MiloCast

Since I’ve been writing these articles and being more outspoken about my non-belief in general, I have had the wonderful experience of finding out that other people I know are also non-believers, or “believe” in the most general sense, but don’t let ideas of the supernatural dictate their behavior. It turns out that we’re not as small a minority as it seems.

Why, though, must I wear an “evolve” pin on my shirt or talk about religion in order to find out these things? In many cases, it’s probably because there’s no reason for non-believers to be particularly outspoken in most circumstances — they don’t have dogma forcing them to impose their will upon others. However, I worry that most of us who remain silent do so in order to maintain the status quo — they don’t want others to treat them differently.

Unfortunately, this means that fewer of us are “out-of-the-closet atheists,” and therefore the believers think that we are rare and exceptions to the rule. I understand that some people need to “go along to get along,” and that it’s not in their best interests to be outspoken about their lack of belief in the supernatural. But I encourage anyone who is willing to let others know that they’re a non-believer. Chances are, they like and respect you already, and finding out you are an atheist will subtly change their perception of all atheists. Even better, you may expand your circle of like-minded friends.

No need to be obnoxious about it or anything — that will just re-enforce any negative beliefs they already hold. But get out there and let the people know you’re an atheist; it’s the only way to combat the assault on atheism which is becoming popular as the religious retaliate against the popularity of certain books. You don’t have to debate them, argue with their beliefs, or tell them they’re wrong. It’s usually better if you don’t antagonize people, and it’s better not to argue unless you educate yourself on the facts first. They have a short list of favorite arguments which are old, useless, and already well-refuted. But if you don’t know the responses to some of them, they can be difficult to argue against, doing harm to the innocent bystander who might be taken in by the misrepresentations of reality.

Okay, so we have seen that atheism means nothing as a word, other than to distinguish non-believers from believers. Yet it seems that most of the non-believers whose voices are being heard are saying a lot of the same things. But if they’re not all in agreement on some kind of “atheist dogma,” then why do they tend to sound the same?

Well, once people lose the religious mindset, they tend to choose how to live their lives based upon reality. Although this should be more common, it is still fringe enough to have an organization started which names that as a specific goal. The Brights.

The Brights home page describes a Bright as someone with the following characteristics:

• A Bright is a person who has a naturalistic worldview
• A Bright’s worldview is free of supernatural and mystical elements
• The ethics and actions of a Bright are based on a naturalistic worldview

The movement seeks to take action to correct the marginalization of non-religious ideas where they are repressed by social and political means. They also encourage people who who match the description of a Bright to make their naturalistic worldview known; the more people see that we’re just normal people, pretty much like them, the easier it will be for us to be accepted on a large scale.

This is along the lines of what I’m trying to accomplish with my articles. I want to get people talking, in the hopes that discussion will cause people to think about things they have just assumed were true. Also, I want to expose some misconceptions people have about non-believers. Just by getting my thoughts out on the Internet, I hope I’m doing some small part to combat the false assumptions most people have about people like me.

Ask someone whether they believe in snow. It’s kind of a silly question, and you may get some strange looks. They don’t have to believe in snow — they know about snow. Even if they live in a part of the world where it never snows, they almost certainly know about snow. There are no cults of snow-deniers.

When it comes to religion, though, the question is whether you believe in a god. If gods are real, then they’re so much more important than snow that I think we should be fairly sure about that before we start worrying about the weather.

When will people realize that there is absolutely no reason to believe in gods except for the fact that they want to? Just wanting something to be true is not a good enough reason to live as though it is true. There must be plenty of examples of times when people took action required by their beliefs and it did no harm, or even did a lot of good. But there are millions upon millions of examples where believing fiction ended in tragedy. How many examples are there of people taking necessary action based upon reality and causing unnecessary suffering?

If you understand the paragraph above then you now know why it not only doesn’t makes sense to be religious, but it is potentially harmful.

Many years ago, there were a lot of things we did not know that we know now. We know that the earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around. We know that neither dancing nor sacrificing animals does anything to change the weather. We even know that germs cause disease, not demon possession, and that we can help prevent it by washing our hands.

All of these things have made the average person today a super genius compared to the average person of the dark ages. The ability to transfer information around the world practically instantly helps new knowledge spread to the masses.

So many things which were once credited to various gods are now understood. As science has described more of the natural world, we have all benefited by seeing reality overcome superstition. Now, if your crops die, you wouldn’t blame the old lady next door and have her burned as a witch.

All these developments have turned the “almighty god” into the “god of the gaps.” People can attribute fewer and fewer things we see to a supernatural entity as we learn the way things really work. New things are learned, the dogmatic religious people deny, argue, then finally accept the facts. Then they go right on claiming that their god is responsible for everything else we still don’t know.

The simple truth is that, whenever religious teachings and scientific results disagree and we eventually find out the truth, religion is wrong 100% of the time. That’s always. Just because we don’t know something doesn’t mean it’s unknowable. Just because we don’t know something yet is no reason to think that a god is a reasonable placeholder for an explanation for now. “God did it” is just another way of saying “I don’t know, and I’m happy with that.”

I used to be a born-again Christian. When I’m discussing religion with a Christian and tell them that I was once one of them and am now an atheist, the most common assumption I’ve encountered is that I must have “turned my back” on God because something bad happened to me, or a prayer wasn’t answered, or someone I loved died. Nope. Not even close.

Actually, all that happened was that I thought about it. Eventually I was able to overcome the fear of hell drilled into me since childhood enough that I was actually able to consider what I knew honestly. The only possible outcome was to stop believing in one more fairy tale.

