The Antichristian Phenomenon

Agnosticism seems very popular at the moment. I think it is mostly so for the wrong reasons. I get the feeling that a lot of people who identify themselves as agnostics are doing so only to take a kind of moral high ground that, to them, equivocates with a neutral position on the issue at hand. I have seen many agnostics say something like this:

You can’t prove that God exists, nor that God doesn’t exist, therefore both theism and atheism are wrong and you should be agnostic

I find three things at fault with this position,  which I will elaborate on in the following paragraphs. I will sometimes refer to above position as “popular agnosticism” to distinguish it from actual agnosticism. I will end with what a proper application of agnosticism might be, but also argue why I think it’s pretty useless all-round.

• Agnosticism is not a position on the existence of God

It seems that agnosticism has been snuck in to form a trilemma on the issue of God’s existence. To many people, the possible positions on this issue are either atheism, theism, or agnosticism. This is a false trilemma for two reasons. Firstly, because no ground is left over for agnosticism. You either believe God exists (theism), or you don’t (a-theism – I emphasize on purpose). So what is left over? Nothing! This has to do with the second reason that it is a false trilemma, namely the untrue notion that agnosticism even is a position on the existence of God. It simply isn’t, as it is a position on what knowledge is attainable. Going a little bit into etymology, “gnosis” means “knowledge” which means that “agnosticism” can be roughly translated to the position that something is not knowable. Agnosticism can be compatible with both atheism and theism – I don’t accept theism but I don’t claim to know that theism is false: I am an agnostic atheist.

Agnosticism isn’t somewhere in the middle on the spectrum between atheism and theism. I would even argue that there isn’t a spectrum at all on this level of the issue. There is a simple proposition: “God exists”, and you can either agree (theism) or not (atheism). There are no other positions, by virtue of the logical principle of the excluded middle. Both theism and atheism are positions that one can have, and it doesn’t matter how good or bad the reasons are for you having them.

• Popular agnosticism is used for dodging the question

So now that we have established that agnosticism isn’t even a tenable position in regards to the existence of God, it will become increasingly difficult to critique the position because the original paraphrase I gave is making less and less sense. At the moment, we can substitute the definition of agnosticism into the citation and read:

You can’t prove that God exists, nor that God doesn’t exist, therefore both theism and atheism are wrong and you should have the position that it is unknowable whether God exists or not

But that shows another flaw, because (a)theism isn’t necessarily the belief that God’s existence is (dis)proven. It thus misrepresents the positions of theism and atheism, and shows perhaps a reluctance to commit to either theism or atheism. I do not believe anyone can be exactly on the fence between the two possible positions. Even if it is just a gut feeling, you can choose between the two. It is childish to say “no, I won’t choose either of the possibilities”. And of course there is no proof, as I have previously written and explained that proofs only exist in formal systems. Personally, I think a lot of people who identify themselves as agnostics because they are reluctant to bear the stigma of the atheist. Though I understand this, I still think it is a form of cowardice.

• Popular agnosticism is special pleading

Popular agnosticism is also a form of special pleading, as it is only used with reference to the issue of God’s existence. You don’t hear about faerie agnostics, or Santa Clause agnostics. Popular agnosticism is used uniquely for the God-question. But why is it so? There are no grounds on which the question “Does God exist?” is different from the question “Does Santa Clause exist?” other than the subject of the inquiry. You can’t prove Santa Clause exists, or that he doesn’t exist any more than it is the case with God. Why then still reserve this for God? It is blatantly a case of special pleading.

Proper agnosticism

So when is it useful to have a position of agnosticism? First of all, we have to have a decent definition of when something is considered knowledge - before we can say whether something is possible to be an item in what we consider knowledge. What is knowledge is is a question home to the philosophical field of epistemology, and very briefly I can ambiguously suggest that knowledge is the product of empirical investigation and rational discourse of the empirical results. Knowledge doesn’t even have to be complete – as long the knowledge fits whatever observations have been made so far, and are reasonably not the antithesis of other knowledge that is “better established” – and it can even turn out after more observation that prior knowledge is false and that it requires to be superseded with new knowledge: a new set of ideas, rules, or paradigm (knowledge isn’t necessarily true). It is perhaps shortest to say that knowledge is produced by science, the best application of the aforementioned methodology.

