ID:98465
 
Keywords: me
I hate blog posts about religion. I hate hearing people proclaim from the digital rooftops how they've found Jesus, backing up their faith with arguments based entirely on emotion. I hate hearing people foam at the mouth over how terribly evil all religion is, using equally fallacious arguments to disprove spirituality. I don't much care what you believe, just so long as it doesn't place arbitrary restrictions on other people, you're open minded, and are honest in your beliefs. You see,

I'm an Atheist.

You'd never know this if you talked to me, because I talk to people where they are. If you come to me asking for personal advice, I'll give it to you in a way that works with your belief system. I don't need to convince you that your god doesn't exist in order to lend you my opinion on how to treat a family member in such and such a situation. In fact, I don't feel any need to convince anyone of anything - I don't care if people disagree with me.

I remember how two years ago at Christmas time I was invited to be one of three speakers to give a reflection at a Baptist service, in lieu of the sermon. [Why did they ask me? They often hire me to play music for their special occasions]. I chose as my reflection how we remember Christmas for its "Gloria in Excelsis Deo", but the way God chose to have us remember Christmas was a poor family in the cold, and a human being born into absolute poverty. I said that, to God, what mattered wasn't the incarnation, that God became man; what mattered was that a man was suffering. I then asked them to remember Christmas by giving to the poor, or something. You expect me to remember every detail? The point is, everyone there thought I was a baptist, and I didn't really care. They were helping the poor. Sounds good to me. This Baptist church, in particular, is very mindful of the poor, and I'd rather have some ignorant religious folk helping the poor than hoards of equally ignorant atheists yelling about spaghetti monsters and unicorns.

About a year ago I was on a date with a wonderful woman. It was a first date, and though this nerd should never be caught without a shirt on (I'm so pale I don't even have a tan line) we were going kayaking. The conversation was going well. She asked me, at one point, what religion I was. I stated that I was an Atheist. She didn't mind, but was surprised: she thought I was christian. I guess at some point she must have heard my music, much of which is hymns (I do make most of my music money playing for churches). I said that her confusion didn't surprise me, as I don't really care what religion people think I am, so I let them think what they want. She then asked if my family knew. I told her no; I didn't want to influence my family either way. You see, I'm "the smart one" and I believe my opinion carries a lot of weight in my family when it comes to this subject. The conversation was markedly less interesting after that; I don't think she had her heart in it anymore.

That was our last communication, and for a long time I didn't understand why she didn't see things the same way I did. I feel that I'm honest in all things, and I'll go out of my way to be completely honest in any way that is important. But this religion thing just isn't important to me, what does it matter what people think I am? Besides, I had been honest with her, hadn't I? What I came to learn over time was that I presented as someone who was willing to go to great lengths to hide a secret from the people around me, a secret that they thought was important. This is the same sort of thinking that can lead a man to hide an ongoing affair and rationalize away any moral obligations.

I hate posts like this. I hate being whiny about my personal life, and I hate discussing personal matters online, especially when it has to do with romance. I hate posts about religion/atheism (and I will delete any comment that is proselytizing). That being said, I do see a need to correct my earlier mistake in allowing people to believe things about me which are incorrect. As the subject comes up, I've been informing people of my position. As I have been involved in these discussions here on BYOND (mostly attacking people on either side when dishonest tactics are used), I feel I should inform you as well.



In the same spirit of disclosure, I should tell you that I'm no longer into alcohol. Though I never tried to get drunk (I've only been drunk twice), I used to drink a beer or wine or something almost every night. I enjoyed alcohol, especially a home brewed beer. I don't see any benefit to drinking alcohol, and I do see a lot of reasons not to. So these days I advocate doing away with the alcohol completely.



Hm, what else? My family won't eat at Taco Bell. Two of us have been hospitalized for food poisoning after eating there. I don't eat there either. ...but every six months or so I get a craving for some tacos, and I likes me some tacos, and I'm on the road an hour away from home. Be gentle, it's my weak human nature.
Being a dick about your beliefs is what makes people like Richard Dawkins so cool.
Passive; Submissive.
SuperAntx wrote:
Being a dick about your beliefs is what makes people like Richard Dawkins so cool.

Evolution is an interesting caveat* to this whole situation. Even when I was a religious person (and very religious, might I add) I always argued passionately for evolution. Then it seemed like a self-preservation tactic: Evolution happened, there's no getting around this; any religious preacher looses substantial credibility the moment they start preaching against it.

