feel like I generate nothing; my generation has nothing.

Another book on my shelf (A Latter Day Odyssey by M.M. Koeroghlian) describes the ecumenical questions that beset the Armenian Evangelical Church in Athens, during the time that my great-grandfather worked there. The seminary and church community was plagued by dissent for a time, between conservative "mainline" types who believed in "simple" faith. That is, dogmatic faith in which a religious teaching is true because it was revealed to be true through miracles and scripture by in some way by an interventionist God. Believe in that God and his "miracles" and your path is correct. Do not ask questions.

These mainliners were worried that the School of Religion was teaching more "modernist" scripture: deist views eschewing 'revealed truth' and associated miracles, pointing instead to an innate knowledge of right and wrong in everyone, through which an understanding of God could be found through reason and observation of the natural world. Not religious strictures handed down by an angry God who blesses and smites, but moral guidance woven into the natural way of things.

Theoretically, according to this philosophy, even non-Christians could be good people worthy of Heaven if they understood and followed these natural laws. (I suppose these pastors felt it would be better, however, if the non-Christians converted.) 

Despite my own atheism, given what I know of my great-grandfather's personality, I have every reason to believe he was more of a modernist, not someone who put much stock in miracles or dogmatism.

As an atheist, I don't really believe in any of this, but there is some room in my thoughts for natural law and ethics. Of the schools of Christian theory, this is one of the least offensive. For what it was at the time, I can say it generated light.

Of course then, the question is: which ethics are natural? Would these enlightened Christian modernists of the early 20th century now accept that women's bodily autonomy is a fundamental human right, to be protected at any cost? 

I doubt it. 

But they probably would have believed that, even if a woman terminating a pregnancy ought to feel sorry for her "sin", that God would not smite or strike her or anyone over it. No cataclysms. No disasters. Just a choice she made, for which only God could judge her.

I don't believe this either, as it is quite plainly not ethically wrong to terminate a pregnancy. It is ethically wrong to deny a woman her humanity, even for a moment. There is no special case that changes this natural logic.

They likely wouldn't have agreed with me. But their light generation has passed, and mine is alive. If they believed an appeal to reason and natural law would return sufficiently consistent ethics across vast swaths of generational and cultural shift, they were mistaken.

This story is a difficult one. The road to the past is complicated, and in parts I have to fill in what I think happened. It's not so simple as saying I'm mentally sinking, but seeking solace in the stories of the past. I don't agree with everything those from the past would say. I'm not yet uplifted. I do not float.

But maybe the modernists of the past would be able to grasp that cultural norms do, indeed, change over time. That if nature reveals truths to us through reason, that our interpretation of that reason would certainly change as our society does. That what was seen as  "good" or "right" in the past may not be now. And perhaps that the god (and the good) they believe in simply would not want women to suffer and die. 

I don't know what The Light Generation says about any given generation in the history of Armenian Protestantism. Even if I were religious, I can't read or speak Armenian, so I doubt I'll ever read it. I don't even know if the title, in its original language, allows for such wordplay: Armenian is an Indo-European language, but it sits on a lonely branch. I do not know if generation can have two meanings in it, just as I don't know if those who once read it would think I'm improperly using their stories, or updating them for a new era.

But I have decided that every generation has the opportunity to be the Light Generation. Generating light isn't hard; some moral questions are complex, but some are quite clear. 

In this case, uphold women's unquestioned equal access to human rights at all times -- in fact, anyone's equal access regardless of their reproductive organs -- with no exceptions.

Maybe it's just a thread to hold onto -- long-dead ancestors who can't talk back, when I'm not sure who I can speak with alive. I can't even say it will be a useful road to get my own mind out of the dark pit of unmitigated fury, to a place of light generation. Perhaps it will. 

Or perhaps not.

 

Gods Rush In Again: My Latest for Taiwan Scene

You might remember that I had a short non-fiction story published in an anthology of stories by expat women in Asia, all the way back in 2014.

