Dogmatic Atheism

My recent relationships, and the mix of sweet and bitter that remains in their passing, has burnt many of my illusions away and given me no choice but to stare long and deep into the reflection of myself that Nietzsche spoke of when he said "If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

This poem is a reaction if you will to the statements around the idea of an atheistic Web Warrior and, while the words are all here, they somehow sound - "wrong." not bad, whiny, rough, or a hundred other things I can think of. Just somehow "wrong." In either case, I give you "dogmatic atheism:."

dogmatic atheism:

A child on his knees at
the knees of old men.
A lifetime he sat,
listened, asked, accepted;
educated in 2000 years
of dogma and faith.

Graybeards grew grayer,
child grew older,
still he sat and still he was taught.

A history of love
replete with violence and deceit.

Never questioning,
always believing what
was passed down was
as true as the destiny
making him one of them;
Graybeards all.

Aging, faith growing deeper;
more brittle;
All led by a man named
Father - not of the clergy.

In a fit of selfish desire Father
disavowed a lifetime of our
young man's elders; did not like their
edicts on his behaviors.

"if the savage of the Amazon
has not been taught,
will he go to hell?"

These questions - many more ran
through our friends mind while
knees began to ache with too
much time spent bent before old men.
Father banished into hell before death along
with all other savages, uneducated beings
across time. Fear, betrayal, deceit,
the bible becomes incarnate.

Having dribbled his rage across time
our friend, now a man, learns
an atheist he has become.

Because he despises dogmas that
shatter lives each day, ruins harmony
without a second chance or thought?

No my dear, not
an Atheist.
Rather one who finds god
within not without.