When I was pretending to be christian I had no problem being completely honest about evolution either. There is no reason for an adult in today's culture to have any honest doubt about the law of evolution. I can, however, see how a person can be honest with themselves and still arrive at the false notion that a god exists. That's pretty much all that matters to me: if you're honest with yourself and open minded, then you'll find yourself on the right side of things when it matters.

*I know I want to use a different word than "caveat" here, but I can't think of it.

-----

Vermolius wrote:
Passive; Submissive.

I don't know what you're getting at here. If you're describing my philosophy, I think stoic or disarming would be better descriptions. When these arguments come up in real life, I tend to disarm whatever fallacious argument is being used by either side. It doesn't matter to me if you're right, if your reasons for being right are themselves wrong. Sadly, most of the reasons people have for their beliefs (either way) are complete bunk.
Atheist? You should be worshipping the Aels!
</haz>
IainPeregrine reminds me of house
Tooo infinity, and beyond!
You know what'd make your life better?
Jesus Christ.
The world could use a lot more people like you; people that are respectful of others' beliefs despite your disagreement with them. +yea
Mecha Destroyer JD wrote:
The world could use a lot more people like you; people that are respectful of others' beliefs despite your disagreement with them. +yea

^
Mecha Destroyer JD wrote:
The world could use a lot more people like you; people that are respectful of others' beliefs despite your disagreement with them. +yea

I would be of the opinion that not all beliefs deserve respect.
Jp wrote:
I would be of the opinion that not all beliefs deserve respect.

I can agree with that. Someone in my extended family believes that fossils are rocks that have been shaped by Satan to destroy our faith, and there's always Scientology if you need a cult to deride.

It's important to separate the person from the belief, though. What a person needs is hardly ever a verbal smack-down, and these tirades are almost exclusively for the benefit of the person giving them. The flying spaghetti monster is a perfect example of this. Though it started as a good gag showing what a terrible idea it is to teach an arbitrary non-science in science classes, it quickly degraded. Lots of material was added (for instance, stuff about wafers and wine, if I remember correctly) with the soul purpose of deriding Christians so atheists could laugh at them. The whole thing is juvenile.

There's also the selfish standpoint. I don't want to ever be asked what religion I am. It's arbitrary and useless to me. I learned a long time ago not to let people know when my birthday is - I don't want people treating me differently because of my zodiac sign. If you haven't entered the work force yet, prepared to be shocked and amazed by the hold that the zodiac still has on people. So here's my deal: I'll let you remain ignorant, if you don't bother me with that fact that I'm going to hell.
You Pwn!
Some would argue that being certain about God, or some god, or something omnipotent (pick your poison) not existing is in and of itself a belief system.

"I don't need to convince you that your god doesn't exist in order to lend you my opinion." - I find that very telling. See below:

My father and I heavily disagree on spiritual matters; he is absolutely certain that something exists, he calls it a door inside yourself, that transcends physical and scientific understanding. That has always and will always be there. Its closer to the belief of the whole universe being encompassed by a being, understanding or link, than modern-day religion.

Myself, I'm a very scientific and logical person. What he calls his belief I call a perception, much like what my own thoughts on things are. There are many ways to look at the same thing, and if you're describing the same thing, then its fine. He believes there is a door inside himself, that provides him with peace of mind and happiness and understanding. I call it mental opium. You can make yourself believe whatever you want, thats how your brain works. And you're not wrong about your belief, no matter what, in the context of your own senses and thoughts. You're only wrong when you infringe upon another perception without retrofitting your view to fit within the frame of that perception.

What I distance myself from is the belief that there is only one perception - Which is what almost every (if not every) religion preaches, along with many people who speak about Atheism. In that context, Atheism is as much a religion as anything else.
Jangofett Pwns wrote:
IainPeregrine reminds me of house

You've clearly not watched a whole lot of House if you think he reminds you of him. Which part did you catch of the entire blog post? The word "athiest"?

IainPeregrine said he was Athiest.
House is Athiest.
Therefore; IainPeregrine is a lot like House.

lolwut?
Alathon wrote:
Some would argue that being certain about God, or some god, or something omnipotent (pick your poison) not existing is in and of itself a belief system.

"I don't need to convince you that your god doesn't exist in order to lend you my opinion." - I find that very telling. See below:

My father and I heavily disagree on spiritual matters; he is absolutely certain that something exists, he calls it a door inside yourself, that transcends physical and scientific understanding. That has always and will always be there. Its closer to the belief of the whole universe being encompassed by a being, understanding or link, than modern-day religion.

