Why I Am an Atheist

Reasons to believe in God:

1. Not knowing what happens when we die is scary. It feels better to think that life never really ends than to think about the idea that it's black when it's all done.

2. The people I grew up with taught me to.

3. A lot of people I didn't grow up with want me to.

4. There are many books that talk about it.

5. When I'm confused and don't have answers, it gives me something to hold on to rather than saying, "I don't know."

6. It allows me to belong to a group that will accept me based solely on believing in a God.

7. It gives me someone to talk to and ask for help when nobody else will listen.

Reasons not to believe in God:

1. All the evidence that God exists can be equally explained by other means.

2. I'm not sure which God to believe in, there are so many to chose from.

3. Believing in God doesn't have a universal affect of making people nicer, kinder, or more compassionate.

4. Adding a god to my life gives me more to do.

5. Depending on which god, adding God to my life adds unnecessary guilt.

6. I'm not into sports, or competition, and don't want to play the "my God is better than your God" game.

7. None of the gods available are all that nice or helpful.

8. If God is evil, why help the cause? If God is good, my deeds and behavior will be more important than my belief. So, it's better to spend energy and time on better behavior, and belief is irrelevant.

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To me, the reasons not to believe in God outweigh the reasons to believe in God. Also, the reasons to believe in God come from childhood fear and feelings, the reasons to not believe come from maturity and logic. Lastly, the reasons not to believe generally lead to a more liberating and compassionate life for all, whereas the reasons to believe lead to servitude and self-focus.

I choose not to believe because it makes more sense and it's better for myself and the world if I don't.

Why I Don't Worship or Believe in (a) God

I was raised Christian. It took years to figure out my relationship with the God that had been taught to me. Over the years, I examined the reasons I was told to believe. There are many things I could say about why I now don't worship, believe, or even have interest in God, but this quote pretty much sums up the basics. 

 

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones." –Marcus Aurelius

Why the Bible (or any other mystical text) Is Like Harry Potter

A friend of mine explained why the Bible is like Harry Potter. I think this can extend out to anything we read, even nonfiction.

"Actually, the parts that can be "proven by recorded history" argument turns out to be bullshit.

The fact that a book can have some historically accurate facts means nothing in terms of proving it's true. For example, let's look at Harry Potter.

A thousand years from now, historians could discover that people really did have cars and radios. They could discover that Britian really had a Prime Minister. They could discover that people really did use the telephone. In fact, the year that Order of the Phoenix would have occurred in, Rowling incorporated the true detail that there was a really bad drought in Britian that summer.

None of these things can establish that Harry Potter is true. This could also be dome with ANY piece of fiction.

The bible is no different from any other piece I'm fiction in this regard. " - Mike Feigen

Will Harry Potter be the deemed penned by the Hand of God two thousand years from now, and J.K. Rowling a prophet?

How Can You Hate God....

if you don't believe in him?

Barefoot Bum, brings up a good point. Atheists have been accused of hating God. But, how is that possible? If atheists don't believe in God, how can they hate him? It's like saying people who don't believe in the tooth fairy hate her.

If I found out right now, some definite way, that the Christian God exists as they believe he does, I might be put in the position to hate him. But, since I'm pretty much convinced he doesn't exist, or that at least, he doesn't exist in any way we can possibly conceive, I have no opinion at all. I can't have an opinion about something that I don't think exists.

I suppose, however, one can have an opinion about people who believe something exists. My opinion on that? People who believe in God have a different viewpoint. And so long as they don't try to have me hanged (literally or figuratively) or change the laws so I am forced to say I believe in him, I don't care what they believe. If believing in God makes them happy and have a meaningful life, more power to them.

So, hate God? Not possible for me as a non-believer. Hate between people with different beliefs - totally possible. And not at all reserved to just one POV. If we're gonna point fingers out, we gotta point fingers inward too. We're all human.

Love Is My Religion

Ziggy Marley and his brother David's video Love Is My Religion is on the album that won best Reggae album at the Grammy's. Hollywood has always been far more secular than the general population. But this song... this is kind of the stuff that influences people. Spirituality without religion isn't a new concept, but for our youth, and our country's Hollywood dependent culture, it is.

After watching the video, I wonder, is the concept of love "better" when it's through an organized religion? Is it something different when it's felt, and practiced, by someone who isn't saved? If love is what God is made of, does he really care whether we belong to a religious group or not, so long as we are loving? And what's worse then, in God's proverbial eyes - one who is not religious, but loves deeply the people and world around him, or one who "believes" but doesn't love anything but himself and his God?

