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djsugar
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November 10, 2019, 04:50:34 PM |
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Why I'm an atheist For normal forum standards, this is a huge post, based partly on previous posts I made. If you are lazy, just read the bold parts. Or just read the titles in blue, this probably will make you read the rest.
This is a text in progress. If you post a comment with another strong point, I might add it with credits to you, if you are the original author or alternatively to him.
Taking in account that knowledge should be free and this text's goal, feel free to use any part of it or change it as you please without need to give any credit.
We are just a pattern of organization of a bunch of atoms that, by pure environmental circumstances and chance, gained consciousnesses; it would be astonishing that, only because of this awareness, we were destined for a greater fate than the other common bunch of atoms.
We are going to return to our natural state, our only real "permanent home", where we already spent almost an eternity (see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1432165.msg17423455#msg17423455), before being born: nothingness.
There is no use to invent a helping imaginary "friend" who will offer you immortality.
It's absurd to ruin your life (a lucky but tiny oasis of awareness that exists between two almost infinite deserts of nothingness) by following absurd or immoral rules invented by primitive people of the Bronze Age which have no relation whatsoever with the happiness of other people.
Face your destiny in the eyes and live proud for having no leach, but the one imposed by your fellow human beings organized as a society (supposedly) for the benefice of all.
However, I don't have anything against a sincere believer. You are my fellow human being who share with me our finite condition. You just found a different (erroneous, from my perspective) way to deal with it.
The arguments presented were written thinking on the three main monotheist religions and, especially, Christianism. But most of them apply also to all other religions.
My goal isn't offending you, but just to induce you to question the roots and logic of your faith.
I also don't really want to convince you to be an atheist, but just a skeptical or, at least, someone with doubts.
There isn't anything more dangerous for you, and for others, than you being absolutly certain about something like your religious beliefs.
Those absolute beliefs can change completely your philosophy, Ethics and life goals and not for the good.
It's when religious people start being fanatics. They know the "truth", so, from my perspective, they are literally deadly wrong.
It's when they are ready to start killing themselves or others for their beliefs or, at least, persecute people with different beliefs or without religious beliefs.
As long as you have doubts, you can say you are still a religious person, but you will be a safer person for yourself and for others.
In reality, you will live this life like if it was the only one you have (see point 11). You will give it more value and will be more tolerant with others. 1) God is a human creation. All the hundreds of religions/sects and their multiple absolute contradictions seem to be plenty evidence that all gods are human creations.
The same conclusion can be based on the known influences of ancient myths and religions on the current main religions [the flood, the virgin birth, the resurrection after 3 days, Christmas day, Sunday (day of the Sun, the roman god Sol Invictus) as the holiday and not the Sabbath, etc.].
Gods are just one of the illusions mankind uses in order to be able to deal with the idea of the inevitability of death. Humans created a god and an afterlife mainly (this also stimulate cooperation and obedience) because they feel anguish about dying. (Freud, Thoughts for the times on war and death, 1915, Part II)
Even in the religions that claim to worship the same god, the contradictions are overwhelming.
As you know, both Christians and Muslims say they worship the Torah's god, Yahweh. Islam says Jesus was an important prophet, but not the son of god. And Christians simple reject that Muhammad was a prophet. But the Qur'an says that its god is the god that sent Abraham, Moses and Jesus.
But Yahweh initially was just a god in the middle of others. Most Jews, even during David times (about 1000 BC) and after, kept praying to other gods of the Canaanites (Semitic people comprising the Phoenicians, the Jews and some other peoples of the Levant).
There is controversy, but Yahweh has been identified with EL, the supreme god of the Canaanites, that had one or two wives and an extensive number of sons (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_(deity)#Hebrew_Bible). Or, initially, with one of his sons: sometimes, Baal (the confusion was easy, because Baal means Lord; clearly, later, the Torah fights this identification, by ridiculing Baal), sometimes Hadad, sometimes a different son.