This is different from the stricter requirement in the original paraphrase, which demanded proof and not mere evidence. If we were to say that knowledge needs proof to be established, then we are agnostic about everything outside of formal systems. To me, such a requirement of knowledge renders agnosticism as a useless term that communicates nothing because it can be applied to (almost) everything. So if we were to take my understanding of knowledge, we can say that agnosticism can apply only to things that fall outside of the scope of science: outside of empirical investigation. If we can not empirically pursue a question then we can’t produce knowledge about it: we are agnostic about it.

An example of proper agnosticism is when “God” is defined as something that would prohibit scientific inquiry. If God is a being who is omnipotent, it is immediately outside the scope of science, because this God can play with the empirical evidence all it wants. Anything and nothing can be indicative of the existence of such a being. Hence, we are inherently agnostic about it. Parallel to agnosticism about this, I have never heard any argument that would make such a being logically necessary to exist, hence I am also atheistic towards it. But when you would suggest that “God” is a bearded man living on clouds in the sky, it is open to scientific inquiry. There has never been seen such a man, thus I am a gnostic atheist about this particular concept.

As a continuation of my other article, I decided to make a follow-up post since while people might be aware or not, Cartesian dualism is one of the primary reasons why we have modern science and consider Atheism to be an equally valid philosophy alongside religion.

To understand why, we must first look into how Descartes defined the universe, namely that of the physical and the nonphysical. Everything we can touch, see, smell, feel and taste are of the physical world, everything else not such as thoughts and ideas. Basically a dichotomy made of the abstract vs the concrete. To consider the universe physical, we must also consider it as an object made for study as we can study the physical world but we cannot study the nonphysical (according to old belief, we now know we can study the mind as proven in Psychology and similar sciences).

In science, we are to reject the nonphysical since it cannot be properly reviewed. We look at the physical world as an object, something which can be rationally understood. Not surprisingly we started to reject Christianity and the Church by the time we also started to believe in Liberalism, in personal responsibility and freedom and that every individual matters in comparison to rather seeing a group of people than a group of individuals. To understand why the development of Liberalism is important we must understand that without a Divine Creator who has laid all the rules for us to follow, the only one being able to take responsibility is oneself. Personal resonsiblity, free will and freedom are the underlying foundations of  Liberalism and Atheism too embraces this idea, since if we don’t believe in a Divine Creator and a Holy Scripture then we only have ourselves to blame for our earthly faults and we must learn how to deal with it. Our morals come from ourselves, not from a Creator Mystique. In summary, one can basically say that by the time we really started to believe in the world as an object and rejected the nonphysical during the Enlightenment Era, Liberalism and then Atheism were later to be born. It is also interesting to see that it was at this point when the church was split between Protestantism and Catholicism, the former believing more on individual responsibility than the latter, thus also rejecting ideas such as Original Sin, which claims that we are to be blamed for the faults of our ancestors, thus rather grouping people up in a huge collective than seeing them as free individuals. This strongly opposes the idea of individual freedom and personal responsibility and was easily solved with the idea of baptism. Drop your head in some holy water and voila, the Original Sin is gone.

With the help of the Enlightenment Era we would soon give birth to Industrialism and it is now science is finally is starting to seriously take a spin. Many huge scientific improvements were made around the 19th century or after that time and in fact we all got monsieur Descartes to thank, making us believe that we can actually view the world as an object. In such a sense isn’t it all also very ironical that we now are rejecting his idea of Dualism given that it was his idea of the physical world that planted the first seeds into developing modern science? Regardless, Atheism rejects anything made of the nonphysical and at least claims that if such a nonphysical world would exist, it too is a part of the physical world but not yet properly understood.

