“Do you think you’re helping? Nothing good comes out of atheism. No morals or no nothing. Your acting holier than thou but really your just in a RELIGION of your own that does nothing good.”
….We’ll look past the grammar and look at the real things being said here:
- Nothing good has ever come out of atheism
- Atheists have no moral ground
- Atheism is a religion
Ready?
What good has come out of atheism?
Inquiry and exploration of science, philosophy, the mind
It’s not easy to deem yourself an atheist. In fact, it’s pretty hard, at least I found it was pretty hard for me. At times I consider going back to agnostic, but I just don’t know where else I can actively search for god, or for proof of some sort of higher being. Evolution has shown me that we logically came about after a miraculous stroke of luck and improbability.
After I denounced religion I had a flood of questions! So I had to explore them. I read books, websites, forums and magazines. I joined groups, listened to debates, took religion classes and when to conferences. Meeting so many like minded students was by far the sealing of the deal for me. Never in my life had I heard and been involved in so many intelligent conversations as I was at the Center For Inquiry Student Leadership Conference. We talked a lot about moral philosophy, science and a lot of religion. At the conference that I went to with christians we talked about how to be passive, how to kneel, what god had given us and why so many scientists got it wrong.
Just because “the bible says so” no longer means it’s true. I need to get facts and reasoning to back up my claims. In atheism, man is meant to understand everything, and the greatest part about being man, with no god, is freethought and being able to look for the answer to the question of life, the universe and everything.
No god to guilt
If I were gay, I wouldn’t feel guilty about it. If I were straight, I wouldn’t feel guilty about having sex with a guy before we were married. If I were curious, I wouldn’t feel guilty about masturbating. If I were to accidentally say “oh my god”, I wouldn’t need to pray for forgiveness. I don’t need to think other religions are wrong. I don’t need to feel guilty if my children grow up to be buddhist, islamic, atheist or christian. If I don’t go to church and stay home and watch football instead, I don’t feel bad or like I’m going to hell. If I give my money to an orphanage instead of the church, I can feel good about it.
I’m not living for an organization. Im living for humanism, and I don’t feel guilty about this. I don’t repress sexual urges. I live as who I am, not as what a book tells me I should be. My parents raised me well, I know what hurts other people - if I do this, I feel guilty. Not because god says I should, but because I have morals that don’t allow me to feel good about negatively affecting other people. My moral code is based on reason and love - it also happens to over lap eamensly with Christian morals.
Pride and responsibility
If I win a grammy, I’m not going to thank god for giving me the talent and will power to get me to that point in life. I am going to take pride in my accomplishment and thank my mom for raising me to have will power.
If I fuck up, I’m not going to say that the devil had his hands on me, nor will I allow other people to give this excuse for me. I will buck up and say that I messed up, because I wasn’t thinking, or because I was being selfish. No larger evil pushes me to do wrong, I consciously am aware of the wrong I am doing, and do it anway.
I can take pride in my life. And have the ability and reason to take responsibility of my actions.
I don’t do good deeds to get into heaven later, I do good deeds because it feels good, because it makes other people feel better and because I want to make this ONE LIFE that we have, a great one.
Wider understanding and view of the world
When I was a christian I really understood christianity, and where christianity was spread through the world, how it got to be where it is today and what sort of doctrines there are - and of course why these doctrines are good. As an atheist I was able to look beyond this. I got to see other religions, got to see the bad things behind christian doctrine. I developed a strong sense of wonder.
Why are there rainbows? There is no way it’s a promise from god. Why is there thunder? Why does it storm? Where do butterflies come from? I found that finding the scientific answers behind things gave them even more beauty. Finding out their long struggle through evolution was much more satisfying than attributing their existence to intelligent design or a god.
I now see the beauty behind nature so much more clearly. A tree is so incredibly complex. It doesn’t live because god has given it life, it lives because of a complex life cycle depending on geography, temperature, soils and whatever else. I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to get out of bed every morning and look at a world that defied probability and grew into such a beautiful specimen.
Patients (sorry, as Jack Rivall so kindly pointed out “patience”…I’ve never claimed to be a great speller. Ever.)
No, seriously. Sometimes, I crack. I go a little nuts, or get mad, or storm away, or send someone a “SHUT THE FUCK UP” sort of e-mail. But being an atheist and having really opposite views than most people I know has made me extremely patient.
