I'm an atheist, but I don't really like the term. The point has been made that calling someone an atheist is just the same as calling a black person a non-white. However, if using this term allows my points to be understood better than, say, "non-believer" or something else, then I guess I have to use it when I try to communicate. Unfortunately these words will probably never meet the eyes of someone who disagrees with them. They will probably never tell someone something that they didn't already know. This is, like most articles about atheism, preaching to the choir.
A conversation that I had earlier today with a friend had me stating that atheism is not just "another religion" nor is it a system of belief in any way. These distinctions are important because atheism's argument against religion is nowhere near similar to the feuding differences between any two religions (pick Christianity & Islam for an example). The basis for atheism (or, more accurately, the absence of any need for faith) is science and the scientific method. Science is not a belief system because you do not need to take anything for granted when studying it. Every element of scientific law can be proven through experimentation. The same cannot be said for religion and all forms of spirituality, which rely on a person's faith that something exists despite the lack of proof. Trusting science is not a matter of believing because it is obvious, apparent, repeatable and predictable. In other words, you can set your clock to science - not to religion.
A common religious argument seeks to undermine what science calls "theories." (See: evolution, big bang.) It can be seen as noble to courageously challenge such rigorously held principles, but the shameful part about those arguments is that they are presented by those who know the least about science. In fact it is their denouncement of science that in turn weakens their competence in challenging said theories. As with any respectable institution, science has a set of rules that hold all of its theories to strict standards of evidence and logic. The challenges, made with counter-arguments of dueling concepts, adhere to absolutely NONE of those standards of evidence and logic.
One thing that I've learned in life about dealing with people is that you cannot heed another person's opinion before forming your own. It is important to experience another person in order to decide if you like them or not. This idea can be applied to more than just people, so let's talk about how religion tries to form the opinions of its followers before they have a chance to make up their own minds. I've recently watched the film Jesus Camp, which is a documentary that simply shows footage of Evangelical Christian church. The film focuses on the church's intent to indoctrinate children and to form their opinions of many things in life far ahead of any chance they'll have to experience them. They use symbolism and effigy to illustrate good and evil to impressionable kids. We are presented with the statistic that 43% of all Evangelical Christians are "born-again" before the age of 13. What this tells us is that the base of this religion is built upon the intellectual innocents who are devoid of any real world knowledge. Many members of this religion are no different than a sapling that has been strapped to an artificial spine to ensure it grows straight.
Many religions exist harmoniously with others, so you have to wonder what drives certain ones to impose themselves. Judaism, for instance, is not known for aggressive indoctrination or cultural revisionism. They simply exist and often find themselves victimized by the zealotry of other religions. On the other hand there are the Mormons, Catholics or (Hello, again!) Evangelicals who have rigorous methods of "recruitment" and who fight passionately in cultural and political battles for not just their own recognition but the denouncement of others. This friction creates conflict in a world already coming apart at its seams (or rather crashing together at its seams if you want to get technical). Struggle creates unity, so it is natural for any movement to seek out conflict in order to breed conviction. This is human nature; we are stubborn assholes and our psyches traverse many logical gaps to deliver a message to our conscience that we are correct and justified in whatever we do. For religions, which deal in such dire commodities as purpose and existence, it is doubly important to be right and just. There is no room for doubt, which is scary because it conjures images of a rhino charging forward at full speed with no course correction. Worse than that; given how contained and sheltered the lives of these religious radicals are, how do they know they're charging at the right target? Faith, I guess.
When speaking of humanity's convictions to its own justifications, we must address people who claim to have experienced God in some form. As an individual who has known many of these people in my life, I have never heard an "encounter" story from someone who seemed at all doubtful or inquisitive about their revelation. With all of religion's teachings smacking of self-service, the mind of man is busy at work rewriting the path to his own lie so that even he cannot retrace it to its truth. The arguments against finding evidence of revelation or having doubt in its occurrence belie the motives of faith; to suspend an individual's perception of reality upon a string tied to a cloud.
So, what do articles like this hope to achieve? Well, the hope is that it reaches someone high up in those clouds and that they become aware of that string. Maybe they can untie it themselves and when they hit the ground they can embrace its firmness, solidity and foundation. Unfortunately, I'm sure that would take an act of God.
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