In a sense, we can actually say that the Abrahamic religions were doomed when they first introduced the concept of a soul and a nonphysical world. They in fact, planted the ideas which would later spawn Atheism since Atheism is more or less the rejection of the nonphysical, but such a concept cannot exist unless we are to believe in a physical and a nonphysical world, as later laid out and defined by Descartes.  When Christians argue that Atheism then is a necessary evil, maybe we should try to explain to them that they themselves laid the foundation for such a concept and as they continue to believe in a soul and a nonphysical world, and that they will just help Atheism to spread further as it also of course allows the belief of the opposite, which also is equally amusing when you think about it. Therefore I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Atheism will only cease to exist (as Atheism) when we have completely given up the concept of the nonphysical. I just want to clarify that this doesn’t mean that future Atheists will refuse to reject the nonphysical, but as we move more into a belief of a monistic world, then the concept of Atheism isn’t needed anymore as there is no longer a reason to reject of what we today know as a nonphysical world.

Atheists and other non-theists/non-Christians across the blogosphere are struggling with a difficult question: what do you tell a child about God and religion? And now, a particular and even more difficult question: what do you tell a young child dealing with death?

Friendly Atheist pointed to this dilemma, with his post on the subject (you can see my response to his post and to the general question below), and a link to an article in which a writer talks about a friend who brings up the question of children and death. He writes:

My colleague Margaret Watson warnend me against filling Zoe’s young head with Godless thoughts. Margaret’s dad died when she was nine, and her faith was a great comfort for her, because she could believe that he was waiting for her in heaven. “And, being Catholic,” she said, “It meant that there was still someone I could call Father.” I can’t argue with that. You’d have to be a brutally militant atheist to tell an orphaned child that we die and that’s it.

So what do you tell a child about God and death? Do you treat it like Santa, and risk turning them into a theist? Do you let them figure it out on their own? Do you answer with brutal honesty?

I’d like to offer my own answers, as well as invite the other writers here to answer them, in this post.

Blue Linchpin: I think telling a child a lie to make them feel better will do nothing but cause more grief later on. It’s better for a child to learn to deal with death and grief early, instead of lying and delaying the inevitable. It will only result in the child losing trust in their parents and adults, and having to deal with the loss anyways. I don’t think refusing to lie to a child and cause more pain later on is horrible and militant atheism. What’s the best solution? Honesty, I think. “I don’t know” is probably the best answer, and letting the child know that this is how life works but that their parent WILL continue to live on in certain ways: if I were a parent trying to explain this, I would tell them that the dead parent has become a part of everything within the world, from the air to the trees to the ground, and that they continue to live on in this way, and be with us, even if we can’t see them. This would probably instill respect for the world and all things while comforting them and allowing them to deal with death realistically. Neither is it a lie: naturally our bodies recycle and become a part of the world, though unfortunately this is slowed thanks to pointless burial traditions.

Db0: A child does not need to be told fairy tales to pacify it and it’s doubtful that having the fairytale of heaven will do much to help this going. If the concept of heaven was enough to avoid sadness, you wouldn’t see all the people in religious funerals crying their soul out, but rather, they would be celebrating their brothers and sisters going to “a better place”. There’s also the fact that the child might grow even more sad if they think their loved ones might go to Hell instead. Just imagine if the child later on in life learned of a “mortal sin” which is certain to take you to hell and that their loved one used to do?

Personally I would take an Epicurean view on this subject. You can expain easily that all humans eventually cease to live, one way or another. But that should not necessarily be a matter of sadness. As long as one’s life has been good, then they have already been rewarded by the mere act of living. And if their life has not been good, then at least this unpleasant existence has ceased for them.

We, the ones that remain, can always keep them alive in our memory and remember and enjoy the good times we used to have. Being sad about the good time we may have had in the future is nothing more than self-punishment.