Well, with the King Boat Festival coming once again - it kicks off on October 28 this year and ends one week later - Taiwan Scene has excerpted my original story and published it here:

Gods Rush In at the King Boat Festival

Although a few sections are lost - an exploration of the cultural issues surrounding being a female spirit medium, a longer discussion of my own (continued) atheism despite the peculiar and perhaps somewhat chimerical events I experienced on the beach that day in 2012, the fact that my own wishing plaque on the King Boat was for Taiwanese independence - I'm excited that the story might now reach a wider audience.

Until now, it was impossible to read unless you bought the whole anthology (which you can still absolutely do, and which I recommend, but may be difficult for someone without a Kindle device or app in Taiwan), so having a section of it available to all Taiwanese readers is great news!

Ideological Bedfellows (Part 1): I Am A Palimpsest

You probably already know that I'm an atheist. Have been basically forever. I'm going to tell you why I'm an atheist because I like talking about myself, but also because I think it is a useful tangential point to the one I'd like to make.

At least, I hope it is. After writing this, I realized how much it rambles. I would not call it my best writing. But, I feel like sharing, so enjoy.

The reason I want to tell you now is that it's a riff on this very good article by a woman who left her job at the evangelical Morrison Academy in Kaohsiung over differences of belief in marriage equality and her right to post about same on social media. So, this does concern Taiwan, I promise you, if you stick with me.

When I was around six years old, I figured out that there was no Santa Claus. I'm not sure exactly when I told my parents this, because at around the same time, my logical deduction about the impossibility of everything about the Santa myth led me to the logical deduction that some old sky-livin' dude who miraculously knew and controlled everything (and yet we had free will? Though I didn't call it that at that age), whose only reward or punishment for the good or the bad was to go somewhere after we died, with no proof of that offered whatsoever, and the only salve for the truly unfortunate was a combination medication of a.) it's a part of some "plan" so it's "okay" (or something?) or b.) God loves you and controls everything but it's not his fault, and you get to go to Heaven after you die in whatever awful way, and the people who built a world in which you suffer will themselves suffer no earthly punishment, with no sign that post-mortem justice is even a real thing was, you know, possibly also deeply illogical and at odds with the world as I observed it.

I told my parents this very offhandedly: as a child, I didn't comprehend that perhaps they knew one impossibility was impossible, but actually believed in another. I was surprised when they reacted badly.

In short, I was born without whatever gene may lead to faith. I do not feel it is a great loss.

I never did change my mind, though my parents' reaction was so adverse that I pretended to for awhile. I went to church (I had to), I even taught Sunday School and sang in the choir, among other things. I was confirmed. I said nothing more about it, because discussion of it was, while not forbidden (my parents were always fairly liberal, in fact), not especially welcome either.

This does not mean that I made a decision as a child and have stubbornly refused to rethink or challenge it in the years since. Several times I've gone back and questioned that lack of faith, wondered if my early rejection of it was mere childishness. So far, none of my challenges has been successful. I remain an atheist. The world as I observe it is still logically inconsistent with pretty much every monotheistic religion and I'm not interested in pretzeling my thoughts into accepting both when it is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer. 

Why on earth am I telling you all this? Oddly enough, so that perhaps you can understand that, in fact, I am not anti-Christian or even anti-religion.

Right. I know. Back that truck up. What?

My parents' church is a liberal one. They were pro-marriage-equality before it was the law, and around the time of my mother's funeral, rainbow flags were planted outside the building. This was a solid six months before Obergefell v. Hodges. Although there are perhaps a few Frozen Chosen among the congregation, the bent of their scripture curves toward acceptance and love. You know, the teachings of Jesus.

From years of growing up in it, and as a closeted apostate teenager, teaching it, I can say that there is nothing about the teachings of Jesus that contradicts my own personal belief system. I may not believe in God, but I think of Jesus as a great philosopher. Just because he didn't have a sky dad doesn't mean his words aren't worth heeding. The pastor of that church married us; I respected him quite a bit as a person (he has since retired; I also have a great deal of respect for the new reverend). I actually love this part of Christianity - the part that matters: love thy neighbor, let he who is without sin cast the first stone, judge not, do unto others and more. Notably, he said not a word about being LGBT in any way. There was a benefit to growing up Christian: this aspect of the faith wormed its way into my humanist ethical code.