If there is indeed some kind of judgement after I die, I'm confident that if God is good, he won't tie salvation to whether I believed in him. If there is a God, who judges, and he judges based on faith, then that kind of shallow God is not an entity I'd want to serve anyway.

Love, that's what it's all about. Whatever it takes to arrive at universal love, and deep caring for the suffering and happiness of the people around us, is fine by me. But as soon as some kind of black and white rules area slapped down on how we are supposed to arrive at love, and if we don't use THAT ONE path to arrive at love it's as if we don't love at all, it's like we're closing our eyes, and loving only the things that we think are good. What's the point of that kind of love?

Just as in life, black and white is easier to manage, easier to judge. But the truth is, life, and death, and I'm guessing the afterlife if there is any, is grey. Grey, grey and more grey. There is no black and white, except for what we want there to be, and expect there to be.

Even in love. It's all grey. I just love as much as I can, with all my heart. Ziggy Marley had it right - love is the best.

Mommy, What Is God?

The vast majority of us grew up with one religion or another. Whether it be Christianity, Judaism, or Atheism, we grew up being told something about religion, and then at some point, we went through some kind of maturation process, and decided for ourselves (hopefully) whether we agree with what we were taught.

I'm probably opening Pandora's box here, but I'm going to admit, that among the many life choices that we've made that aren't traditional, one of them is to not bring our children up in any religion.

None.

My husband is atheist. I'm Buddhist. But we don't label ourselves, well, ever. In fact, I think this might be the first time I've described ourselves as such. Our beliefs are obvious, and our children know what we feel about these things. But, we haven't tried to teach them to be one way or another.

In other words, we are letting them decide, now, whether they want to be religious.

So far, they haven't shown any interest.

They've asked about God, they've gone to church with friends, they've seen me meditate and done yoga with me. And we've talked about the "big issues". But whenever we get to a topic where hubby and I have an opinion, but there's no actual fact, we tell them "I don't know the answer to that. Everyone has their own opinion. This is mine. What's yours?"

They might ask us what our opinions are of God, and the afterlife, and why I meditate. But we tell them that ultimately, they have to figure that all out themselves. In fact, that's part of being human is; to figure out the meaning of life.

We've taken this approach with pretty much everything that isn't math or otherwise completely obviously true. The vast majority of what each human "knows" is actually, just opinion.

What we know is based on what we've been taught, what we've read or seen, who we know and where we live. Our knowledge base comes from somewhere inside, from our perspective, and is shaped by weighing the information we have accumulated.

We've decide, as parents, to give as much information as we can to our kids, but what they think about it, what their final conclusions are theirs.

Just an example - the pilgrims. During Thanksgiving, we opt not to do any particular pilgram-oriented activity. We focus instead on thanking the people who are with us, and who make our lives wonderful by being there. We don't thank the pilgrims.

But, if the kids thought the pilgrims should be thanked, that'd be fine too. In other words, we talk to them about everything we know about the pilgrims; what they did, who they served, what their lives were like, why they were here, etc. And, in the end, the kids decide if they need to be thanked or not. So far, the kids haven't been all that enthusiastic about the pilgrims.

On the other hand, they don't have any negative reactions to them either. It is what it is, they get it, let's move on.

Most of what we "teach" them is not a matter of telling them how or what to think, but providing them with as much information as they can possibly stand at the moment (and often, them telling us that our info is wrong, so we do research together) and we all come to our own conclusion about it, which is often different from one another - and it's all OK.

They are still young, so I know that no matter what they think right now, there is a very high likelihood that they will change their mind at some point. And, I'm kind of hoping they do change their mind a lot. Get a different view of things. Try on different perspectives. And if they get to do that now, while they are little, then when they are adults, they won't have to break away from anything to explore their own perspectives. They will have gone through their childhood figuring out where they stand on things. And they will (hopefully) continue that practice through the rest of their lives.

A friend of mine asked if I would be upset if my children decided to be Christian or some other religion that's based on organized worship. I said, "I can't say that now, because if they do decide to do that, there will have been some kind of process that got them to that point. The process will shape my feelings about it more than the final result. So, ask me when they get there, and I'll tell you how I feel about it."

And in the end, how I feel about it isn't really that important anyway, because if my kids' process takes them there, that's their choice. My role, as a parent, is to give them as many tools as possible (and lots of space) to figure out who they are. The number one tool is the grounding of a strong and supportive family.

So, Mommy, What is God? It's exactly what you think it is, dear.