Waldheri

It’s a hard question of course, and one that I think has been an ally to feel-good superstition for as long as human history. One answered in countless ways to ease the grief of family and friends. I don’t see any reason to infatuate in the modern religious notions associated with death, or even any good reason to ease the grief of death. Death <b>is</b> the end, and should not be downplayed to something less bad, or imagined as only a part of existence. People say death is a part of life. It isn’t, it is the end of it, it’s opposite. Some superstitions, including Christianity’s, make death almost something to look forward to – the perfection of heaven as opposed to this flawed physical world. Not a very good thing at all, something that can even make people blow themselves up given enough false promises. No, death is bad and we should all realise it. Even if life isn’t always rewarding, it trumps the emptiness of death. Existence here and now is all we have, and we should make the best of it. Only because of our actions in human life we have a chance that the idea of us will be immortal. When person X dies and a child asks “Where has X gone?” I can only answer “Away. X does not exist outside of us anymore. X only exists in our memory of X. Even though we will never make new memories of X again, X will remain a part of us.” It is the best thing we can offer as a comfort for the loss of somebody.

When we talk about religion, we always see it as something cultural, even as a cultural phonomenon perhaps. Religion is however quite far from it, especially when we actually talk about religion and not so much about its practices (although we will get there too). Religion is first of all a political tool. Religion is used as a banner to divide or unite people, and it has been excused as a justification in warfare many times. Religion is also secondly a socio-political identity.

However, to understand what this means, we must first understand that religion in a political context is not always as much as believing or having faith in god(s), but merely faith in something, whether it be a divine being or not. The definition of religion is:

1. A belief or faith in something
2. Rituals
3. Rules

Suddenly the word religion gains a very broad meaning, and can span more than the world religions which be invoked in our thinking when the word religion is mentioned. As such, many of our current cultural phenomena can be seen as a religion. One of those can be the animal right activist groups. To be an animal rights activist, you should first of all share a belief that animals are equal to or better than humans, rituals might involve to not eat meat or consume any product taken from dead/living animals and lastly, rules that forbid you to say, eat meat. This is all put into an overarching system and also gives the animal right activist an identity with other animal right activists by following this agenda. Thus, to truly be an animal right activist means that you actually follow a religion of sorts, in a purely political context. The only reason why you or anyone else would declare yourself an animal right activist is only to politically prove you share the idea of these typical ethics and morals mentioned (animals are of equal or above equal worth compared to humans, you follow a vegetarian diet, you do not consider any form of research conducted on animals ethically correct etc), thus, declaring yourself an animal rights activist outside a political context is useless. Obviously, the idea also unites other animal rights activists under certain organizations such as WWF but also creates a we vs them mentality, let’s say, the evil factories that pollute the rivers and seas so fish will die.

It is also very evident that religion is also more strongly envoked upon when a political identity is needed. I saw a short three-part documentary called We Are All Neighbours today, conducted by anthropologist Tone Bringa in a small village in Bosnia. 1/3 of the population was Catholic, the remaining 2/3 Muslim. It is recorded during the early 90s, (1993) and the conflict between Croatians and Muslims over Bosnia has just begun. At first, the conflict can be heard because of gunshots and shelling, but it is only in a distance and remains so for quite a while. While the villagers are worried the war will break out and soldiers will invade their village, they still don’t understand much of the basic idea of the conflict, that different ethnical groups (Croats, Serbs, Muslims) struggle to gain politcal control over a country (Bosnia). Croats, Serbs and Muslims have lived peacefully in this village for quite some time, and they don’t understand why the fuss. Sure, some of them have different faiths (Catholics vs Muslims) but they still believe in the same god. They also openly declares they don’t understand how you can attack your own neighbour for belonging to a different ethnical group. However, as the violence draws closer it eventually escalates in a bloodbath, where neighbour stands against neighbour, and eventually the Catholics kill their Muslim neighbours when the Croatian soldiers arrive (Croatia is more strongly associated with Catholicism). We can clearly see as the violence draws closer the villagers also keep more and more to themselves; Muslims to Muslims and Catholics to Catholics, despite many of them being good friends before the war begun. They often excused their own newly gained animosity with that “they might consider me a spy” or equally farfetched reasonings. In a world of paranoia however, it doesn’t seem as impossible as it would have before the war.