In some of the Jewish holy books, we can still find several traces of this evolution, with references to a council of the gods presided by EL/Yahweh (Psalm 82:1 and 6; 1 Kings 22:19) or to different gods (Deuteronomy 32:8–9) (see, a summary in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Council#Hebrew).
Well, the Greeks were influenced by the Phoenicians and copied their gods, with different names. El was Uranus, the father of all gods (or sometimes Cronus, since some mythology says El was not the original god, but rather Elioun), that was deposed by his son, Cronus. Cronus was deposed by Zeus. The Romans used the same Gods (Caelus as Uranus; Saturn as Cronus and Jupiter as Zeus).
So, are the believers on the three main religions praying to Uranus (Caelus) or even to Cronus (Saturn)?
But, even if they are considered the same god, just compare the vengeful and jealous god of the Torah with the loving and forgiven god invented by Jesus.
The contradictions are so big between them that some scholars (like Marcion of Sinope: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism) and christian sects (like the Gnostics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism#Dualism_and_monism) even defended that Yahweh, the Torah's god, was a different god or even the devil.
Some of the most fracturing religious issues, like the so-called divine nature of Jesus, or its degree, divided drastically Christians and were finally settled by bishops on majority voting, under pressure from Constantine to reach an agreement.
If Constantine, as roman emperor, was considered divine, how could Jesus be less than him? Of course, we can't find any evidence on the Gospels for that (not even on John's Gospel), but they couldn't care less for this detail.
Most Christian churches defend the Trinity, that the father, the son (Jesus) and the holy ghost are not exactly one and the same, but are part of god. But these churches argue that this is perfectly compatible with a monotheism.
Basically, Jesus on the Olive Garden and on the Cross wasn't exactly talking with him self, but something similar.
Ancient Greeks could argue that they also had a father, Uranus/Cronus/Zeus, and their sons and parents, all part of a divine family. That the difference was of grade, and not nature, and so that they too were basically monotheists in this flexible sense, because they too had a supreme god, he just had a bigger family.
But what all these contradictions, but also influences and slow evolution, point out is that gods are a human creation.
In the end, on most cases, people have a specific religion not because of any personal journey of discovery, but because of the teachings of their parents. So, their parents are the criteria of truth.
With all these different gods and interpretations, are all the believers on different religions or sects lying or mistaken, but you?
2) There are fundamental issues about which we still don't know enough, but ignorance isn't reason to believe in any god. We still don't know what is the ultimate origin of the source of the "physical stuff" that composes the Universe, the quantum fields that created all matter (see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1221052.msg14388816#msg14388816 on the theory of an Universe from nothing), or even the exact mechanism that created life from matter, but our ancestors also said that the gods were the creators of thunders and lightening.
Actually, none of the main religions says what was his god's origin.
If god existed, he would ask with anxiety "Who created me?". 3) Religious books are full of immoral rules. Some of those are so hideous that they can't seriously be considered the word of a god.
For instance, "for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me". Exodus, 20.5.
This horrible statement is part of the Ten Commandments! And it's stated also in Exodus 34:7; Deuteronomy 5:9; Numbers 14:18.
But we can find even more heinous moral rules: "A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD." Deuteronomy 23:2.
The examples are innumerable: acceptance of genocide/extermination of women and children (Joshua 6:21; Judges 21:10; Numbers 31:7-18), killing of babies (Isaiah 13:16), massive rape (Numbers 31:18; Deuteronomy 20:10-14), slavery (Leviticus 25:44-46), death penalty for the most banal deeds, including sexual acts between consenting adults, forced marriage (Judges 21:21-23), women sacrifice or abuse (Judges 11:29-40 isn't clear), cruel punishments [cannibalism of children (Leviticus 26:29), burning alive (Joshua 7:15), stoning, etc.], sexual discrimination (Genesis 3:16; Leviticus 27:3-7), etc..