Atheists need to be patient. People don’t get our points right away. They think we’re crazy. They think we have no morals, no values, nothing worth waking up for and that we eat babies. There are so many negative stigmatas surrounding atheism, that to not be patient would literally drive you insane. Of course, you can always just block everyone out, but I’ve found that usually atheists are atheists because they DON’T block things out. They talk to people and look for answers. … And in returned we get questioned a lot.
Patience. Key.
We don’t argue from ignorance
When I was a christian, I knew a lot of muslims because my school was extremely multi-cultural. When I met another christian, or when I was talking religion with my muslims friends it was easy to accept their beliefs. I already somewhat had an understanding of religions, and just figured “same shit, different pile” but when I met an atheist - I asked them to tell my why the were an atheist. I told them to prove to me that there was no god. Theists do not understand atheism. They just don’t. (Well, most of the ones I’ve met, anyway.) They think that something horrible happened to us so we ran away from god. Or they think that we are a religion because we have “faith” that there is no god.
No… We have no proof of a god, and thus - we don’t believe in one. There is no scientific evidence of there being a god. So many religions fall into the same line as mythology that after you read a lot of myths, it’s hard to distinguish them from different religions.
So before you are an atheist you have to understand what you’re not believing as not to argue from ignorance. Theists are allowed to argue from ignorance “I feel god with me” “I have faith that god is there” “I believe the bible to be true” … These are not facts, these are not arguments that have any sort of sound base.
It is not in the hands of the non-believe to prove that your god does not exist. It is in the hands of the believer to prove to us that it does exist. When I went upstairs to tell my mom that I had just seen a fairy jumping on my bed, and she came down and it was not there - it was not her responsibility to prove to me why the fairy didn’t exist - it was my responsibility to prove to her why it did exist. It was my claim, so it was my chore.
Yes, religion is still good…
Religion is fine. A lot of good things have come out of religion. (Just a question… how many people has atheism killed? … How about Christianity? … I’m just sayin’… There are good people, and there are bad people… in all faiths and beliefs and views on life) I think people who are lonely benefit from religion. People who need something to fill a hole in their life. Ministers need religion pretty badly. Some leaders need religion to keep countries peaceful. Religions keep a lot of people moral and “in line” so to speak. It gives people hope for another life, and gives them support after a terrible loss… Different reasons make religion a good thing. I just want people to see that good comes out of being an atheist too.
Personally
Atheism released me into a whole new world of inquiry, friends and a new out look on the world its self. I didn’t become an atheist because I had an atheist boyfriend and I wanted him to like me more. I didn’t slip away from religion because I thought it was “uncool”… I didn’t leave the church because my step-dad is a minister (For some reason I get “oh your step father is a minister? it is understandable that you’re an atheist then…). It’s true, I am exposed to religion far more often than most people, I’m sure of it. We have christian books all over the house, and we discuss religion at dinner right after we pray every single night. I abide by their house rules and hold their hands and pray every night with them. (Well, not really, but I at least appease them.) There is nothing about being a ministers daughter that pushed me to atheism (except for maybe all the hypocrisy that I saw… but that’s a whole other story.) … What pushed me to atheism was the lack of answers. The lack of searching and my friends inability to accept any religion but their own.
I definitely feel more open, opinionated, educated and free having left my religious roots. I guess that’s what atheism did for me.
Fantastic post! Everything I believe and more.
Great post. I like reading articles on atheism. It reminds me of my old days when I was an internet warrior trying to convert everyone I met, those days are over now.
Anyway, I noticed a little error I’d like to point out. On paragraph two, you have when, it should be went.
Thanks Sage and Danny for the kind words on the post. I’m not trying to convert anyone to atheism or be a “warrior” in anyway. Just trying to make people see that I’m not evil.
Thanks for the correction danny, i type faster than i think usually, and rarely - if ever - reread.
Well, I believe in God. I don’t go to church or anything, but I do fancy God for the logical explanation to the lack of any real evidence for evolution. Evolution is logical, what with fish that have legs but it is very flawed and missing that dynamic component that gives it any real solid evidence that is the missing link and the origin of the human species. Perhaps aliens?
The universe is perfect, energy cannot be destroyed or created; a perfect “snowglobe”. An atom can be in one part of the universe, and the exact same atom can be seen billions of light years away. If it pops out of existence here, it will there too and where it goes, who the fuck knows?
One thing to note is a cell half-life. Half, of 1, is 0.5, half of that is 0.25, etc. Eventually going on into infinity. This is irrelevant to the proof of God but it does open my mind to the possibility of his existence, or at least afterlife and the continuation of the soul after death.