Here, we can clearly see how one’s religious identity becomes more important to strengthen one’s national identity (Catholics associate themselves with Croatia and support the Croatian army, Muslims the Bosnians and Serbs). Thus, religion is merely a political construct, and when you openly declare you are this or that, you also openly declare a political stance. It might not sound very rational to claim, especially if we look at something such as Atheism.

However, Atheism maybe more than anything is a political construct and many ideas in Atheism support this. First of all, there is a “belief” in science, that at least science is more superior to any other way to view the world. Science is associated with a secular society, and in turn associated with freedom of thought. Here, we can slowly see how Atheism is taking upon more and more political leanings, since freedom of thought often reconciles with freedom of speech. Atheism also often stands for many other common ideas in secular societies, such as a more social welfare model as well as Liberalism (which has partly been mentioned with freedom of speech). Religion on the other hand, is often associated with Conservatism (in a political sense but also culturally) and then that religion’s internal structure (ie rules and rituals) will decide how a Conservative society will look like.

Of course, I am not going so far as saying it is always this way, this is merely shown to point out an example how many Atheists might actually consider themselves, and that at least in a political context, their lack of belief in a god will actually create such as strong socio-political identity that it can be considered a religion, and how the word religion in turn is merely there to express one’s raher ethical, moral and political views than actually your ideas of faith.

There’s been some talk of atheist movements and how they might work or be organized. I think this is a great idea, and the more push there is for the atheist agenda, the more sane our world will be. I wanted to write a small essay of sorts on how an atheist movement might be accomplished as well as ask for feedback from other writers and readers here at Anti-Christian Phenomenon. Serious change should be the on the minds of every active atheist or anti-theist, because the religious institutions of the world will never stop until everyone else is under their control. Beware, it’s a long albeit badly written, and very much thought out, at least I hope it is. Again, I’m looking for feedback and serious discussion.

Let’s address some serious questions. (more…)

I decided to start this post because of the comments I see in my previous post. I really don’t like to divert the comments of articles so much from the main subject so I think that a new post related to the issue is the best choice.

Like many other times before, a classic Christian argument against atheism has cropped up, that is, that Communism is atheistic. Included there are a few quotes from Marx like so:

“…criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism”

” Once the essence of man and of nature, man as a natural being and nature as a human reality, has become evident in practical life, in sense experience, the quest for an ALIEN being, a being above man and nature (a quest which is an avowal of the unreality of man and nature) becomes impossible in practice. ATHEISM, as a denial of this unreality, is no longer meaningful, for atheism is a NEGATION OF GOD and seeks to assert by this negation the EXISTENCE OF MAN. Socialism no longer requires such a roundabout method; it begins from the THEORETICAL and PRACTICAL SENSE PERCEPTION of man and nature as essential beings. It is positive human SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS, no longer a self-consciousness attained through the negation of religion.”

” The abolition of religion as the ILLUSORY HAPPINESS OF MEN, is a demand for their REAL HAPPINESS. The call to abandon their lllusions about their condition is a CALL TO ABANDON A CONDITION WHICH REQUIRES ILLUSIONS.”

Now, I am no expert in Communism. I’ve read the manifesto and a few other articles on it but my experience is nevertheless quite limited. However the quotes above do not seem to me to read as if Communism requires the forced applciation of atheism. If nothing else, he seems to be saying that Atheism is unnecessary as socialism goes over it and grants self-consiousness through the placing of the man. It is worded in a strange way but nowhere there is the urging of violent abolition that some Cristians would like to claim.

The rest of the quotes, as pretty normal for an atheist and I happen to share a lot of that sentiment. Still, the communist manifesto is an idea. It is not set in stone and, very much like religion, open to interpretation. Sometimes that interpretation will be bad and sometimes better (Granted, there has not been a good interpretation yet but in general I don’t believe that Communism is ready to be introduced to the world currently anyway; but that is the point for another discussion, outside the scope of this site) but just because Marx was an atheist, does not make Communism an atheist ideology and nor is it correct to attribute the deaths caused by the self-called Communist regimes to atheism.

