Logical Atheism

To the believer who is questioning their faith, or to the devout who challenges atheism, the question usually comes up of what non-belief offers that religion doesn't. This is a challenge to atheism to sell itself, to appeal to the religious on the same plane that the idea of god, Mohammad or Jesus appeals to them. To me, this is a silly proposition, as the whole concept of atheism simply has no intrinsic appeal. It is a personal preference thing. Any decorative merchandising done to market it is, in my opinion, hijacking a perfectly good model of sanity. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a deity; there is no doctrine, no mission statement, no cause, no motivation. This is logical atheism. It is a state of being that comes about as the conclusion of several logical realizations. When someone asks, "Why atheism?" the response is, "There just is no evidence to the contrary."

Christopher Hitchens makes a compelling argument when posed with the question of what comfort atheism offers that religion cannot: there is no sadistic Big Brother surveillance watching over your every move and your every thought, checking you against an arbitrary list of rights and wrongs, judging you every step of the way. The point is missed, though, when one starts to further justify atheism along the same worry. Atheism alone will not give you courage when you are scared. Atheism alone will not keep you company when you are alone. Atheism does not lend itself to the unintelligent and unresourceful. If someone desires these comforts from an ideology, atheism is not for them. Instead, it is then necessary for them to concoct from their imagination a scenario in which they are loved by a watchful creator. Belief typically defies all scientific logic and certainly labels one who follows it as willfully involved in the fantastic.

Many intelligent religious folks acknowledge science and its complete separation from faith, but there are those whose faith relies on the supposed dysfunction of logic and science. It is, however, too easy to dismiss these arguments. The simplest logical conclusion for atheism has already been stated: there is no evidence to prove the existence of god. Until evidence is found, the only logical conclusion to reach is that there is none. Further conclusions can be made simply by deflecting the justifications for religion:

"The bible says..." - This is circular reasoning. One still needs proof of the worth of anything contained in any "holy" text.
"85% of the world believes..." - This is an appeal to popularity. Just because someone else believes (even someone really respected) doesn't mean it is true.
"God speaks to me..." - This is personal testimony, which I deconstructed in my previous post.
"It's a miracle that..." - The only thing that is miraculous is the blatant denial of all the instances in which an event didn't happen. Like in the case of the 1-month-under-the-rubble Haiti earthquake survivor; why doesn't god get credit for the 200,000 people he killed rather than the one he kept alive?
"You can't prove there is no god." - The beauty of atheism is that it has no burden of proof. Faith makes the positive claim of existence thus it should be the one to supply proof. I will expand later on the absurdity of this argument.
"You can't make something out of nothing..." - You can't assume that because something is too complicated to understand that it must have come from an intelligent creator. This fallacy is also known as god of the gaps.

The list goes on, but the argument always returns to the burden of proof that belief has yet to fulfill. What is brought instead is an appeal to necessity, a proposal of the worth of belief. When one states the benefits of religion, it is no better an argument than stating Scientology's track record for drug rehabilitation. (Impressive, but at what cost?) All this proves is the influence of religion and a demonstration of its use. Alas, I am not stating that atheism is "better" (at least not in this paragraph), this is an existential debate at the moment. To me, the judgment of better/best is irrelevant in the face of what is real and not real. Any attempt of religion to argue on the basis of reality usually disintegrates into bumbling hilarity. Even devout religious scientists and scholars are careful to keep their faith separate from their practice and those that don't end up with their unscientific findings easily disproved. Evidence and universal application, not sentiment, are the requirements for something to be determined as reality.

As a religious person may claim, god exists apart from the physical world. Admittedly, the argument for atheism is based largely on religion's inability to establish itself within apparent reality. This is not a weakness, but an intrinsic value of a bare-bones argument. Logically, there can be no "pro-atheism" arguments, only "anti-theism" ones, because you cannot prove that something doesn't exist. This is why the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Invisible Pink Unicorn arguments exist; if theists would just acknowledge that the burden of proof rests with them, atheists would be able to make several other points to compound their argument:

1. The scope of the universe is so vast and complicated that to assume creation is a cop-out. Why not simply acknowledge that we don't know everything yet?
2. The gods of modern day are different than the gods of yesteryear, yet they are worshiped by their followers with the same conviction. This should, at the very least, cast some doubt.
3. The logical conclusion of the observation of multiple faiths is that either only one is correct or none of them are. This is one of the first realizations that I made early in life that pointed me to where I am now.
4. The very fact that a person may convert or switch faiths belies god's man-made origins. It is one thing to adjust your philosophy in life. It is quite another to hedge your bets on which way is more suitable for you.

Logical atheism is not usually the starting point that people find themselves at when they begin to question their faith, it is the conclusion that one finds after questioning the world around them enough to completely shake off the necessity to compensate for the supernatural. The crack forms as a little voice in one's head becomes louder. The voice starts to question the truth and applicability of the stories being told, the fears being held, and the facts unknown. Eventually, with enough searching and enough learning, the security of comfort and community that belief deliberately provides (read: sells) gives way to doubt and doubt gives way to truth. The only choice one must make at this point is either to keep believing in the fantasy or to restructure their approach to reality. My personal experience is slightly different, as my exposure to religion while growing up was light-handed and mostly observational. All it took was the failure of the supposed benefits of faith to manifest themselves for me to start on a path of questioning. I thankfully did not have to put up with the self-doubt created by the insistence of others that faith works if you believe harder.

This brings me to the frustration I feel towards the concept of belief. Being that atheism is what you get when you strip away all of the unsubstantiated items from your world view, it becomes apparent that religious belief is unabashedly unnecessary and artificial. It is baggage that is patched onto our psyches early in life with its adhesive reinforced with thumb tacks, staples and crazy glue administered throughout the course of our lives by delusional missionaries and mindless acolytes. Besides, receiving religious guidance from the church is a lot like asking the barber if you need a haircut. In the case of my sister, who became a born-again Christian, religion was crammed into the hole bored by hours of church-sponsored group therapy aimed at making her externalize her physical illness and attitude-induced familial ostracization. The fact that atheism, for many, can only be achieved through psychiatric deconstruction is a testament to the persuasiveness of the vast fiction that religious society unnecessarily introduces to our collective consciousness.

It cannot be said that atheism is better than belief, just as it cannot be said the other way around. This is a judgment call for an individual to make. Is atheism a more accurate representation of reality? Indeed. Now it is up to an individual to decide what is more important to them: reality or belief. Far be it from me to condemn one's choice to subsist on fantasy. However, it should be said that whatever benefits one seeks religion for have their parallels with non-belief. One can achieve all the same morals, bonds, possessions, comforts and passions with atheism as they can with belief, just in different (and, I argue, more genuine) fashions. If you want to learn how a non-believer can be a good person, look in the direction of humanism, whose virtues over religion shall be shared at a later date. One notable difference, though, is there is no letdown at the end of your life when your conscience blinks out like an old TV and no afterlife succeeds it. Then again, you won't be aware enough to be disappointed.