That being said, I think good and evil are strong forces in this world. I myself have seen devil like things awake and asleep and felt brief moments of a whiter light. The weirdest fucking shit happens if you let your belief systems accept the logical idea that this could be happening.
“Souls will not leave this plain until judgement day” sorta thing.
I believe in the afterlife, whether or not God exists, if he is dead his followers are still alive. The world is too beautiful and majestic to be an accident, and I think thanking the universe in general is always a good idea.
On another note; religion could effect your performance. Instead of going to church sunday you could read the new york times or go to the mall or even work and make an extra $200. It closes your mind so to speak because it narrows your views and possible choices based on its values and ethics that come with the certain religion.
I like organised religion on the belief that a church in a third world nation where they have never even heard of the philosophy of God might improve their quality of life. I dunno, this post could be better but I hope you get my drift. I just hate atheist arguments so much because they’re usually just fluff talk. I am sure most religious followers don’t only do things to get into heaven either.
Don’t hate on their grammar if you can’t get your spelling right. Immensely, not eamensely; patience, not patients.
Oh, Cody.
I can’t help myself, I gotta pick your post apart. Normally I just ignore posts like yours but jeeze! Believe what you want, man, but think about it first and I mean THINK, not regurgitate nonsense you’ve heard and haven’t bothered to think about. THINK FOR A MOMENT please. If I can use 15 minutes of my time to that end it’s not wasted.
“[evolution] is very flawed and missing that dynamic component that gives it any real solid evidence that is the missing link and the origin of the human species. Perhaps aliens?”
What “dynamic component” are you talking about, exactly? HOw much more dynamic can evolution be? AN organism changing over time to meet the needs of a changing environment. That’s pretty dern dynamic. Much more so than the extraordinarily static “out of clay” creationist story. Also, I don’t know how much more “solid” evidence you need to be compelled by the general idea of evolution. Fossils, isotope-dating, micro-evolution in isolated populations, and drug-resistant diseases to name a few. Even IF and I say IF evolution lacked sufficient evidence, using the convoluted, two-choice logic “If it’s not “a”, then it must be “b”!” makes absolutely no sense. Even if you were to discount evolution completely, that is not evidence for God in the least. Not in the least. Show me one shred of empirical evidence of a Biblical God and I’ll run right back into the church I spent my young adult life escaping.
As for seeing the devil, seriously, wow. Compelling.
“The world is too beautiful and majestic to be an accident”
How is that evidence of anything? Whaaaat? I agree in that the world is marvelous, but can’t it be marvelous without intention? Intent is a product of your mind (and perhaps the collective human mind) and not the de facto cause for the universe’s creation. A universe without intent is not necessarily one without meaning or beauty. Just throwing out nonsense like that means nothing. It simply means you are finding a conveniently cryptic way of avoiding true thought and inquiry. That idea has no basis in fact or evidence whatsoever, so it’s impossible to even begin refuting your statement. It’s so unsound I couldn’t do much more to deflate it than its pathetically underthought nature already has.
“I like organised religion on the belief that a church in a third world nation where they have never even heard of the philosophy of God might improve their quality of life.”
That’s probably the most ignorant, condescending thing I’ve read all day, and the internet is a big, stupid place so give yourself a pat on the back. So, since religion by itself provides no real help for people in third world countries, maybe distracting them from starvation, disease, oppression, war, and genocide by reading them fairy tales and telling them God loves them is helping the state of things. Getting someone to share in a delusion is not “improving the quality of life” You know what would improve their quality of life? Food, medicine, political asylum, and education without the “strings attached” missionary approach.
“I just hate atheist arguments so much because they’re usually just fluff talk.”
Cool, dude. Totally unlike your post, which was loaded with deep, rational thought and well-researched evidence.
I’m curious, what’s fluff that you’ve read? Surely since all or most atheist arguments are fluff, you could easily give us a few examples rather than making such a statement without anything to back it up.
I eagerly await your logical, fact and evidence-based response.
ooooh put a corck in ‘er. i allready correctted patiences aftre addmitting that i dont speel cheque or reereed my schtuff.
speeling /= grammar
Hard core props to “whaaat”… I had NO idea what to say to Cody… I had thought about it for a few days, and honestly - I just came up with nothing. I didn’t know what to do!
So thank you, thank you ever so much for your reply to him. woo!