If nothing else, Communism, as being mostly a socioeconomic system, does not care about personal beliefs. It knows they will fail in the coming age and treats them as irrelevant. The anti-religious actions of some of the Communist regimes cannot and should not be attibuted to the whole concept. The same way that the actions of Jehova’s Witnesses or Later Day Saints, cannot be attributed to the whole of Christianity. Not only that but what is said to be the original teaching of Christ, resemble Communist ideals much more than they do Capitalistic ones, which is understandable of course when you think where he got his ideology.

There is also the fact that not all Atheist are Communists, as exemplified by the Objectivists and the Libertarian movements. This should be obvious as Atheism does not have -by itelf- any political or philosophical connotation but for some reason it is lost on some Christian critics.

It is common for Christians to lump all aspects of Communism together, as it is common for many atheists (or other religions) to lump all aspects (denominations, intra-denomination) of Christianity together. Both of them are open to interpretation and even then, applying them to the real world may wield different results. The difference here is that Communism can be improved. It can be changed so that the wrong aspects of it are taken out. There is no “right” version but rather the better version will make itself known when a society achieves it. It is only an idea and it is not set in stone.

Christianity on the other hand, very literally, is. While you may interpret the Bible in a thousand different ways (or even just make some stuff up, say it’s the word of God and start your own version) it is impossible to improve it beyond a certain point. Why? Because it requires the belief in an unprovable and self-contradicting entity. No matter how many “good” values you add to your particular denomination (i.e. Environmentalism) it will still keep this illogical belief. Not only that, but you will also have to keep various other aspects of Christianity in order to keep a certain coherence, or Groupthink. Some of those, as exemplified by our new frequent visitor, Deep Thought, are quite controversial, especially the ones that go against personal liberty in order to satisfy some religious mandate from a nomadic lifestyle that goes back a few thousand years.

The comments then moved on to my previous article where Deep Thought decided to comment after my urging.

“Even if you compare Stalin’s and Mao’s to religious leaders like (this time correctly) Hitler, Mussolini, King Justinian and even Bush, you will see that, were the first did what they did for the benefit of their country (albeit at a high cost of human lives within the same country they were benefiting) with tangible results (USSR become a superpower and China is on the same track right now), the later did their atrocities for no other specific reason than to follow demented (religious) ideals and/or satisfy their own (or, as in the case of Bush, the people that move their strings) lust for power.”

And to compare Stalin favorably to Bush!!!!! Sweet heavens to Betsy, man! Stalin purposefully starved no less than 2 million of his own citizens to death to make a freakin’ POINT was not doing so “for the benefit of their country” as you claim, but in a naked rush for power. Yeah, Bush is *mush* worse than Stalin.

Stalin was a demented power hungry megalomaniac, I agree but he still did everything he did for the nation and not for personal power (he was as high as he could be what the heck). I believe my point still stands.
I did not say that he was a good leader, just state the results of his regime. While under Stalin the USSR become a world power, under Bush the USA has become one of the most hated countries in the world, not to mention the debt they are in.

Communism is not about nationalism however. Even if Communism was an atheist ideology, it would still not align the original idea with Stalinism. Nor Maoism nor anything else. If people were to blame all the evils of communism on atheism, should we then place the blame for 1500 years of intellectual darkness on Christianity? After all, the leaders of those times happened to be Christians. Hitler was religious as well, should we place the WW2 blame on theism? It’s just not how it works.

There is just no connection between atheism and “the evils of communism”. And the same goes for secularism.

“The more theocratic the community, the more ridiculous the morals seem to be.”

Let me make a few counter-examples, if I may. Hussein’s Iraq (secular nation); Khmer Rouge Cambodia (explicitly atheist); Mao’s China (also explicitly atheist); Republican Spain (also explicitly atheist). We can cut out Hussain’s Iraq and Republican Spain entirely and just focus on the two explicitly, vocally atheistic nations of Khmer Rouge Cambodia and China while Mao was alive. Their total death toll (internal only)? No less than *no less than* THIRTY MILLION. 30 million people dead under explicitly non-theistic governments, of their own citizens only, in single generation. It works out to about 1 million people a year, or more than 2,700 people every day for three decades.