Myself, I'm a very scientific and logical person. What he calls his belief I call a perception, much like what my own thoughts on things are. There are many ways to look at the same thing, and if you're describing the same thing, then its fine. He believes there is a door inside himself, that provides him with peace of mind and happiness and understanding. I call it mental opium. You can make yourself believe whatever you want, thats how your brain works. And you're not wrong about your belief, no matter what, in the context of your own senses and thoughts. You're only wrong when you infringe upon another perception without retrofitting your view to fit within the frame of that perception.

What I distance myself from is the belief that there is only one perception - Which is what almost every (if not every) religion preaches, along with many people who speak about Atheism. In that context, Atheism is as much a religion as anything else.

Depends on your stance. Weak atheism is the position that you do not believe in a deity because you don't have any evidence for one - is that a belief system? It's just a lack of belief. Strong atheism - the position that a deity is disproved, rather than not proved - is a 'belief', but only in the sense that any claim is a 'belief'.

Atheism doesn't have a creed, a celebrant, or anything necessarily in common other than a lack of belief in a deity. Atheism is not in any sense a religion unless one makes the word so general as to be meaningless.

Obviously I can't speak for all atheists, but I certainly don't think there's 'only one perception'. What I think is that there is only one objective reality, and if two people make two mutually exclusive claims about said objective reality, at least one of them is wrong.
Mancrush +1.

But seriously.

I'm personally very opinionated about my beliefs (Which happen to be Atheistic).
Reading this and the comments below my own have been rather enlightening.
Atheists are not atheists at all.

As a matter of fact, you could say they are polytheists, since they have not one, but several deities:

Charles Darwin

Richard Dawkins

Stephen Hawking

and the most epic of all... *drumroll*

Tom Cruise


Jp wrote:
[snip...] Weak atheism is the position that you do not believe in a deity because you don't have any evidence for one - is that a belief system?

Its certainly still a belief, yes; its the belief that you must have material/physical/scientific evidence of something in order to adhere to whatever that 'it' happens to be. Call it the belief of requiring absolute proof, or scientific proof, depending on your spin. Most commonly this is referred to as science as a religion.


Strong atheism - the position that a deity is disproved, rather than not proved - is a 'belief', but only in the sense that any claim is a 'belief'.

A claim infers/requires arguments, a belief does not. This is the key difference between a claim and a belief.

I am free to believe whatever I want, but if I claim something, I do so in an attempt to argue towards a specific position. I can believe that there is a God, but if I want to claim that there is a God then I must have arguments in favor of that.

Atheism doesn't have a creed, a celebrant, or anything necessarily in common other than a lack of belief in a deity. Atheism is not in any sense a religion unless one makes the word so general as to be meaningless.

Atheism certainly celebrates the non-existance of a deity. That is, in every sense, similar to a religion that celebrates the existance of a deity. It goes both ways.

There are many ways to look at what a religion is. I consider a system of beliefs that are all-or-nothing a religion. This makes atheism a religion, since if you believe there is no deity then there are a series of follow-up beliefs which you must also have: The world wasn't created by a God, humans do not have a soul, etc. etc.

Obviously I can't speak for all atheists, but I certainly don't think there's 'only one perception'. What I think is that there is only one objective reality, and if two people make two mutually exclusive claims about said objective reality, at least one of them is wrong.

Which is fair enough. But uniting under an Atheism banner is no different than uniting under a Christian or Scientology banner (Except if you unite under a Scientology banner, they give you free rides on the world-ending laser-shooting squid). So when people make a claim that begins with, 'I'm an Atheist' and don't elaborate, then that is a religious claim.

And something like, 'I have no need to prove that X doesn't exist, to make my point' is just that. It's basically saying:

"I know something for a fact, but I don't need that fact to talk about this"

He could've chosen to instead say, "The beliefs of a religion are irrelevant, when talking about lost family or friends". The two are almost the same, but there is a subtle difference in stance: One acknowledges a specific belief (God doesn't exist, but lets not talk about that since we don't need that right now), one leaves it an open interpretation (God may or may not exist, but thats not relevant with regards to this).

Note that as I have already said, I am very much a lover of Math and Science. I consider religion a control mechanism in almost all cases, but I also consider very strong Atheism the same form of control mechanism.
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