Furthermore, most of my family and many of my friends are Christian (or Jewish, or Muslim). To take a dim view of faith of any kind would mean taking a dim view of them, or judging them. I simply don't take that dim view - I've seen how faith has helped them through crises, eased their final months and days, informed their laudable belief systems and actions and been something generally valuable to them. It may not make sense to me, but it makes sense to them. I cringe a bit, in fact, when militant atheists pan all believers. That's my family, dude. They're not idiots or lemmings. Shut it. 

In short, my break with faith had nothing to do with social conservatism or other beliefs. I still believe, on a human level, what the church I grew up in taught. I have no problem attending their services, I even contribute to the donation plate with a clear conscience. The break was spiritual - or, if you like, supernatural - only. In earthly respects my ethical code does not differ much from them, and we along well.

If you are curious, I did later 'come out' (if you can call it that) as an atheist to my family. They seemed to have forgotten about the first time and weren't pleased, but they more or less accepted it. Their social beliefs and mine are still similar - I am somewhat more liberal, but none of them are particularly socially conservative and on those issues I'd put them mostly at left-of-center. Not only is there nothing in liberalism or progressivism at odds with Christianity as per my upbringing, but in fact the two are a natural fit.

And why did I tell you that?

Because I do not believe, given my upbringing, that Christianity is fundamentally at odds with social progressivism in general, and marriage equality in particular. This should be obvious, but there are many - as in, far more than you would think - Christians who believe the brand of Christianity I grew up with, the one I feel is in fact most like the teachings of the person for whom the religion is named, is "not real Christianity" and people like my parents are "not real Christians". For whatever reason, they have decided that when it comes to scripture, their interpretive authority is irrefutable and lesser Christians - like, say, my family and many of my friends - are just as damned as those terrifying horror-movie atheists. Why? No idea. Certainly that's not anything Jesus ever actually said.

An atheist

(from here)

There are also many atheists who don't see this: they lump together all Christians into a reviled group they see as reactionary haters. Either you're a brainwashed sheep or an enlightened freethinker. I'm not okay with that - it's Bible-thumper judgmentalism dressed up as scientific rationality, veiled with condescension.

However, I'm going to do what I just criticized more fundamentalist Christians for doing, but hopefully call out their No True Scotsman fallacy.

They may think that the liberal, kumbaya Christians I grew up with are "not real Christians", but you know what? I don't think they are real Christians. In fact, the existence of such vile judgmentalism and closemindedness, to me, is further proof that God does not exist. Those who would seek to take away others' rights, in some cases deeply affecting their lives, go unpunished while those whose rights are taken away suffer. No succor or recourse is offered except for some nebulous concept of judgment after death, or the idea that there is a "plan" that accounts for this. Neither is a satisfactory explanation. I've already been over why I don't accept this model of the universe, therefore, such people are proof, to me, that there is no God.

People like them have been able to successfully delay, and in some cases block, marriage equality. That is, acting in the name of a philosopher who preached love, tolerance and equality, they have denied an entire group of people basic human rights. In some countries, they have successfully criminalized homosexuality.

What God worth believing in would allow this? Who, exactly, is going to be punished after they die if there is an afterlife?

If they are going to open the door to some people who claim to be Christians not "really" being Christian, there is nothing to stop more liberal Christians from throwing it right back on them.

If you - generic you directed at this particular type of "Christian" - do not believe in marriage equality, honestly speaking, I do not think of you as a real Christian. You are merely a bigoted person looking for a preacher to affirm your own shitty dogma. I know real Christians, and unlike you, they are good people. You probably do not believe me, being a scary atheist and all, but believe this: the folks who actually follow Jesus' teachings about love and tolerance are laughing at you, and if there is a Hell it is full of people like you.

Basically, I see no reason why Christianity and marriage equality cannot be bedfellows. The argument I have heard many times in Taiwan is that opponents of equality feel that way "because of their religion". They're Christian - to be Christian (in their view) is to take what they call a "traditional" view of marriage. What that is supposed to mean exactly - or rather why it means what they say it means - I'm not sure.