To put that in perspective, you would have to slaughter ever man, woman, and child in modern day Israel 4.2 times to reach this (minimum) number of deaths.

In contrast the First and Second Intifadas have killed less than 10,000 people over 20 years, or about 4 days worth of deaths under the atheistic China of Mao.

Isreal is a secular nation with religious citizens. So is Syria. So is Jordan. So is Egypt. So is Lebanon. America has one of the highest rates of weekly church attendance (a great proxy for ‘level of devoutness’, a term I despise) – how ‘ridiculous’ are the morals of America? How about compared to the morals of the oh-so-anti-theistic Cambodia of the Killing Fields?

Perhaps I should not have used the word “morals”. Nevertheless, all these examples do not show morality, nevermind the fact that the examples are all the worst cases that you can present for secularism. But even then, secularism, like atheism, does not promote any philosophy. It just means that laws are not made on religious grounds and nation’s religion does not affect people who do not share the same belief.

If you are to just take religion out of the picture and replace it with nationalism however the same if not worse environment will appear. When you make decisions based on abstract terms like “The good of the nation” or “the will of God” then human lives stop meaning much in front of the greater picture. That was the problem of Stalin, Pol Pot and all the rest bad apples.

However when I mention morality, I of course, compare it with the generically accepted western morality. I understand that it is not the best comparison but it’s one who is similar enough to mine to talk about.
Theocratic nations have laws that are based on morals taken from ancient books from shepherds and illiterates. These are laws preventing the existence of gays, divorce, abortion and other personal choices.

In the end. It is not that a secular nation cannot have bad laws, but at least it will not have bad laws because of religion. It is not that atheism will make a person good but at least it will not make him to bad things because of religion. It’s that simple. The more religion takes power and the more secularism is eroded, so do you get more ridiculous laws, based on ridiculous morality.

(PS: Sorry for any grammatical errors but I do not have time to proof-read it)

Taking a cue from the Friendly Atheist’s short list of questions, here are my personal answers:

• • Why do you not believe in God?

Because I do not have a clear definition of it. Before I can believe in “God” or whatever, someone must first explain to me what he means by god and present me with some tangible proof so that I may know how to respond. If we’re talking about the Christian God, then I do not believe in his existense because of the distinct lack of proof for it.

• • Where do your morals come from?

As I’m sure most atheists would say, they come from the evolved societal morality almost all human communities possess. I generally follow the Golden Rule which serves adequately but I am fortunate enough to have had the appropriate experiences that further developed my morality to another level

• • What is the meaning of life?

There is not life meaning. Why should there be? These is an “evolutionary meaning” which is to propagate the species. In order to further this goal, I feel the need to attack those irrational beliefs that threaten the species in this…nuclear age. I also feel the need to make the world a better place for everyone and I’m disheartened that most people do not feel the same way as soon as they grow up.

• • Is atheism a religion?

Is not collecting stamps a hobby? Most people would know the answer. It is not a philosophy either.

• • If you don’t pray, what do you do during troubling times?

Try to make them right or just persevere.

• • Should atheists be trying to convince others to stop believing in God?

They should be trying to stop other people trying to convince everyone else to start believing in the same imaginary dude in the sky. They should also not feel the need to be “respectful” to unfounded beliefs in order not to hurt any feelings. It is unfortunate for religion that the atheistic arguments are so solid that they inevitably shake the faith of those who have precious few of it.
Ergo, they do not try to convince anyone. It is unavoidable side-effect of reason.

• • Weren’t some of the worst atrocities in the 20th century committed by atheists?

