Ireland: Where even the atheists go to Mass

last updated 8 January 2015

Ian O’Doherty

Irish Independent

Irish atheists are doing it all wrong, said Ian O’Doherty. I became an atheist simply because I couldn’t accept the “obvious hogwash” that made up the “bog-standard ’80s Irish Catholic upbringing.” Religion simply doesn’t call to me; I “have absolutely zero sense of spirituality.” Yet religious types always insist that all atheists must be “looking for something to fill some gaping, yearning gap in their life,” and now, maddeningly, a bunch of Irish atheists are giving these zealous critics a big batch of ammunition. Last week they held an Atheist Mass in Dublin, with speakers and poetry and—“God help us”—even a choir singing such teenage anthems as U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” What utter rot. “Organizing an atheist church is the spiritual equivalent of a vegetarian eating Quorn that has been shaped and colored to look like meat.” Either worship or don’t: You can’t have it both ways. Nor can you unite people around a shared sense of nonbelief. Evidently, though, plenty of Irish atheists are trying. A few years ago, when I spoke at a rally to protest a proposed law against blasphemy, some demonstrators told me I wasn’t properly representing atheism. “Jesus, how can you be apostate from atheism?” Only in Ireland.