Chris Gore

Twice in the last 5 or so years, I have gotten into conversations with coworkers who have learned that I am pretty right wing and a christian. They are usually surprised because I joke around and swear a lot, which maybe I should work on, but thats not the point here. What happens is that we start talking about it, and in both cases, the coworkers were either atheist or vaguely agnostic. They start interrogating me from the classic George Carlin/reddit atheist stance. Its exhausting. But what I find is that when I turn it back to them and ask them what they believe in, they don't have an answer. They do the meme. "Be a heckin good person" is essentially what they say. They've sincerely never thought about it. They don't really have a belief system beyond rational self-interest. They are floating through life like this. They don't feel the need to construct or deconstruct a belief system. They are content to carry out the programming they have absorbed without much question. They always claim to be political centrists and make sure to point out that they want fiscal responsibility (they never have any idea what this would look like or take and constantly vote for people who don't hide their intentions to spend wildly). On the religious side, I will start to ask them philosophical and theological questions, to which they seem to not even understand. They think its weird to even think about or discuss these things. They may have learned about Aristotle but only in a biographical sort of way. They've ever actually had discourse or been challenged about this stuff. As eigenrobot says. They don't have any beliefs to interrogate. These people could be conditioned to consent to mass killings with 2 years or less of really good propaganda