No. Hitler was not an Atheist, and neither was Mussolini. Even if they were, as being an atheist is not a way of life or a philosophy, and as such it it would not make a whiff of a difference. Stalin did not kill his countrymen because they believed in God. He did it on the irrational belief that USSR should be a world power no matter the sacrifice.
It is irrational beliefs like religion and nationalism (which, most of the time, go hand-in-hand) that create the problems.

• • How could billions of people be wrong when it comes to belief in God?

How could billions of people be wrong when it comes to performing surgery? How could billions of people have been wrong to believe in Gods? Popularity does not equal authenticity.

• • Why does the universe exist?

It just does. Why do we need to have a hidden meaning in everything?

• • How did life originate?

Pure luck. I’m certain that, given the immensity of the known universe, the chances of life not being created by pure luck where almost zero.

• • Is all religion harmful?

Quite. It just bundles a way of life with an irrational delusion. Why not keep the first and discard the later which would further allow the first to evolve without shackles?

• • What’s so bad about religious moderates?

They harbor the fundamentalists. A religious moderate might not press his beliefs on me, but he may fund an organized religion who will and he will not speak up against it. When organized religion attacks secular government when trying to pass irrational laws about abortion and research. The moderates keep quiet and the agnostics and atheists must fight. When organized religion forces children to lean christianity for 12 years, it is the moderates who will happily accept it while atheists and agnostics have to fight the government to stop this proselytism.

• • Is there anything redeeming about religion?

Nope. Anything that is done in the name of religion could have been done without it. For every good thing they do, the do 10 bad. For every junkie they detox, they create 5 crypto-fascists etc.

• • What if you’re wrong about God (and He does exist)?

Which god? What if the God of Atheism exists that will only reward in the afterlife those that do not believe in a God?

• • Shouldn’t all religious beliefs be respected?

Certainly not. They do not deserve any more respect than the Invisible Pink Unicorn, Zeus or my Holy Dirty Underwear.

• • Are atheists smarter than theists?

No. They might have one less irrational belief and hopefully have developed critical thinking though.

• • How do you deal with the historical Jesus if you don’t believe in his divinity?

A Jewish rebel created by a heretical group that despised the current status of Theocracy. He used tricks, illusions and staged miracles to create a following and fled real confrontation (Bible stories, not mine). His legacy was later abused by powerful men who saw the way to consolidate power by looking at how these gullible christians acted.

• • Would the world be better off without any religion?

Not necessarily. At least there would be no more religious wars or jihads and nationalism would be weakened. They would have to find another pillar on which to create an “US vs THEM” mentality.

• • What happens when we die?

We cease to exist.

(EDIT 6-24-09: I revisited this article today, over two years after its posting. At the time of composing this article, I had not yet discovered Pantheism and its implications. That would be the label I would apply to the me of 2007. Relatively recently, however, I have realized that ultimately in my pantheistic view I was making the concept of “god” worthless, and really just trying to deny my growing Atheism, which I had not yet embraced as the true “label” of my beliefs. I will still allot a degree of Pantheism to my worldview, but the word simply describes the wonder and awe I feel when contemplating the universe in easily grasped terminology, NOT an actual belief I ascribe to.)

This dissertation was the result of many months of thought and introspection. It is not objective as my Debunking Christianity articles are, but rather, most of the statements are personal beliefs as well as opinions. I do use “I” in this post, and it is much more personal than my other essays, but no less instructive. I do not mean to offend with my opinions; take them as they are. If you are offended by my imagery or examples, please know now that I do not intend anything personal, nor do I have some vendetta against you and others like you. I am working with archetypes and stereotypes, and I am aware that most people do not fully fall under one arche/stereotype. Now that the disclaimer is over, on to the dissertation. Details are changed to protect the “innocent”, I mean them no offense either, and thank them for bringing me to reflect.

Now, a few days ago I ran into a young man online… (more…)

I recently happened upon this article from the forum of the ACP. Curious I decided to sit down and read it just to see what it is we must agree with the Theists.

The author brings up several points that I’m going to tackle one by one.

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To get things started on the ACP, here is something I wrote a while back on the nature of debating atheism based on the actions of atheists.

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