I confirmed all of these quotes. I didn't copied the actual text to avoid increasing this post too much, but I might do that. Even if sometimes there are divergences on translation or interpretation, I tried to use clear examples. See for more http://www.evilbible.com; https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1367154.0.
But a decisive one is enough to dismiss the Bible as a "sacred" source of moral precepts.
The reason for these appalling statements seems simple: since all religious texts were made by humans, their moral standards stopped in time. But human morality evolved.
The sociological reason of the importance of believing in the "right god" is human power.
It's absurd saying that a good man will "burn in hell" (let's forget about punishing also his descendants, even if they are good and believe in the "right god"!) like an evil one, only because under an "honest mistake" he worships the "wrong god", unless we see the issue under the eyes of the humans who invented Yahweh.
They needed to say those terrible things in order to consolidate their power over their fellow human beings by fear and to destroy competition from other religions.
Do you really want to govern your life with the morality of Bronze Age people? (Christopher Hitchens). 4) Religious books are full of myths and stories created by ignorant people and liars. These stories were simple created to cement power (a "holy" man can't answer to a question: I don't know; he has to invent something).
Many of them (besides the order of creation of things, evolution, the creation of humans, etc., "By the seventh day God had finished the work": Genesis 2; see controversial attempts to make this compatible with science: http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/age_of_the_earth.html) have been refuted by Science in terms that remove all credibility to those stories.
Isn't all the "word of god"? How can it be wrong?
A religious person only has two options: defend that everything in his religious text is true, making a fool of himself; or pick some things and reject others as simple metaphors in unconvincing terms.
They were written and read as true stories across history. People were burned for denying them (remember Giordano Bruno among many others).
Calling them metaphors is just an artifice. Why wasn't the metaphor made accurately even on irrelevant details, like the order of creations of things? Would it lose its meaning for being correct?
Isn't obvious that it's wrong because its authors knew nothing about what they were writing about? 5) All evidence points to the conclusion that the idea that our consciousnesses survives death is false. On the issue of the "soul", taking in account the recent research on the brain, doesn't make sense to say that the human brain, that is the most complex system we know on nature, doesn't create consciousnesses.
The evidence we have point clearly in the positive sense, even if there are still much investigation to be done on the issue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness#Neural_correlates).
If that wasn't the case, we couldn't explain why your "soul" is affected by a trauma to the brain. Why when we pass out, our "soul" passes out too.
Why someone with mental problems can in certain cases became better by a surgical intervention in the brain or by medication that changes the chemical balance in the brain.
If there was a "soul" independent of the brain and the brain was just the link between the body and the "soul", all diseases/damages of the brain wouldn't affect our ability to still be aware and to think.
Therefore, once the brain was again cured, we should be able to remember what happened when we were "out". But we don't.
Actually, it was found the on/off button of consciousness. By stimulating a part of the brain, anyone will lose consciousness automatically. Which only supports the conclusion that it's the brain who creates and controls consciousnesses. (see https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329762-700-consciousness-on-off-switch-discovered-deep-in-brain/).
But if it is the brain that creates the consciousnesses and allows reasoning, it's absurd to say that we will still be able to keep doing it as a "spirit" after the brain is dead.
Actually, the idea that there is a soul that survives the body is recent on the Jewish religion, adopted by the other two main religions. Ancient Hebrews didn't believe in the afterlife [even if that idea was already present on the Cro-Magnon, more than 40,000 years ago, and, possible, even more than 400,000-200,000 years ago on the Homo heidelbergensis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_heidelbergensis#Social_behavior) and on the Neanderthals (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_behavior#Burial_practices; also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_religion)].
And the first Hebrews that defended it argued this occur under the form of the Resurrection of the dead in flesh and blood and not of any "soul".
Even today, the confusion on all the Christian churches about what happen when we die is immense.
Some say that our soul survives; others say it's our body that is resurrected in the judgement day, same mix both versions in an absurd way (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_eschatology#Resurrection_of_the_dead).
