It Happened Again
How can you live without hope?
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that specific question.
It wasn’t a question from a rando. It was someone that I know. To be clear, the person asking this question was sharing a moment of vulnerability. I’m not quite sure why they picked me, specifically. We had only ever had small talk up to this point.
But they initiated the conversation, and I genuinely try to care and show empathy as much as I can. You never know where someone is at in their thought process. It’s important to just be a fellow human being when people need it.
The question was asked earnestly, not maliciously. I didn’t take offense to it, even though all of the assumptions loaded in the question wouldn’t be tolerated if the roles were reversed.
The question came up after this person brought up faith in the discussion in a way that assumed I must share their viewpoint. And this was in a serious discussion about serious things, where jumping into the fact that I don’t agree is a no-win situation.
I diplomatically redirected the conversation back to the situation, and expressed empathy. I obliquely referenced why I deflected, and that’s when they asked it.
I remember that question from both sides of similar conversations. I remember asking it to others, and now I know what it must have felt like to the people I was talking at.
Those particular moments in conversation have become, thankfully, less frequent. But they’ve also become uncomfortable for me…not because I’m unwilling or unable to articulate my point of view…but because the person asking it probably isn’t looking to have a thoughtful conversation.
Even…perhaps especially…if they ask directly to have it.
When I used to ask this question, it represented the “logical” conclusion to my interpretation of non-belief:
Belief provides hope, love, etc.
If you are an unbeliever, then you necessarily reject the things that belief provides.
Therefore, you reject hope, love, etc.
Astute readers will immediately notice: that’s a lot of assumptions and leaps in logic! And I agree with you.
But it felt really true to me at the time.
It’s a question that can only come from deeply believing that your own perspective is inherently the right perspective. Those assumptions happen when you can’t even conceive of there being another way to look at reality.
Over the years, I’ve learned that there are actually very few, genuine instances of people of faith sincerely asking what I believe, and why I believe it. Like…I could probably count them on one hand.
In reality, I’ve found that these questions are often more like morbid curiosity– step right up and come behold the infamous bearded lady! Sometimes, it will have the subtext of a rescue mission. Other times it will stick more clearly to the “circus curiosity” script.
The morbid curiosity quickly turns into cognitive dissonance by the fact that believers often expect for me to be something like the caricature of non-believers that they have in their head: one dimensional; villainous; irrationally arrogant; tirelessly angry at god for being real; hateful at the joy that True Believers™ have; an obvious idiot, etc.
When I don’t live up (down?) to the caricature, it causes intense emotions. They have convinced themselves that they are a good boxer, when all they’ve ever fought is a bag. But now that a real, live non-believer is talking calmly in front of them…?
By the time this conversational threshold has been crossed, things rarely improve. In these conversations, as a former believer, there are certain little rhetorical jabs that Christians will throw in, that are pretty hurtful. So I also had strong emotions, and didn’t react well sometimes, which only ever made things worse.
I used to fall for this behavior cycle a lot, and it almost always ended poorly.
Fool me twice, etc.
To be clear, I don’t think that any believer intentionally sets out to be like this. It’s an accidental byproduct of the worldview itself.
But the net effect is the same: nothing productive.
So how did it go this time?
I don’t know, actually. All I know is that I didn’t have the discussion. The person pressed a bit, and I continued to redirect back to the situation.
I recommended a book that I used to love when I was a believer, that helped me at that time in a related situation. I listened. I empathized. I offered to help.
That’s it.
How that person interprets my actions? Outside of my control.
But, at least for me, it is perhaps one way to answer to the original question: hope is an active choice, not the passive result of a belief.
