Tuesday, December 21, 2010

An Atheist's Holiday Message

Why don’t you believe in God? I get that question all the time. I always try to give a sensitive, reasoned answer. This is usually awkward, time consuming and pointless. People who believe in God don’t need proof of his existence, and they certainly don’t want evidence to the contrary. They are happy with their belief. They even say things like “it’s true to me” and “it’s faith.” I still give my logical answer because I feel that not being honest would be patronizing and impolite. It is ironic therefore that “I don’t believe in God because there is absolutely no scientific evidence for his existence and from what I’ve heard the very definition is a logical impossibility in this known universe,” comes across as both patronizing and impolite.


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So what does the question “Why don’t you believe in God?” really mean. I think when someone asks that they are really questioning their own belief. In a way they are asking “what makes you so special? “How come you weren’t brainwashed with the rest of us?” “How dare you say I’m a fool and I’m not going to heaven, f— you!” Let’s be honest, if one person believed in God he would be considered pretty strange. But because it’s a very popular view it’s accepted. And why is it such a popular view? That’s obvious. It’s an attractive proposition. Believe in me and live forever. Again if it was just a case of spirituality this would be fine.

“Do unto others…” is a good rule of thumb. I live by that. Forgiveness is probably the greatest virtue there is. But that’s exactly what it is -­‐ a virtue. Not just a Christian virtue. No one owns being good. I’m good. I just don’t believe I’ll be rewarded for it in heaven. My reward is here and now. It’s knowing that I try to do the right thing. That I lived a good life. And that’s where spirituality really lost its way. When it became a stick to beat people with. “Do this or you’ll burn in hell.”

You won’t burn in hell. But be nice anyway.-A Holiday Message from Ricky Gervais: Why I’m An Atheist

2 comments:

  1. Here's another reason to hate Vox Day:

    Can you really blame God?

    He's responding to the article you posted. Actually he's written a whole book on the subject that's a free eBook download.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Who is this retarded Vox day?

    posted was this...

    "In other words, No Religion atheists are without question much more criminally inclined than Christians even if self-identified Scarlet-A Atheists are not.”

    Of course atheists are statistically underrepresented in criminal activity - and this liar knows it...

    And we don’t even want to go into intelligence and religion statistics...

    After the tired old agreements I am forced to wade into it would be nice to see some real material - too bad none exists.

    ReplyDelete

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