To my Christian Face Book friends, if I have any left!
I, am an anti theist!
I have had friends new and old who have unfriended me because of our differences in belief. Yes I make my position openly apparent. It is at least as important to me to create a world where reason and truth are the primary goals, as it is for the believer to spread and confirm their own investment in their own delusion, .. er I mean belief. What "actually" is truth, matters to me. I don't feel believers feel as strongly about what is "actually" true. I, am willing to risk their imposed threat of eternal hell damnation. Although that is not actually a consideration for me, I use it only to make the point.
Actually, hell, in my opinion would be living for an eternity worshipping a needy, jealous, narcissistic deity, who loves to play mind games with the human race. But that is another issue.
This schism causes rifts not only between close friends and family members but fellow Americans and humans who do not know each other, in politics. This is due to the undeniable fact that believers have chosen to believe in an ideology based entirely on faith and the writings of a 2600 year old book! Believers have been taught and accept, in the case of Christian religion, faith in Jesus is the truth, the path, the light and the way. This is merely indoctrination poetry.
Faith is not a pathway to what is true!
“What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.” Christopher Hitchens.
We do not use faith in our daily lives to make normal daily decisions, or at least we attempt to use the best knowledge available to make our decisions. Buying a car, where to go to school, what food to eat, when it is safe to cross the road, who we should marry. Why is it; that with one of the most important universal questions we can choose to ask, an answer is accepted upon faith and a culturally driven ideology?
At a time before science, we searched for answers to comfort ourselves. Humans made decisions by observing their surroundings and applying an answer which seemed to them reasonable. Natural events had answers created from an ignorance of the physics of nature. Storms, volcanic eruptions, good crops, bad crops, comets in the sky, droughts, were all credited to one god or another. In an attempt to understand the world around us we felt at ease being able to credit with willful ignorance, a pretentious knowledge which was untested and unverified. Lightning came from the clouds; hence Zeus was angry. Demeter was the Greek goddess of a good harvest. You can Google just about any natural phenomena and somewhere in history a god or goddess will be given credit. The source of the word hurricane is taken from the Mayan God Huracan.
“Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.”
― Thomas Jefferson
Religion has had it purpose in human evolution. It served as a scaffold to create a system of order and control in a time when law and order was difficult if not near impossible to maintain. Murder, death, and rape wear rarely punished by the law of man. The threat of eternal damnation after your own death was a tool used by the church and rulers, the people in power in an attempt to control bad behavior. Religion has been and to some extent remains the means by which rulers, governments and the church control the masses. Evidenced by Sharia laws. This impalpable scaffold which humankind used to build a moral and decent civil foundation has seen it's time and it is now the time to kick the scaffold away. We are now a race of humans who have evolved our morality and continue to do so, know understand what it takes to maintain a just and free society.
Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody—not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms—had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion. Christopher Hitchens, God is not Great.
The continued effects of this religious system persevere in our modern era of scientific discovery and understanding.
Why? Is it the threat of hell? Is it because of where you were born? Because your parents and authority figures told you so since the age of 5 that this religion is the correct one? You believe it makes sense and how else could this wonderful place exist? This is known as an argument from ignorance; well I don't know so it must be this, what else could it be?
What is wrong with, "I don't know?"
The technological and medical world we live in is directly credited to science. Science does not use faith to find answers. This has worked pretty well for us and it is fairly safe to say this will not change.
I have had friends new and old who have unfriended me because of our differences in belief. Yes I make my position openly apparent. It is at least as important to me to create a world where reason and truth are the primary goals, as it is for the believer to spread and confirm their own investment in their own delusion, .. er I mean belief. What "actually" is truth, matters to me. I don't feel believers feel as strongly about what is "actually" true. I, am willing to risk their imposed threat of eternal hell damnation. Although that is not actually a consideration for me, I use it only to make the point.
Actually, hell, in my opinion would be living for an eternity worshipping a needy, jealous, narcissistic deity, who loves to play mind games with the human race. But that is another issue.
This schism causes rifts not only between close friends and family members but fellow Americans and humans who do not know each other, in politics. This is due to the undeniable fact that believers have chosen to believe in an ideology based entirely on faith and the writings of a 2600 year old book! Believers have been taught and accept, in the case of Christian religion, faith in Jesus is the truth, the path, the light and the way. This is merely indoctrination poetry.
