For those who are wondering, mithiest [pronounced me-thee-ist], is not the result of my latest foray into Rodale’s Synonym Finder.  It is my simplistic answer to the rising tide of self-proclaimed atheists. 

During the years of my existence I have met many who claim to be “atheist” but who are really either angry-theists (which I suppose is a-theist) or now a newer category, mirror-theists (mi-theist). I recently commented on a WordPress post, Raising a Churchless Child.  My comment was only one of many.  Most of those commenting were supporting a viewpoint that spirituality should be left up to a child and whatever the child chooses, or chooses not to choose, is acceptable.  I challenged that line of (lack of ) reasoning and received the typical postmodern response: incredulity and personal attack.  The general gist of the original post and the response to my comment is each individual should determine for themselves exclusive of any truth claims about life and spirituality.

In other words the person in the mirror is the final word.

This doesn’t work.  It never has.  Culture depends on mitheism being no more than a minor part of the whole.  In places and times when the individual brazenly and openly exercises personal diety, the end is consistent degradation and eventual destruction.  Let me illustrate.

Several years ago I was shopping for a musical instrument for my kids at a well-known local “hip” music store.  I was in the middle of the store and a fellow was loudly bending the ear of one of the proprietors at the front counter.  This fellow was explaining to the shop owner how he didn’t believe in any religion and how religious people were ignorant and how everyone should do what they thought was right, what gave them pleasure, or made them happy. 

Many who know me, think I am waiting for this kind of opportunity, but I actually hate listening to other people’s conversations and it makes me sick to my stomach to even think of actually intruding.  However this shop guest was carrying on at length and the poor guy behind the desk was an acquaintance of mine and kept making eye contact with me.  He knew I was a pastor and I could tell by the look on his face that he just wanted me to come make the guy shut up.  I ignored the repeated non-verbal requests for at least ten minutes when at last I could tolerate no more.  In all honesty, I just could not find a place in the whole sizable shop where this fellow’s philosophy could not be heard clearly.

I strode to the front, walked straight up to the amateur metaphysician and asked him quietly and politely,  “How about if I put a bullet in your head?”

“What?”

“I said, ‘How about me going out and getting a gun out of my car and coming back in and putting a bullet in your head?’ ”

Both the proprietor and the guest were now ashen-faced.

“Wha-wha do ya’ mean?”

“What if I told you it would make me happy to shut you up by blowing your brains out right now?”

I honestly don’t know what got into me.  The fellow was a lot bigger than me and, who knows, maybe he had a gun.  I didn’t even own one at the time.

“You can’t do that!”

“Why not! You just spent the last fifteen minutes telling the whole store how everybody should do what makes them happy or brings them pleasure and how people shouldn’t force their idea of right and wrong on other people.  What if I told you it would bring me intense pleasure to shoot you in the head right now because I believe it is the right thing to do?”

“Well what I meant was that we should be able to do whatever we want so long as it doesn’t hurt anybody.”

“And who determines whether or not what I am doing actually hurts somebody or not?”

Silence.

“Well society, I suppose.”

“Well, what happens when society decides that it is ok to kill Jews or Blacks or loud guys in music stores?  Is it ok then?”

“Well, um, I guess not?”

“Then wouldn’t it make sense that in order for there to be a right and a wrong that someone, I believe God, must say so?  And wouldn’t it make sense that if there is a God, and I believe there is, that it would be necessary to “force” God’s view of good and evil and right and wrong on those who don’t agree?”

Long silence.  Quick retreat without surrender.  Quiet shop and one relieved shop owner, “You really weren’t gonna shoot him were ya?”

If I were a mitheist, why not?  True mitheists are ones who perpetrate the greatest evils and often are the most successful at convincing others that they are “in the right” as they do it.  I have heard again and again that religion is the source of genocides and other abominations.  In years past I had no retort.  As I learn more and more of human history, I am increasingly convinced that mitheism is the source of evil, not religion.  Yes, a strategic mitheist will draw from a spiritual/religious well, but not as a source of absolute truth.  Mitheists need religion only to justify their own conclusions and if their “religion” makes claims contrary to the mitheist act or belief, that religion is quickly abandoned.

For my part, I regularly ask the God I believe in, revealed once for all in Jesus Christ, to destroy the mitheism in me and to infuse in my secret place a fully yielded heart.