It’s funny how that argument (anger at God) seems so convincing to Christians — so much so that they repeat it at every opportunity. Think about it in smaller terms. I get angry at someone I know, so I just stop believing in them. Makes no sense, right? I hate mosquitoes, so I just stop believing in them. Doesn’t work for a second. How weak do these Christians think their God is if any pitiful atheist can completely remove him from their life on a whim?

Think about it from the Christian’s perspective. If they can accept (if not agree with) not believing in God just because you are displeased with him, then they must really know that there’s no legitimate reason to believe in him in the first place. Otherwise, you’d hear them saying that you can’t stop believing, because of some obvious fact. The problem is that no such fact exists.

The real question to ask a theist is “How come life not believing in a god is completely indistinguishable from life believing in one?”

Austin Texas, eh? I’ve never been there. Whenever I hear the name “Texas” I can only picture a pickup truck kicking up dust, cowboy hats, and the grinning mug of America’s most powerful retarded boy, George W. Bush.

However, things are apparently different in Austin. The Atheist Community of Austin (ACA) has a group of active members who do things such as running a weekly public-access television show, free monthly lectures open to the public, and a couple of podcasts. The one I want to talk about today is The Non-Prophets. This is a bi-weekly live Internet stream which is also released as a podcast. While the show is live, listeners can join in the IRC chat and talk about what the hosts are discussing and submit questions to the show.

I first discovered this podcast because one of the hosts, Matt Dillahunty, posted a couple of comments to this site. I followed the link he left in his post and ended up subscribing. To date, I have listened to over 60 hours of their past shows. If you like your atheism with some spice, I recommend this show wholeheartedly. If you’re a theist who wants an anonymous look at some rational thinking, I sincerely hope you’ll check it out. If you like hearing religious wackos called ass-hats, then you must start downloading the show right now.

As someone who only started listening to the show within the last month, it has been an odd experience to run through over a year’s worth of shows so quickly. There have been many changes, in things from the audio quality to the cast; the audio has gotten much better and one of the main voices took a sabbatical. Based upon what I have heard, I can definitely give my seal of approval, for what it’s worth, to anyone who thinks my rants are any fun.

Talk to a religious person about good things and bad things, and you’ll see a very interesting phenomenon. When something good happens, it’s a blessing from their god. When something bad happens, it happened for a reason and is all as it should be. See the problem here? They are interpreting everything in a way that allows them to justify anything.

If someone prays for a promotion and gets it, then it was divine intervention. Never mind that on the same morning, a child was killed crossing the street. Can you possibly justify celebrating your promotion because you think your god felt it was more important than the life of that child?

The insane thing is that so many people can. They let “God’s will” allow them to be intellectually lazy, and just go on with life without thinking too hard about the world around them. How convenient that their god has a perfect plan, and no matter what happens around them, they see it as evidence of that plan.

This is just one illustration of how beliefs lead to actions (or not taking action). When people ask me why I can’t just let people believe whatever they want, this is one of the reasons. Most religious people aren’t slaughtering believers in other religions, but they do take comfort in superstitious nonsense instead of being outraged at the atrocities of others.

When people believe that everything that happens is according to a perfect plan, they have little reason to find fault in war, genocide, and the whittling away of the freedom in their own country. Many welcome these things as positive signs that their savior is going to be stopping by soon, to take them away to paradise. Why worry about global warming when you’re not going to be around for much longer?

Never mind that the end of the world has been predicted many, many, many times already. All the dates have come and gone, yet the fools who believed it simply make excuses and mark a new date on the calendar. How much good could be done if these people tried to help make this world a better place instead of preparing for the next? How many times do the things they believe because of their religion have to be proven wrong before they realize what the real problem is?

The French mathematician Blaise Pascal dreamed up a “formula” which he hoped would convince people that they were better off believing in God whether or not such a thing exists. Pascal was a Christian, which explains why a mind renowned long after his death for his genius in mathematics could produce such a ridiculous idea. It is well-known that intelligent religious people actively protect some of their beliefs from their own critical thinking because they are incompatible with the reason they apply to their daily lives.

Pascal’s Wager is, simply put, that you’re better off believing in God than not, because if you do not, and God exists, then you will go to hell. If you believe, whether he exists or not, then you lose nothing (heaven if he exists, but at least no hell if not).

There are many flaws to this poor attempt at logic. The one I hear most frequently is that there are so many gods worshipped today (and in the past), one runs a huge risk of picking the wrong one and thus being sent to hell by the real one. Also, some religions don’t have a hell. Religions which believe in eternal damnation have differing views of hell. If you even have two religions with eternal damnation in their canon, how could you possibly be sure you chose the correct one?

Besides, what is a “belief” worth if you make a mental decision to say you believe in it just out of fear? Wouldn’t any god worth his salt know that you were not a true, faithful believer? If someone believes they can fool a god with this “insurance policy conversion,” then they’re living in fear of a god not smart enough to make it to the final round of most game shows.

The sad part is that many religious believers today still parrot this nonsense. It’s sad not just because it’s foolish, but also because it makes it so painfully obvious that religion is directly responsible for keeping people ignorant. It is, of course, in the best interests of organized religion to keep its flock (interesting term) ignorant for its own financial gain.

All of the arguments used by theists to justify their faith or attempt to convert others have been soundly refuted many, many times. However, one of the features of religion is that it does not allow learning to change anything. If learning disputes religious doctrine, then it’s wrong. And since they don’t have any evidence or rational thoughts which allow them to create new arguments to defend their myths, they just have to keep recycling the old ones, like Pascal’s Wager.