Why an atheist blog?
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- Published on Monday, 14 May 2012 07:11
- Written by John Draper
- Hits: 1828
For many people, religion is boring and of no consequence - for them, a blog on "no religion" is equally boring. For others, they so passionately hold to their belief in their religion that a blog on atheism is annoying but not likely to change their mind. One commenter on this blog recently suggested another objection when he said: "I do believe that in general, people need to have beliefs, or a belief in something, to keep them grounded. Many find that support in religion of whatever kind it may be for them. With this in mind, I am perplexed by what seems to be your obsessive need to relegate all religious beliefs into one category which you seem to be trying to discredit in any way possible on this blog," I would abbreviate this to say "Religion makes people feel good - to each his own - so why criticise religions?"
I can't speak for others but I can try to explain why I operate an atheist blog.
First and foremost, I believe in truth - I believe that the world would be a better place if everyone understood the truth about how the world got to be here, why we are here and what will happen when we die. To me truth is an important value. By itself, it would be a reason to try to get people to understand that religions do not teach the truth. And before some well-meaning "holy-man" tells me that the great truths of Love, Goodness and other emotional things come from God - I would respond that my definition of Truth is not a philosophical discussion; religions talk about "Truths" with a whole different meaning - that's not what I'm talking about. To me Truth simply means factual, not wrong, not a lie; it does not matter whether you believe it or not, something is either true or not, independent of anyone's belief.
To be clear, individuals may believe something is true or not - but if you take two people, one who believes something and the other does not - only one is right. Only one is a believer in the truth. Truth is independent of beliefs - it could be that only one person or even no-one knows the truth about something. One person could be right and 7 billion wrong. Or vice versa. For example, all people who believe the earth is flat are wrong; the truth is that the earth is spheroid. Galileo was right; millions of Catholics and the Pope were wrong.
Second, all religions teach that there is a God and I believe that there is not. So in my view, a large number of people in this world believe things that are wrong. They therefore make other judgements based on this that are contrary to the facts and probably not in their best interest nor the best interests of the people they come in contact with.
Thirdly, religious beliefs have historically been the reason for many of the atrocities committed. Murders of heretics, the Crusades, persecution of witches and non-believers and more recently, sheltering of priests from prosecution for child abuse. Edicts in Holy Books like the Qur'an have justified maltreatment of women and non-believers. It's hard to justify religions as being "good" or "good for you" or even a way to "keep them grounded".
The fourth reason is that most people are born to a religion and are brought up as if it were true: "of course, why not believe? It feels good". They are told that irrational Faith is good and are not taught to question it or consider the possibility that maybe their religion has errors, or that another religion or even no religion is in fact the truth. By the time many people get to ask themselves about it, they generally just reject a few bits here and there e.g. moderate Muslims reject the teaching on killing infidels.
Given all these reasons (and more if I spend more time thinking about it), writing a blog for the world to see means that others can:
- Find the truth - at least they now have some of the arguments against religion.
- Decide for themselves whether there is a God and if so, is God like the one described by their religion.
- Reject the idea that religious teachings can justify behaviour that is inherently immoral. They will stop using religion to justify evil.
- Stop thinking that Faith is a way to decide truth and acceptable behaviour - logic and rational thinking is the only acceptable way to decide.
If I ignore these things and just keep quiet, then I am doing less that I can to make the world a better place.
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2012-05-15 00:02:05 | Manfred (via admin) - Continued - character limit exceeded
To me, being right or wrong is a matter of degree. I can be right and still be wrong, especially if my correctness is not in dispute yet my position is only based on an unproven theory that is nevertheless only deemed to be fact-based. (awkward explanation) For the larger part of my life, I have either believed or been unsure of my beliefs but have come to be secure in the acceptance some time ago that I do not believe in a god of any kind, anymore. Most of what you have said here I take little or no issue with, except for your characterization of how you approach your objectives, and, the last comment of the post. “If I ignore these things and just keep quiet, then I am doing less than I can to make the world a better place.” I particularly challenge your thinking that this will make the world a “better place” because you leave “better” open to being defined by anyone to suit their own needs. “Better” is so subjective that it defies a single clear definition that applies to everyone. For those who devoutly believe in a god of their choosing, anything that tries to destroy that devotion is the farthest thing from “better” as far as they are concerned. I cannot understand how that can be considered “better”, and hence my perplexion concerning your efforts to discredit religion rather than simply criticizing it. However, please do not take that as a criticism itself because we are all free to do as we see fit; it is merely an expression of my inability to understand your method in trying to achieve what you say, and a muted call for an explanation of it. While discussions such as this are stimulating for me, they do not cause me to either question my decision to not believe in a god or seek to reaffirm it. Thank you for the opportunity to express my thoughts, because that does help me to be a “better” person.
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2012-05-15 19:24:37 | Anonymous
Funny, I always thought truth was as objective as it could be. Otherwise what is true for you (subjectively) could be the exact opposite of what is true for another person. Science may not always come up with the absolute truth (maybe gravity in our planet is one example)it is certainly a lot more provable and in the case of gravity, demonstrable and observable, than simply a subjective truth which is nothing more than an opinion or a belief.
The first observation I offer here is the difference between perspectives suggested by the quote and your interpretation of it. The quote states “trying to discredit” while your interpretation reduces the severity of that to something akin to simple criticism. From what I’ve read on this blog, I get a distinct impression that your idea of criticism and mine differ substantially, and that can suggest that there would be similar degrees of difference in other language as well. That would open a strong possibility that we are thinking on different planes and our discussions would then suffer from those differences.
Taking “truth” as the focus, I see truth as a subjective thing, something that describes reality “as we understand it in the present”. Until approximately the time of Aristotle, truth seemed to have it that the world was flat and just looking into the distance that idea seemed perfectly real, and therefore true. Only by questioning that “truth” was it disproven and shown to not be truth at all HENCEFORTH. Yet it had been accepted as truth right up to the ‘moment’ it was disproven. When you say that science relies on evidence that supports the truth, you really are saying that the prevailing understanding has not been successfully challenged or disproven up to that point. To me that is quite different than proving it to be an absolute. To me, science is a “best guess” until it is successfully challenged. I think that idea is supported by new discoveries that continue to be made, some of which set truths of the time on their heads. Taking that to the realm of religion suggests that science simply has not been challenged to the degree that will be needed to alter what we at this time understand to be the truth. Maybe the truth that would support the beliefs of religions is yet beyond that horizon.
Criticising the basis of various religions is fair game and puts some onus on them to support their claims with truth that is accepted at this time but I don’t agree that diminishing them because they have yet to successfully challenge those accepted truths is equally fair. That just mimics Aristotle’s critics who were equally adamant that their science and knowledge was proof positive of what they believed to be the truth. How inaccurate those truths turned out to be.
To me, being right or wrong is a matter of degree. I can be right and still be wrong, especially if my correctness is not in dispute yet my position is only based on an unproven theory t...