Of course, they never knew anything about what will happen and their inventions, like all invented narratives, changed with time.
The so-called situations of people "dead" that were taken back to life and remember seeing things are just reactions of the neurons to the near death situation.
However, Brain activity measurable on an EGG only disappears after 20-40 seconds without oxygen/blood flow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_death).
This time is enough to leave memories of hallucinations (some people see Jesus, lights, out-of-body experiences, etc.) caused by chemical reactions provoked by a dying brain. Actually, the hallucinations probably start before the complete stop of the supply of oxygen. And in that situation, 40 seconds of hallucinations might seem minutes to the near death individual.
The same hallucinations can be felt using chemicals like ketamine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreational_use_of_ketamine#Non-lethal_manifestations), Psilocybin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin), Phencyclidine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phencyclidine) or Dextromethorphan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dextromethorphan).
Moreover, since the "soul" has to interact with the body to control it, the "soul" couldn't be a pure metaphysical “substance”, it should be physical, composed of particles/energy (which is the same, as Einstein said) or it couldn’t “command the body”.
The so-called dualism, arguing for a main difference of nature between mind (or soul) and body, imply a direct violation of the Second law of thermodynamics [see, for instance,
Harold Morowitz, The Mind Body Problem and The Second Law of Thermodynamics (http://newdualism.org/papers/H.Morowitz/Morowitz-BandP-1987.pdf)].
Thus, as a system of physical particles, the soul would be subject necessarily to an increase of entropy and therefore to decay and dissolute on smaller particles: on other words, to death.
Moreover, at least until now, the CERN's Large Hadron Collider didn’t find any particle compatible with any "soul".
Some even say that if this particle wasn’t already found, it won’t ever be because, taking in account the levels of energy at which the body works, it had to showed up by now (http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/771662/Brian-Cox-Neil-deGrasse-Tyson-GHOST-LHC).
How dare you to believe that your "soul" will survive the death of your brain based on what we know?
Is mixing your aspirations and your fear from death (read my https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1221052) with reality.
Any prudent person would say, at best, I don't know, I'm not shore... but believers just say, I know I have an immortal soul...
Yeah, shore: "Want to know what happens after death? Go look at some dead things." (Dave Enyeart)
6) Did god left us without guidance for almost 200,000 years? The homo sapiens have existed at least for 200,000 years (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omo_remains) or, as recently discovered, probably by almost 350,000 (https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v546/n7657/full/nature22335.html).
But the god invented by the main monotheist religions decided to let us without guidance for more than 194,000 years? Only decided to manifest his existence to Abraham? or, at best, to Adam and Eve a few thousand years ago (Christopher Hitchens).
The main holy books don't mention older prophets or divine interventions.
7) Religions can't explain evil or even natural disasters. Seeing how unfair (ex. some children die of hunger or hunger related diseases and others have diseases caused by eating too much), and many times evil (think on all the wars and on most crimes), the world is, if god existed he would have to be one of two kind of persons (Dostoyevsky, The Karamazov Brothers; Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus):
a) A cruel being: because if he is all powerful and omniscient, when he created the world, he knew how horrible at times it would be.
Don't tell me about the original sin: kids guilty for the sins of their parents, is that divine justice?
Don't also tell me about the "devil". No religious person can coherently explain how god is omnipotent and still lets the devil exist.
Moreover, if the devil is a "former" angel, it was god that created him. If the devil isn't an angel, even so, god created everything, so he created the devil.
Well, since he is omniscient, when he created the devil, he knew how evil he was going to be.
Denying that the devil exists and evil is created by evil humans' free will won't really help you.
Human free will can't explain natural disasters.
But it also can't justify human evil.
When god (allegedly) created humankind, he already knew who would be the ancestors of Hitler and knew that Hitler would born on 20 April 1889 and do all the things he did (Psalm 139:16 "Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be").