I am curious which "traditional marriage" they are referring to, or rather, why they've decided only the first one counts, based on a book that allows all of the above.

From here

It does not, however, have to be that way. Churches that truly follow the teachings of Jesus could be some of the greatest allies in bringing equality to all. I'm aware of the historical reasons why Taiwanese churches tend to be more conservative on the whole than the American churches I know, but it simply does not have to be such an ideological divide.

In fact, if I have to pick a reason or point for why I'm writing all of this, it's to remind people that in the USA the equality/anti-equality divide is not one entirely based on religion. Most objections to human rights for all seem to be religious in nature, true, but like the church I grew up in, often in the US some of the strongest support, and often some of the most important groups spreading the word in a way persuasive to more conservative elements, are progressive churches. Taiwan doesn't need to get rid of Christianity (though frankly I don't think there was anything wrong with the local religions and see no reason to import a new one - it's not superior), though it could stand to dial back how much influence churches have in politics, which far outweighs their actual representation in society. What they need is more progressive Christianity to be on offer.

In fact, I've heard several Christian friends in Taiwan complain of just this: they want to worship, but they can't find a church that squares with their beliefs, and can't bring themselves to attend a church they view as antithetical to their values of love, equality and charity.

I have no idea how to do this: as an atheist I'm certainly not the one to be doing it, and progressive Christians tend not to become missionaries (though some are). The missionaries here, and the connections the established churches have to the US, are all deeply conservative and entrenched. It does feel like wishful thinking.

So, Christianity in Taiwan seems wedded to intolerance - they are currently ideological bedfellows. I feel like this relationship is not the most compatible one, though, and Christianity needs a new partner. I want to say that for those of us on the side of equality, then, perhaps rather than dismissing all anti-equality opponents it would be prudent to offer up that new ideological combination as a way to support equality while maintaining faith. I really do. However, as an unrepentant cynic, I'm not so sure it would work within an acceptable timeframe. Fighting post-truth belief is difficult, and the road is not yet well-trodden. We don't have years. This matters to people's lives.

This is, then, why I was heartened to read Brandt's message. When faced with dogma or love, she chose love. The ideological divide does not have to run along the religious divide in Taiwan.

That said, after the first few supportive comments (I know - never read the comments! But I did) I was then saddened to see the rationalizations that people who thought of themselves as good Christians gave for wanting to deny rights to others. I'm not going to get into an advanced ecumenical debate, so let's just say I find the "love the sinner, hate the sin" argument lacking for all the reasons you can imagine. If you hate something that is an intrinsic part of someone else, you cannot then wholeheartedly claim to love them, as much as you might like to. It's as stupid as saying "I love my black friends, but hate their blackness". "I love my Vietnamese friends but hate the sin of being born Vietnamese". "I love my daughter, I just hate that that she's female." It's no better. What you are doing is dressing up bigotry with fake 'love' in order to make yourself feel better, because it sounds a little more like what Jesus might have said (which is what makes people like Katy Faust so dangerous - it sounds plausible to someone trying to reconcile religion with caring for a human being who does not epitomize that religion's moral code, but is in fact not plausible) - without considering that sin is a choice but homosexuality is not. That people are going to be gay whether you want them to or not, whether you think your sky friend likes it or not, whether you give them rights or not. It is not a sin any more than my having a vagina is a sin (though the Internet sure seems to think it is), because it is not a choice. 


This is what we need to fight, but I am not sure at all that it is possible.

Taiwan, in an Atheist's Eyes

This is one thing that's been on my mind recently, as I make arrangements to go to Donggang for this year's King Boat Festival, which centers very much around gods (or god-like beings) and how they are worshipped in Taiwan.

I'm an open atheist (used to be agnostic, but some life events changed my mind and hardened my views) - and very much a secular humanist in my moral code. This has led to problems in the USA - I do still have family members who aren't happy about, or don't accept, my lack of faith and who have said so openly. I've had people just assume I'm Christian - I was asked "where's the reception" a few times when planning our wedding (the assumption being that the wedding was in a church) and shocked people by revealing that I had no intention of getting married in a church, even if we were married by my parents' pastor.

