”It’s a bummer the word atheist has such a negative connotation when the only reason the word exists is because of religion. Atheism isn’t a religion. It’s a way to categorize a minority of people who want to take responsibility for themselves rather than credit or blame a supernatural designer. We do believe in something. Ourselves.”Molly is still naïve enough to blurt out the obvious things about Atheism that more hardened Atheists want to deny: Atheism is about the self. It is what Atheists believe in: their own responsibility which they have taken away from God, responsibility for such things as morals and their “own reality”. Far from being "not a religion" it is the worship of the self as the moral authority and the supreme being of their personal universe. It is "beautiful" to be supreme.
She is too naïve to understand how trust is manufactured only by consistency in a moral belief system, and consistency in behaviors to that system, as well as rational thought processes. It is the lack of these characteristics in Atheism which lead, no, force distrust of Atheists; distrust is the rational response to auto-worship, it is not mere prejudice.
”And it is not just other atheists we believe in. We believe every individual has the power to mold their own reality and that there are simply things out there that we do not quite understand yet. Uncertainty is what makes life interesting. It’s a reason to learn, grow, and challenge ourselves to be better and a chance to discover new things about the universe through science and exploration. There are certain things we may never know or understand in our lifetimes, but this doesn’t make them less beautiful or intriguing.”Yes, science and exploration, as if only Atheists have any capacity for that. Appreciation of the… umm creation, as if only Atheists have a capacity for that. And things we don't understand yet (but we scientistically know that science can answer everything). Hopefully, she will learn and grow via coming to understand the process of valid thought and the functional limits of science, and add that to her capacity to learn. If she does, her ideas will change.
I call myself an agnostic because I do not know if god exists as I can't prove it one way or another. He used to, but only in my thoughts, mostly when I was angry at what was happening when I assigned him the role of a Playwrite of tragedies in which mankind must take part and asked if he was laughing up there. Yet, if I have to place my bet I would place it on the side of his existence- not the god of any religion and not in a form I can imagine. In my limited understanding I find it rather difficult to understand how something can come out of nothing. Something that has intelligence and need not be created must be there in the first place. God could well be the god particle with means that it would have to have intelligence and that god is in all of us. That sounds a lot like my understanding of Hinduism.
ReplyDeleteAtheists always seem such angry people, not that many religious people are not. They always seem to be so self-righteous, as some religious are. For me, atheism is a religion too as it is a system of believe which put the intellectual self in the highest position, a place where the god worshippers put him. The god worshippers have their meeting places as does the atheists. The atheists may not have ceremonies to worship the self as the god worshippers do but the supreme position of the self seems evident to outsiders like me. I cannot say whether it is right or wrong only that each group insisting on its own way brings friction and a fractured society and an eventual downfall.