Any insignificant change on the current of events would avoid the existence of Hitler (a few seconds could be the difference that would allow a brother to be born created by a different spermatozoid and not Hitler).
But god decided to create his ancestors exactly the way that allowed Hitler to be born.
So in the end, god planed and created indirectly Hitler with full conscience about whom he was creating (see also Marshall Brain, http://godisimaginary.com/i6.htm).
He is guilty for everything Hitler did as an individual is guilty for creating a chain of events with the clear conscience that those events will necessarily provoke a catastrophe or even any damage
Don't tell me that everyone killed in World War II were sinners, including all the children.
If god existed, he had to be a cruel Geppetto creating deliberately many monstrous Pinocchios.
Moreover, he could have saved those innocent kids with a snap of his finger.
Don't, again, come with the mysterious god's plan that we can't understand.
Any being that kills or deliberately let children be killed to test or punish his parents, or for any other purpose, is a monster! (Dostoyevsky).
b) Or, in alternative, god would be a pathetic being, that couldn't do anything to change anything and that would see with horror his creation that he never imagined this way.
I doubt that this second vision can be accepted by most believers, so we would have to conclude that god would be (if he existed) also the source of evil.
8] Even for informed believers, who think there was a Big Bang, created by god with the final goal of creating us, it's very hard to explain why god waited 13.72 thousand million years (the consensual age of the Universe) to final create us. In the middle, he had to wait for the first generation of stars to die in supernovas to create the elements that are the basis of planets and of us (so forget Jesus, it were the stars that had to die for us to live: Lawrence Krauss).
Wait for 9,22 thousand million years, for Earth to finally be formed and then for life to emerge.
Then wait for several mass extinctions (pointless destruction) to finally get to modern humans, 200,000 years ago (deGrasse Tyson).
Why?, if he could create everything in 6 days, as the bible says.
You can repeat the old wasted say "god works in mysterious ways", but it's much more logical to just conclude that there was no god behind this arbitrary chain of events.
9) Doesn't make any sense to base your philosophy of life and morality on something completely irrational as faith and unsubstantiated fear. When main Churches acknowledge they can't offer any scientific or even rational base to believing in god, they ask you to believe in it out of faith (and fear).
But imagine how your life would be if you ruled it solely on faith.
Do you invest your money, make decisions about your health or on professional issues based only on faith?
Imagine an engineer that planed his builds on faith. Would you trust his work?
But if you try to live your life based on experience and scientific knowledge, why are you willing to base your philosophy of life and morality on such absurd grounds?
As you know, Paul (originally, Saul) of Tarsus is much more important to Christianity than any of the Apostles. He converted Christianity from a Jewish sect into an universal religion.
But initially he persecuted Christians. He only stopped and started promoting Christianity when "Jesus appeared to him" (Acts 9:1-9 and 12-18).
So, Paul, the most important priest in the history of Christianity, didn't embrace it on faith. He needed to see with his own eyes.
Why god demands from you that you believe on him based solely on faith, but didn't ask the same from Paul?
Let him appear or send Jesus too (as seen above, they are not exactly the same) to you like to Paul.
If you keep talking to god, but he doesn't answer (or only you can hear or see him or his "miracles"), something might be wrong with him (or, sorry to say, with you).
10) If the meaning of this life is being a test to see if we are worthy of heaven, what is its point? Doesn't god, since he is omniscient, already know who would be the worthy ones? The so-called natural freedom of human beings (that has been questioned by science) is incompatible with the omniscience of god: if he already knows what we are going to do, our actions are already determined.
Even if the test wasn't already ruined by the fact that god is responsible for what we do, since he (allegedly) created indirectly each one of us genetically exactly as we are and anticipated all our social conditions, even so, as an omniscient being, he already would know what were the results of the test.