I've had my beliefs questioned, been told I'm "wrong", and had people say - as well as seen many a comment online - about how I'll eventually "find the way" or some such. I know that I can never run for public office (not that I ever would!), because I won't hide my beliefs as many secular politicians do and an atheist is more or less unelectable. I've sat through a work event in which an award recipient spent 20 minutes talking about God. I was happy he found fulfillment in his faith, and some mention would not have bothered me, but 20 minutes? At a work event? I'd rather that work be a place where faith may be mentioned briefly but is otherwise not an issue up for discussion. It still would have been fine if he'd kept it to personal anecdotes of faith, but all the talk about how it's the "one true way" and the implication that this is what "good people" believe really got to me. Would he stop thinking I was "good" if he knew what I really thought? And why was it OK for him to talk about God for 20 minutes at a work event, whereas if I'd won the award it would have been extremely gauche for me to talk about my lack of faith for even a second? Not that Id've wanted to - just sayin'. It wouldn't have been acceptable in the same way.

I get the very strong sense when I'm back home that my lack of faith is an issue and something people would worry about if they knew me. I've had friendships fail to grow because being a part of a community of faith was extremely important to the other person, and not something I could share in. I had one relationship - a bad relationship, but it happened nonetheless - in which faith was an issue: I didn't mind that he was Christian, but he sure seemed to mind that I wasn't (and seemed surprised to learn that I wasn't: I honestly believe he had this idea in his head that good people are religious in a way he understands, and atheists are sketchy people, and since I was a good person, it shook his worldview that I did not share his belief). In another, faith was not an issue, but had the relationship lasted - good relationship, not right for me - hed've been OK with me not converting, but would have wanted any children raised Jewish. Leaving aside my desire to remain child-free, that was not going to work for me.

And, of course, the constant reminders that, despite a separation of church and state, that there's quite a bit of church in the state. I'm not leading the charge to take God off of our money, out of our pledge of allegiance (I always mouthed the words anyway and have very little allegiance to the USA) or take Bibles out of the halls of politics or the justice system: I've got better things to do than that. All it does for me is serve to remind me that I don't fit in, that I'm not one of "them", that there are a lot of people who'd view me as a weirdo or outsider for being an atheist.

And, you know, as someone who has no faith but is interested in how faith is practiced around the world, I do like to visit temples and churches, and I do like to observe religious customs when appropriate. It feels kind of weird, however, to have a look inside a church in the USA - even though I'd probably be welcome if there were no service going on, or be welcome to sit quietly and listen to the service if one were, it would label me as someone who shared the beliefs of those in the church. It would be interpreted in a way I am not comfortable with - so I don't.

I will say that this is not a problem among my friends. They are either atheist, secular, "spiritual" (as in they believe in a supreme being but aren't interested in organized religion), culturally religious (as in "I'm Jewish, I guess, but whatever" or "I celebrate Christmas because it's fun but that's about it") or are religious but respectful of differing views (which is cool - unlike women's rights, racism, certain views on poverty and gay rights, this is not an area where a difference of beliefs causes me to question someone's character). It's more of a family (not every member of my family, but some) + everyday life issue.

Then, I moved to Taiwan.

And...it's great. Religion is just not an issue. Nobody cares that I'm atheist - even my Taiwanese Christian friends. Well, I am sure some of them care, but we respect each other and don't talk about it. I don't feel like they worry about my eternal soul the way people back home might, or judge me for it. I can go to temples - fine, nobody cares. I can even light incense or draw a fortune stick. Nobody cares. Even if I say openly that I don't believe in something...OK. That's fine. So what? I can go to festivals and watch temple parades, and it's all cool. Nobody will come up to me and ask me if I want to chant a sutra or join their fellowship group. There's no cultural equivalent I can find (anyone?) to Bible study so I can't even make a comparison there.

"I don't really believe it either," some will say, "...but Grandma wants me to do this so I'll just do it."

