NEWS: Bad Atheist Vol. 1 OUT NOW!
Whew. It’s been a minute, hasn’t it?
There’s a reason I said I wouldn’t initially commit to a regular posting schedule on this Substack, and this is it; with the time a full-time job, trying to grow my body of work, and attempting a personal life takes up, there’s just no room for regular newsletters.
Luckily, this may change soon, because as of a little over two weeks ago, the full-time job is no more! I will probably make another post soon about my difficult last few weeks at the job and how I’m adjusting to being able to spend all my time on my art.
But for now, I have more important news to share…
I have a new zine out!
That’s right, fools. She’s fresh. She’s fun. She’s 5 in. by 6 in. and 40 pages…
She’s BAD ATHEIST VOLUME ONE.
For background, I have a long and complicated religious history that I plan on explaining in more detail on my Instagram in the coming weeks. That history, which consists of everything from confessionals, to cringe youth pastors, to late nights in the university library studying the Quran, has led me to denouncing faith altogether. I’ve been an atheist for the past seven, almost eight, years.
BAD ATHEIST is a serial zine (yes, there will be more editions!) that tells stories about my time in and out of the church.
Anybody who has been shaped by religion in any way knows that it is impossible to adequately express the impact it has. As someone who writes a lot of autobiography, it was inevitable that my work would eventually cover this subject. I am also in a unique position, as someone who has experience with Catholicism, evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity, and atheism, to have my work resonate with a lot of people.
What you can expect from BAD ATHEST VOLUME ONE
Each edition of BAD ATHEIST, including this one, will consist of at least three short autobiographical graphic narratives that tell a story about the presence of faith in my faithless life.
Here’s a rundown of the three narratives Volume One has to offer:
ST. CHRISTOPHER MEDAL: Thoughts upon receiving a gift from my Catholic mother.
THANK YOU FOR THIS DOMINO’S: Breaking down my problems with public prayer and worship.
TWENTY-SIX DOLLARS: A story of a time when, if there is a God, he was speaking to me very clearly.
I’ve also filled the pages with silly little doodles, not unlike the ones I occasionally post on Instagram. One of the doodles in this edition has a Big Lebowski reference for all my Dudeists out there! I decided to do this because it’s fun and hopefully lightens the mood while discussing a subject matter that is heavy for many.
One thing I’m also excited about is the color of the covers… During my short time in the zine scene, I’ve seen a lot of zinemakers print their zine covers on cardstock with varying colors, so I decided to do the same! BAD ATHEIST comes in six different bold shades representing all the colors of the rainbow!
The inspiration behind and thesis of BAD ATHEIST
The idea for BAD ATHEIST came to me in late 2022. My worldview has been developing a lot over the last two years, influenced greatly by thinking critically about media in grad school and getting real world experience working in media over the last year.
Out of this has come a deeper understanding of how beliefs are formed and the role bias confirmation plays. Bias confirmation, for those who do not know, is when someone scans information for evidence that what they already believe is true. In other words… people see what they want to see.
For example, whenever my station would cover one of the charges Trump is facing, we would get complaints from viewers saying the media, including our station, was run by left-wing lizard people. Whenever we would cover Hunter Biden, we would get complaints from viewers saying the exact opposite. If you already believe that mass media has a right-leaning bias, the Hunter Biden coverage is going to stick out to you a lot more than the Trump coverage, even though we were adequately covering both stories, because it confirms what you already believe.
Realizing this made me want to see if I had any misinformed views that were being kept alive by my own confirmation bias. The answer was yes, and doing this has been a huge catalyst for my worldview shift.
But that’s not the point of bringing this up.
The point is that I had to challenge my previously-held beliefs in order to realize this, and that I was terrified to do it.
In the same way a fear was instilled in me during my childhood of questioning the existence of God or the truth of the Bible, I was extremely terrified to challenge my perception of the world. What does it say about the way my worldview has developed when I literally shake at the idea of reading a single Fox News article?
I’ve since shed my fear of reading, watching, and listening to things that challenge my beliefs, but I haven’t stopped thinking about the implication of my fears. By the world’s standards, I’m a bad leftist. I’m a bad leftist because I think listening to what the right is saying about an issue is essential to fully understanding the issue.
I was a bad Christian when I started reading atheists like Bertrand Russell and Bart Ehrman to challenge my faith instead of Christians like Tim Keller and C.S. Lewis.
And I’m a bad atheist. I reject the mainstream, anti-theist, Dawkinsian form of atheism that seems to be a modern requirement for identifying as an atheist. I’m a bad atheist because I love learning about religious teachings and humbly allowing them to influence my personal values. I’m a bad atheist because even though I strongly disbelieve in the existence of a higher power, I refuse to turn a blind eye to the magic in the world.
To be open-minded is to not fit in anywhere. To be open-minded is to shed any sense of identity you once preciously held. To be open-minded is to be bad.
This kind of absolutism is exactly what I left fundamentalist Christianity to escape, but I found it hiding in plain sight in the new world I found myself in. BAD ATHEIST was born out of my own frustration with this societal standard and my newfound desire to embrace my imperfections, my inconsistencies, my hypocrisy.
Because I never felt the freedom in Christianity to be a bad Christian; to be a bad Christian is to not be a Christian at all.
But I’m now an atheist carving her own path, living truthfully, and I’m ready to proudly proclaim that yes, I, Caitlin Cook, am a BAD ATHEIST.
Buy BAD ATHEIST VOLUME ONE here.
xoxo,
cooklin