But that makes the test completely pointless. 11) Deep down, most people saying they are religious, don't real believe in god or on an afterlife. Or, at least, they are not ready to risk this life or most of the things they have on it for a promise of an afterlife. One of the most astonishing things is the importance religious people give to all the details, material resources and honors they have in this life and how scare they usually are of dying.
Even suicidal bombers hesitate or give up some times.
For a real believer, this life of, say, 100 years, should be irrelevant compared with the next immortal one.
If you knew for shore that exploding yourself would assure you a ticket to heaven doing that would make sense. Exchanging a life of 100 years for an eternal life seems logical.
Why then this is absurd?
Of course, first of all, because it is absurd to think that a god of love would send to heaven killers of innocent people, even on a "holy war", just to increase the number of worshipers (by violence and coercive conversions).
But, mostly, it's absurd because all of this seems rubbish: there is no ground to think there is an afterlife waiting for you, as you deep down know.
Moreover, that all believers (more or less, at least in some moments) are ready to sin against others and god (at least, small sins), risking their immortality, many times for petty things, seems completely absurd.
Unless, deep down, you feel this is really the only life you will have.
However, this implies a strategic approach to god.
You play safe, to protect yourself if he do exists, and claim you are a religious person out of absurd fear. But you aren't really prepared to sacrifice any important thing in this life for your claim, since deep down you have serious doubts about his existence.
Isn't he "omniscient" and aware of your doubts and lack of commitment? Do you think you can fool god by hiding your doubts? "Won't he punish you because of them with the flames of hell"?
Isn't more honest and liberating to have the courage to admit that you aren't a religious person?[/b] Besides being false, religions also have negative social consequences: 1) Religion and Churches are one of the oldest and the biggest scam in the history of Mankind. All religions end up building a church composed by a professional group of people who transmits, interprets and, sometimes, executes divine will.
Of course, they are all economically supported by societies.
Historically, they were supported coercively. Paying the taxes to the church was a duty of all Christians sanctioned by the government, if necessary.
In many Protestants Europeans countries, there still exists a church tax, collected by the government!! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax).
In others, it's the State that pays the salaries and pensions of the priests of the main church (it's the case of the bankrupt Greece)!
The Catholic Church even sold indulgences that allowed Christians to sin (!) and ended up provoking the Reformation movement in the XVI century.
Only the Holy Sea knows the truth, but this church is considered one of the wealthy institutions on the world (http://www.economist.com/node/21560536; http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/how-rich-vatican-so-wealthy-it-can-stumble-across-millions-euros-just-tucked-away-1478219).
But since it seems god doesn't listen to their pries and don't give miraculous gold to any church, in the end all are paid by society or, at least, by their believers' community.
What do they give in exchange? More or less, they claim having the key to heaven.
They say you have an immortal soul and directly or indirectly ask for money in exchange for telling you how to save it and helping/granting that you will be successful on that.
If a doctor tried to ask for money in exchange of giving you a medicine that allegedly would grant you immortality, he would probably be arrested as a scammer.
But a priest can promise that and get all your money in your dying bed.
Millions of professional priests are supported by societies for a service based on clearly unsubstantiated allegations.
You could argue that most of them do believe on what they say. However, many don't believe for a second on what they preach. And most of the rest, besides being aware that they have no evidence for what they are promising, do have serious doubts about the veracity of their statements (even Mother Teresa wrote about their own). This is enough to call these scammers.
It's like someone here at the forum selling applications he doesn't know if they really work, having only faith, or even clear doubts, that this will happen, without disclosing that.
I'm not going to open a thread on the Bitcointalk's scams forum against most of the churches of the world. The feeling that selling religious services is fair game is so rooted, that probably my thread would be transfer to this forum or removed as a political statement. But they would deserve it.
I'm also not going to do that against god, since it isn't his fault: every thing suggests that he doesn't exist.
No doubt, certain churches also have important social supporting activities, but they are well paid by the government or by private donations for that.
Moreover, a few churches have resources to do much more than they do. But increasing their followers (and so, their power) had always prevalence over the needs of the poor.