"Does Grandma know you don't believe it?"
"Yes, but she doesn't care. As long as I do it she's happy." or "I don't know, she's never asked. It's probably not that important to her whether I believe it or not."

Imagine that - while some of that's true with my family: they know I don't believe but would prefer I go to church with them anyway, but there's still this lingering hope that I'll find my way back to the path they want for me. Grandma Huang doesn't worry about it in the same way.

If I tell people I'm an atheist - which I only do if asked, or if the person is a very good friend - the reply is generally "cool". It's just not a big deal. So much of life in Taiwan centers around religion: Tu Di Gong shrines, temple parades blocking the street, the lunar calendar cycle of holidays, the fortune telling required before marriage or baby-naming, the "yellow" almanac telling people when they may do things, and yet if you don't participate, or just observe, or go through the motions without believing, it's not a problem.

Best of all, you don't have to worry that someone's faith will come with a pre-set belief system. I realize that not everybody who is Christian shares the same beliefs - Stephen Colbert has been quite the shining example for the liberal, irreverently faithful, to the point where I refer to my liberal Christian friends as "Colbert Christians" - but there's really no fear in Taiwan that someone who genuinely believes in praying to Guangong or Matsu will let that belief influence their opinion in other areas. In the USA, I always have a moment of worry when talking to a new person who has professed a faith - so, do they think gays are evil because someone told them it's in the Bible? Not necessarily, but it happens. Do they believe that a woman's place is subservient to a man's, because that's what they've been taught is God's way? Again, not necessarily but it happens (am thinking of a blog I was reading once in which the blogger said something along the lines of "well, it makes sense that a household should only have one head, and the Bible says that's the man so I accept it to be so"). Are they going to be super conservative and go all ape-shit about Obama being a Secret Muslim or have retro views on sex in society? Not necessarily, but again, it happens. I've had such a debate - and at the bottom of it, the other person believed that pre-marital sex was wrong for religious reasons. Fine if she's just applying it to herself, but she was judging others for their choices - and how do you even have that debate when you don't agree on the fundamentals? What do you say when what you want to say is "I can't agree with you, because your views is based on a belief in a God that I do not share"?

In Taiwan, I love that someone can believe, or not, and have their views without worry or the need to reconcile them with their beliefs: nobody's going to go all "Tu Di Gong says gay sex is wrong!" (hey, that rhymes). Nobody's going to say "well because I pray to Hua Tuo, I believe that women should be silent in temples". You can believe in Tu Di Gong, or not, and it has no bearing whatsoever on how you feel about women or homosexuality. I realize there are Christians out there with similar worldviews, but it seems to me like those views would require at least some thought and reconciliation with the teachings of the Bible.

Are they going to assume that because their way is the right way, that I necessarily agree? Like that one  Western couple I was chatting with awhile back - I said something about the fat, laughing Buddha - and the guy said "well you know he isn't real, right? You know there's only one true God and it's not him?" and I was all..."uh...there is no non-awkward way to respond to that". Which, again, it's socially sanctioned in the USA for him to say that, but not for me to talk openly about my beliefs. Why? And Taiwan is so much better in this regard because I can speak openly if I choose without it getting awkward.

Nobody will make you feel like a weirdo. Nobody will make you feel like an outsider. Nobody will make assumptions about you, or be shocked that such a good person doesn't believe in the Baosheng Emperor or Matsu. Nobody will judge your character. You don't have to worry about people's reactions to your atheism. Religious displays - especially festivals - are as much cultural as they are religious, like the bling-blingiest bits of Christmas parading down the street every few weeks. Observing a festival or going to a temple is not linked to an assumption about belief - it's linked to a cultural practice.

People in Taiwan tend to joke about the local folk religion all the time - and nobody's offended. You can make a joke about Wenchang Dijun, Guangong or Confucius's birthday ceremony and people will laugh sincerely. It's just not a big deal. You don't have to worry that you've offended someone - "you can't say that about the City God!" is not something you'll hear crossing anyone's lips.

You can just...be.

And it's great.