Faith is not a pathway to what is true!
“What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.” Christopher Hitchens.
We do not use faith in our daily lives to make normal daily decisions, or at least we attempt to use the best knowledge available to make our decisions. Buying a car, where to go to school, what food to eat, when it is safe to cross the road, who we should marry. Why is it; that with one of the most important universal questions we can choose to ask, an answer is accepted upon faith and a culturally driven ideology?
At a time before science, we searched for answers to comfort ourselves. Humans made decisions by observing their surroundings and applying an answer which seemed to them reasonable. Natural events had answers created from an ignorance of the physics of nature. Storms, volcanic eruptions, good crops, bad crops, comets in the sky, droughts, were all credited to one god or another. In an attempt to understand the world around us we felt at ease being able to credit with willful ignorance, a pretentious knowledge which was untested and unverified. Lightning came from the clouds; hence Zeus was angry. Demeter was the Greek goddess of a good harvest. You can Google just about any natural phenomena and somewhere in history a god or goddess will be given credit. The source of the word hurricane is taken from the Mayan God Huracan.
“Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.”
― Thomas Jefferson
Religion has had it purpose in human evolution. It served as a scaffold to create a system of order and control in a time when law and order was difficult if not near impossible to maintain. Murder, death, and rape wear rarely punished by the law of man. The threat of eternal damnation after your own death was a tool used by the church and rulers, the people in power in an attempt to control bad behavior. Religion has been and to some extent remains the means by which rulers, governments and the church control the masses. Evidenced by Sharia laws. This impalpable scaffold which humankind used to build a moral and decent civil foundation has seen it's time and it is now the time to kick the scaffold away. We are now a race of humans who have evolved our morality and continue to do so, know understand what it takes to maintain a just and free society.
Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody—not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms—had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion. Christopher Hitchens, God is not Great.
The continued effects of this religious system persevere in our modern era of scientific discovery and understanding.
Why? Is it the threat of hell? Is it because of where you were born? Because your parents and authority figures told you so since the age of 5 that this religion is the correct one? You believe it makes sense and how else could this wonderful place exist? This is known as an argument from ignorance; well I don't know so it must be this, what else could it be?
What is wrong with, "I don't know?"
The technological and medical world we live in is directly credited to science. Science does not use faith to find answers. This has worked pretty well for us and it is fairly safe to say this will not change.
There is no reason not to believe that when we die we are finished with life. Is the fear of no longer existing in the future any different than when we did not exist in the past? Until it is rationally and empirically demonstrated that we continue on in some form after dying, I treat this life as my one and only chance to experience life. This life is not a stepping stone to a better place. This is it! Life is wonderful! Carpe diem!
What I am trying to get at here is, old friends, new friends, neighbors and co workers, we have a rift between us because of these belief claims. It is YOUR decision to believe in something, an ideology, and openly and publicly assert it towards society.. with a total lack of evidence. My decision to not believe in your theological god, is no different to me than my reason not to believe in Zeus or Thor. I go one deity further. Your belief system threatens people who deny and question it honestly with eternal torment in a made up after life place known as hell. How do believer's reconcile living with that as a world view?
For the mere position of doubt and incredulity; Abrahamic beliefs assert that unless you abandon your reason and rationality to a belief supported by faith you are condemned to suffering an eternity in the afterlife. Now if this were a platform any politician ran on I wonder how that career would end up. Our ancestors in this country left England to escape this type of tyranny.
Believers are compelled to think bad things of those non believers who approach the claim with skepticism. Recent polls of Christians suggest that atheists are the least trusted people in the country. Worse than rapists. This makes it kind of hard for us to be friends doesn't it?. You believe in something that creates dissension and hate towards non believers. Because of what you, believers, have decided to take on faith alone.
This comes at a cost for us all.
I share the view a legendary composer artist posed to us in 1971. The world would be a better place if we all believed that which has been demonstrated as true. No heaven; no hell. All people living for one another, for the day! You may say it's a dream. This is my dream as well.
Imagine!