2) Religions induce conformity, intolerance, obscurantism and other nasty social consequences. Some believers, conceding that there is no evidence or even rational arguments supporting religious faith, say that, even if false, religion has positive social consequences.
Recent investigations concluded otherwise, saying that religious children are more selfish, intolerant and punitive than children from atheist families. (https://www.academia.edu/19164068/The_Negative_Association_between_Religiousness_and_Children_s_Altruism_across_the_World).
I won't write like some that religion has been the main cause of murder and wars.
I admit that Thucydides's classic trilogy of fear, honor and greed for natural resources and power beats religion on this matter.
But, even if its weight was small, let's remember this: "George Bush: 'God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq'" (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa ).
No doubt, religion has been a very important cause for murder and war.
Moreover, Marx called religion the people's opium with some reason. It installs on the people conformity for oppressive laws and arbitrary inequalities. "Suffer and obey now, you will get your reward in the afterlife".
Religion has been mostly an instrument of power, helping legitimating political power and inducing obedience. ("Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God": Romans 13:1).
Religions that aren't at the service of political power usually end badly, suppressed by the government or by churches fearing consequences (like with the Falun Gong in China or the Theology of liberation in South America).
But religions are always at the service of the power of the leaders in the community of followers.
Religion has also been an obstacle to progress in:
Morality: since it's mainly based on Bronze Age rules.
Science: by burning or repressing as heretics many scientists and rational thinkers by all the available means and censuring books.
Even today, by trying to block investigation on certain domains based only on religious grounds.
Education: historically, mainly in Catholic countries, by controlling schools and restringing learning to priests and elites in order to limit the direct access of the population to the "sacred" texts.
I admit that in Jewish and Protestants societies that wasn't the case and religiosity might have even increased literacy, but mainly as an instrument to better understand religious texts. Schools transmitted basically knowledge conform with religious doctrine. On the United States, even now, is staggering the resistance to the study of evolution or modern cosmology in Schools.
Politics: by supporting feudalism, absolute monarchies (Romans 13:1) and, currently, mainly, conservative ideas.
Economy: historically, by the christian ban on interest rates (Deuteronomy, 23.20-21; and by canon law: http://canonlawmadeeasy.com/2014/09/04/what-does-the-church-say-about-usury/), still the rule on many Muslim countries.
Mentalities: Catholicism, and its contemplative/passive mentality, is considered (controversially) the major reason for the decadence of catholic countries (Max Weber).
There are also allegations that the high incidence of religiosity on the United States can explain his high rates of violent crimes, teen pregnancies and sexual diseases when compared with the low religiosity on Europe (Sam Harris).
There isn't clear empirical evidence on the existence of a relation of causality between religiosity and crime, but the lack of sexual education and resistance on using contraceptives (like condoms) might explain teen pregnancy and sexual diseases.
I can concede religion has inspire people to create beautiful art, but at what price? I'm sure talented people could find other sources of inspiration with equal results. Conclusion: The burden of proof is on the believers' side, since they are who argue for a positive thing: the existence of a mysterious higher being.
Since they clearly didn't fulfill this burden, I can conclude that I don't believe in the existence of god. But I don't say I'm certain that god doesn't exist (even if I live clearly under this assumption). That could make me look like a believer, with faith on a negative fact.
I just say I have no reasons to believe on his existence and have some grounds above presented that point against his existence.
It's the same situation that makes be very skeptic on the existence of flying horses.
I'm very skeptical, but I'm open to any real evidence on the existence of god or flying horses.
Therefore, I think I have grounds to say that I'm an atheist and not a simple agnostic.
Since long time I have been connecting logic to everything I see or observe. Being an engineer, my and my peers used to have discussions often on superior being that every one addresses as his/her god. I strongly feel that there is a higher energy that mankind has named into various forms and nature just to direct mankind for selfless or selfish motives. wont say more as my mother would kill me now ! |
