durkheim would have been so proud of this."Religion is the opiate of the masses" - Karl Marx.
If there is one question I get asked more than any other, it would be “Why don’t you believe in God?”. Rather than going down the popular route of trying to work out which God the inquirer is talking about, I like to respond with reasons why I don’t believe in any god. To be an atheist, you don’t just have to disbelieve the existence of one god; you have to disbelieve in all of them.
By far the most persuasive reason I disbelieve in gods is the sheer lack of evidence for them in the first place. A theist might argue that all of existence is evidence enough for god, but the problem with this conclusion is that it does not explain the god. In fact, it makes things even more confusing, because it invokes a “supreme” being that in most religions is all-knowing and all-powerful. Such a being is so infinitely complex that the only way you can possibly explain its own existence is by claiming it was “always there”. Not only does this argument rely on speculation and blind faith, but you can easily turn it around and argue that the universe - in some form - was always there. Indeed, the same line of argument is used with Intelligent Design, and the same problem is reached; you simply cannot explain or give evidence for the “designer”. All things considered, it would probably be far easier for me to believe in flying unicorns than to suppose an infinitely complex being.
Another problem I find with the whole “god” idea is the contradictory nature of religion. It’s not just that there are several hundred religions all claiming to be the truth, or that all of them contradict each other in some way, but that even each religion is internally inconsistent. Evangelicals like to claim that the Bible is supported by science, but it is simply not. The Bible has stayed roughly the same for generations; science has not. When a new scientific discovery threatens the “infallibility” of the Bible, one of two things can occur; either believers change the way they interpret passages so that the inconsistency is effectively removed, or they reject the entire scientific idea. Not all believers choose to do the same thing of course. This whole process of constantly updating religious texts to comply with science begs the ultimate question: If a god did exist, and these texts are supposedly its word, why was it so wrong in the first place? Or have we really risen to such a high level that we are out-thinking an all-knowing god? =P
The next thing which irks me is the unquestioning nature and pre-requisite of blind faith in the belief of god. It is just so amazing how seemingly rational and powerful people are still at their mother's knees when it comes to the topic of religion. Its like for some reason, their faculties for religion never really developed after the rest of their brains had took off. Using faith as a euphemism for ignorance is just irresponsible of religion, and puts religious followers in a compromising position. We often see the manipulative nature of religion precisely taking advantage of this complete trust and consequently the harm which it can wreak on the gullible and the innocent. Do the 9/11 terrorists, the Crusades and the Aum Shin Rikyo cult ring a bell? On the other hand, why is faith so hyped up by religious believers as the crucible of one's religiosity? If so, why pray only as a last resort; one should just pray instead of studying/training/working
Finally, I see no logical reason for life to exist after death; a concept most religions like to advertise. Science tells us we really are just a bunch of atoms, and that even our consciousness can be explained with natural processes. I have no problem with that; I find it quite a humble view. In retrospect, I think our self-awareness is the cause of our fear, and subsequent fixation with death. Problems arise when one attempts to imagine what it is like not to think; it’s impossible to do by the very nature of thinking. So which is it? Was an afterlife created for us so we can live on, or did we create an afterlife to cope with our fears of death?
-Thanks to thejx for the prodding. Felt that I had been procrastinating on this for far too long. Too much work, too much tennis, and too little beer. Maybe I'll write something more positive sometime, like 'Why I am an Atheist' or something. =]
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