Happy Diwali and Samhain.
I am eating an apple to celebrate (I like the gloom of autumn).
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I’ve been an atheist my entire life.
My Dad read Norse and Greek mythology to me as a wee bairn, and one of my first questions to him regarding it was “If people don’t believe in these much more believable and plausible gods, why do they believe in God?”
And I must admit, from my teens through to my late thirties, I was quite strident about it (my favourite teacher, Mr. Birch, also drilled home to us exactly how much religion had restricted medical and technological progress when we were studying the history of medicine for GCSE. He also was able to portray Mao somewhat sympathetically.)
But I have softened towards believers later on in life. The sense of community that worship can give people can be quite positive, and I have to begrudgingly admit that a lot of my understanding of fairness is thanks to growing up in a Christian society.
Plus, me telling people that belief is stupid and a crutch is just as bad as them trying to convince me to believe in a skybeard and doesn’t solve anything.
It still disappoints me when otherwise notable intellects admit a religious belief, but nowhere near as much as even 10 years ago, when I would let their belief define their character in my eyes.
I shall leave you with a line from the song “Mother of Christ” from one of my favourite bands, Alice Donut, which is one of the most deliciously blasphemous things I have ever heard:
I wanna feel the messiah’s head
Against my con-fused virgin breast
I wanna
LAC-TATE SIN-FREE
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“Jesus wept.”
– John 11:35
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hey, paula white-cain:
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I’m a polytheist and animist.
My religion doesn’t proselytize… in fact I’m not even going to say what it is.
I don’t believe that everyone needs a religion. Some people find various benefits either from the belief, ritual, or the social aspects, and some people aren’t wired that way. And people change over time, too.
I don’t believe anyone’s religion (including mine) should be permitted to make laws, nor to impinge on anyone’s rights (including their own membership). If they don’t like your behavior they can exclude you from membership or ban you from their property, just as I can throw someone I don’t like out of my own home, but that’s it.
I believe in religion as art, not science. Myth isn’t (despite what we were all told in grade school) just a creative-but-ignorant explanation for how the universe works. It’s a kind of cultural glue, a system of metaphors and symbols. No culture I’m aware of ever abandoned the idea of “sunrise” and “sunset” even though we all recognize the Earth orbits the sun. Likewise I can know that Sol is a big blob of hydrogen forced by gravity into nuclear fusion, and still find value and beauty in the idea of a sun god. (And anyway, in my religion there are multiple myths that cannot all be taken literally without paradox, but sit peacefully parallel to each other.)
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I couldn’t help posting it here.
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Catchy!
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All this talk of heaven and hell puts me in mind of a trilogy.
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I’ve been an atheist for most of my life but have lately been drifting towards “God exists, but is evil and deliberately creates injustice and suffering”.
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as a Buddhist leaning atheist, myself, i understand the feeling.
my own “grudge match with god” is epic, but i know that it is just me arguing with my own ego. it comes to nothing but a sore throat from all the yelling.
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Are you familiar Gnosticism?
To boil down their core beliefs — Our universe is the pet project of a deranged god. The serpent who was sent to Adam and Eve, and Jesus were both messengers sent from the true god. This true god was trying to bring knowledge to us and help us escape.
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as Private Eye readers will be aware
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I saw Heretic last night. Knowing a bit of where it was going I expected it to be an Omen-style pushing of Catholic apologia, only targeted at aging atheists rather than child prodigies.
What I came away with was that it was a valuable turnabout on the problem of hypocritical religious nutjobs holding people hostage until they conform.
The key point of divergence is when the baddie dismisses disbelief as something along the lines of “Or are we to believe that we are all ants in a universe with no divinity and no meaning? That’s horrifying.” and then moves on.
My answer to that is, “sure, why not? Because the one true religion for religious nutjobs (control) is manifestly horrible as opposed to the problem that reality just feels horrible to you, and lack of belief in divinity and “ultimate meaning” isn’t that bad, it makes it easier to just get on with life"
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