IT’S EASY TO BE AN ATHEIST IN LEBLON

Leitura: 4 min

It’s easy to be an atheist in Leblon. I dare you to be an atheist in the middle of Jacarezinho FAVELA, at 7 a.m. on May 6, 2021.

The comrade gets pissed with me because I explained the reasons why a poor person from the hoods became an evangelical, and here I take the opportunity to criticize the left-wing and the State for not building bridges but walls with them. And then the woke leftists say that I am deluded, a scoundrel, a liar.

The Brazilian left-wing is worse than an artist who can’t handle criticism. A typical guy who lives in Gávea, a typical middle-class neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, who has savings in the bank, milk and meat in the fridge, a car to do groceries, health insurance up to date, a healthy family, is going to think he needs God?

My friend, the Brazilian religious phenomenon is fundamentally based on inequality and scarcity. It is very likely that if there were more schools, more teachers living with dignity, more clean water, more jobs, more health, more culture, more theater, some patriotism, more life, more yogurt for the children and less cemeteries, less shooting, less prison, maybe there wouldn’t be so many churches. If you don’t understand this, you won’t understand what makes a person seek an answer for his or her cruel and violent reality. When the sociology doesn’t explain anything anymore, when anthropology fails to give an answer, when economics doesn’t work for you anymore, when psychoanalysis labels you are crazy, then this underprivileged person waits for the religious experience so that, somehow, in desperation, there is an explanation, even if supernatural, for what naturally they do not find answers for.

And they do not attend the University of São Paulo (USP), one of the best Universities in the whole country.

This person watches cop shows. This person gets information through WhatsApp.

This person, besides being invisible to society, because they are poor, black, with no critical education, are those who do not have all the resources to understand a country with reality as complex as Brazil.

That repressed black waitress, all wrapped up in a servile outfit, working in a bakery in a damn luxurious area as Jardins, again, one of the richest areas, but now from São Paulo, she brings your croissant and your apple cold press juice, which costs about 20 bucks, this girl does not understand why SHE could never eat a 20-bucks-worth a fucking croissant, only the tasteless shredded chicken snack from a kiosk at República Station, São Paulo’s Subway Yellow Line interchange.

She will wonder for DAYS why she can’t have access to the same opportunities the white people have.

Like in Jacaré favela or Jardim Ângela hood, people wonder why they can’t take a vacation in Marataízes Beach, or go to the Jockey Club to see a horse race (ewww).

These people look at the Apple store window and see a cell phone that can cost 15k Reais (Brazilian currency), and they think that if they had 4k Reais, they would remodel their house, buy a refrigerator, a new crib for their daughter, lend money to their friend, open a pot cake shop.

Maybe they would leave the favelas. Because they also don’t understand, WHY ONLY THEY GET SHOT, while you guys, intellectual white readers from the middle or upper-class hoods, WILL NEVER FEEL IT.

The answer to their problem then migrates to the religious phenomena.

Because the Brazilian religious phenomenon is born from inequality.

This could be the Brazilian Genesis:

In the beginning, Brazil created hunger and war.

And the famine was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of every inhabitant. And God said:

Come to the church.

Leonardo Boff, a sensible priest deeply connected with the Divine and with the poor, says this, in a zero-percent-foolish kind-of way.

But I say it full of foolishness. Deep down, that’s it.

In other cultures, I don’t know. The religious phenomenon is born from the experience of transcendence, from observing nature, from the epiphany, whatever. Not in Brazil. Religion here blossoms due to answers to the thousands of anxieties the meager lives with, a product of inequality and poverty.

The more privilege you have, the less understanding and empathy you have towards these people. Regardless if it is a financial privilege, or an educational privilege.

In Germany, Luther created Protestantism because he was an academic, a scholar, and had years to spend crammed into a room studying. He created an arm of Christianity for penny-pinching.

In Brazil, Luther could not stand a half-hour in favelas hills.

And when you tell me that you are an atheist, what God are you an atheist of?

Because “God” is everything to which we attribute absolute value. So, money can be your god.

Your fitness body can be your god.

Your hot Instagram profile can be your god.

Your hot career can be your god.

Sex can be your god.

Food.

Your Prozac prescription.

The psychoanalyst can be your god.

As they say, psychoanalysis is a religion for the rich.

So, you are an atheist. That’s right.

Which God?

You don’t offend me by calling yourself an atheist.

You can be whatever you want.

But we, Brazil, are in the middle of a stormy dawn. The night in Latin America has definitely come. And if you guys prefer to throw the tantrum than to understand that your working-class Brazilian brothers and sisters are in the same boat as you, you definitely need to exercise dialogue, otherwise we are all gonna die. Actually – we already are. Little by little. In the tsunami of the moving average. Or in the police operations.