The Need For Atheist Thought
When it comes to reasons why there needs to be atheists, there doesn’t seem to be many people that take the time to really present a sound view on this. I hope by reading this I can give you enough good reasons why.
Religion has claimed that you should do trial and error to find out the greatness of God. It’s one of those things that you could practice for 60 years without receiving anything. You just need to do it and trust in “God”. Rarely does religion ever just present evidence to gain members. They always appeal to the emotional side. They present an idea that it’s something within your reach, but something you’ll never reach.
Members are taught to just do as they’re told even though there is no measurable results. Believers are not encouraged to question or even try new things because that is a “sin”. This doesn’t encourage any form of rational thought. Religion has always had the desire to maintain the status quo. There has been no desire to think or to grow or to evolve. Those things were considered a sin. The Earth is flat. The sun revolves around the Earth. Than the scientists came along. People that didn’t have a problem with religion or God, just people that wanted to learn and understand.
Learning and understanding are definitely virtues that need to be celebrated not attacked. Often religion works hard to stop any form of criticism from the outside. Scientologists get their lawyers out to immediately sue anyone that says anything about their religion that doesn’t reflect it in a good manner. The ideas of free speech seem to be irrelevant ideals that need to be suppressed to protect the all powerful “God”. If free and open discussion isn’t allowed, how are we supposed to learn more.
To conclude, atheist thought brings the ideals of learning more to the table. It isn’t about attacking religion or turning everyone into sinners, it is about learning more about this world and our place in it.
Is There a God That Respects Individual Rights?
I’ve heard this suggested and I thought it was a bit funny. Most people wouldn’t guess it, but I’m a conservative. Yes, there are atheist conservatives. And often I’ll run into people that come from the religious right. This is where I heard this. They were talking about how Allah was a God that is basically about assimilation, while the “Christian God” respected individual rights. When you compare the Middle East to the United States you would get that idea, but I don’t believe that it has anything to do with religion. I think it’s because the Western world (for the most part) is built on individual rights and separation of church and state.
The United States has a pretty clear separation of church and state. I know some people will disagree with that and you’re right, but you have to look at things for what they are. When you compare prayer in school to decapitations and mass murder, you’ll start to view prayer in school as a tiny little problem. When you look at the core writings of all religion you’re going to find it is all about assimilation, so for that very reason I don’t think “God” respects individual rights. For the most part, people are normal and live in the real world and aren’t obsessed with following their book on faith to a “T”.
I’d like to go further into the concept of religion and individual rights because I believe inevitably that religion works to stomp out individuals and no matter how principled you are, you’ll come to believe it. All of us have a constitution in our mind. It encompasses our morality, values, ethics, politics, our creation, our existence, etc etc etc. This constitution ends up defining how we make decisions. If someone asks you if you want to steal a car, you’ll look at your constitution and determine that it is wrong. Another person could look at their constitution and steal it.
Basically we have two types of people; those that have a straight forward philosophy with their constitution and others that have conflicted constitutions. And I believe that religion causes a conflicted constitution. For example, conservatives are supposed to be for less government. They want to get the government out of people’s lives. But you’ll find that religion and morality start to conflict with political views. This is where you’ll see the government going into “people’s bedrooms” and trying to stop gay marriage. Another example is a business owner that has the integrity and ethics to hire the best person for the job, but they end up in a conflict because the best person for the job is a homosexual and that conflicts with their religion and morality.
This is the reason I don’t believe God or religion respects individual rights. Inevitably there will be a conflict between the choices of individuals and the religion. It’s going to happen and because religion is much more emotional it will often be the winner during the conflict.
The Atheist Definition
I wanted to talk about the atheist definition to help you understand what it means. I think there is a lot of people that have a poor view of atheism. I think a lot of people have a view that atheism is some sort of religion. Atheism is the rejection of the concept of a higher power. That is all it is.
Agnostic means that you won’t make a choice. I think people that are agnostic are basically cowards that won’t take a side. I think to accept God as a possibility, you have to have a reasonable reason to do it. God is just as abritrary as pixies or fairies. If someone tells me that magic pixies tell them things, I can’t be agnostic to such a statement. Just because someone makes up something doesn’t mean I have to give it consideration. The atheist definition is a rejection of a higher power because there is absolutely no evidence to ever give it consideration