Hey Katie,
Interesting article, I was pleasantly surprised to find an article about atheism that wasn’t saying “Religion sucks, we are the best people”. Your section titled “No god to guilt” intrigued me. I’m a Christian (a member of the United Church, to be specific) and everything you wrote there mimic my exact outlook on life. I’m not guilty for the things I do, I have sex and I skip church quite often, but I don’t think i’m being damned for it. I really like the line “I’m not living for an organization, I’m living for humanism.” Thats my personal outlook on life, and i think its a good one to have.
Thanks for the good read,
Kate
Kate: I find that christians who are in the united church have a FAR more open mind. When I was a christian that’s the church I belonged to, and that is the church my stepdad is a minister for. United Church is a rare breed out there, and I’m really glad to hear that you’re a part of it so that you can still live your life without guilt.
My mom (also a part of the United Church) has a really hard time explaining to people that she IS a christian, just is a humanist above all. I think that is the way to go!
What a refreshing, non-antagonistic, honest post about being an atheist. I’m an atheist as well, and I pretty much believe that whatever one person’s belief system is, it’s fine, so long as it doesn’t seek to harm anyone else. As the Wiccan credo goes: “An it harm none, do what ye will.” I’m just as tired of foaming-at-the-mouth atheist zealots as I am religion freaks. Religion is not entirely a bad thing, as you say; it helps a lot of folks who aren’t able to stand on their own, so to speak. It’s when they start blowing up buildings and declaring war that religious differences become an issue. Unfortunately, a good number of religious systems are based on the “everyone else is wrong/evil/hellbound and should be converted/exiled/killed” paradigm … causes a few problems for us peace-loving non-believers, what?
Kate;
If that’s the case, you’re ’spiritual’ not christian.
If you’re sure you’re christian, then you’re still on the hell list for your faith
__
Have to say I’m always amazed women are Christian… maybe it’s just the whole ‘women are sub-servant scum’ thing of the bibles many flavors. Personally I’d take offense.
Correction, with appologys.
Upon further reading and research it seems has a bit more relaxed view of some of it.
Good to see
Still (not combative, honestly wondering), why use the same bibles?
If your faith belives in equality for women, rights of all, and is against sacrificing people and animals… then why use the same book?
I’ve always supported the peace religion brings people… my complaint is it interfearing with good reason and judgement
Mike, a typo does not make one illiterate. But I think you just said that because you harbor irrational hate for Kate (ha, that rhymes :lol:)
??? why didn’t the message emote?
[...] The Liberal Debutante shares how atheism has improved her life in Positive Contact. [...]
What really worries me is this…
It’s the 21st century - and we’re still discussing this stuff as anything other than distant history. In America, the majority of people effectively reject science (while paying for it) in favour of some kind of blind faith and not even a faith they can all agree on - but the one common theme of course is that virtually all of the faiths have in common the need to suggest that other faiths are false.
All of which would be fine were it not for the fact that the US has enough nukes to bury all of use many times over. Our science has given us just about everything we have including considerably elongated lives compared to any time in the past… and yet there are still those who prefer to believe that the universe was magically created by some complex being who’s origins we don’t have to consider. Frightening stuff.
It makes you wonder how many miracles of our own we could have created by now were we not constantly hampered by this stuff.
A lot of good things have come out of religion? Really? I think it rather has come out of religious leaders. Take the forgiveness of Christianity, a powerful antidote to vendetta - it happens to be linked to theism because Jesus has been a theist. But theism isn’t a prerequisite of this idea. Such false claims give rise to the idea of atheists having no moral.
Techgirl - I always feel I have to explain to people ” i dont eat babies… but that doesn’t mean i’ll put up with your bigotry” I hate crazy atheists just as much as I hate crazy religious people. It’s not their beliefs I hate - but their inability to STFU. So agreed.
Digital - When it comes to christianity it’s all pretty open now… if you’re united, you basically get to define god as whatever you want, not read teh bible and live how you see fit as long as you’re not being a huge asshole and you believe in jesus.
Cole… Not all the messages emote, and I dont know why. Thanks anyway for the mini poem.
Christian - but religion keeps a lot of people moral simply for their religious reasons.
I will say this:
I spent many years in a fundamentalist ‘Christian’ church. I was scared, miserable, lonely and depressed. It has taken a lot of deep breathing, therapy and a good dose of humor to put all that self-hatred behind me. I am now a much happier, more joyful, more productive and compassionate person than I ever was when I was in the church.
People who say that atheists are sad and angry have never taken a good, hard look at many of the people who spend hours and hours inside a church.
To me it’s not a question of right and wrong. To me it’s a question of: does this make life better? Did believing what I did make my life better? No. Am I a better person now? Yes.
Case closed.