Atheists are Arseholes!

Why do atheist[s] only tend to have Christianity removed from Public places?

When I was in 9th grade they could teach evolution (atheist god) and Greek god mythology and but not the bible. Plus atheists never seem to complain about Greek statues dedicated to Greek gods removed from public places like court houses.

This question was posted on Hatheist by a user called Gorillawits. Fair enough, to an Atheist it might seem like a dumb question, but to an outsider it makes sense to ask. It was a fair question. And it deserved a fair answer.

Here are some of the answers it got.

• At our weekly Athiest meeting, Satan said that the Greek Gods were OK and we shouldn’t complain if they were displayed in public.
  

• You actually made it to the 9th grade? Maybe miracles DO exist…
  

• Ummmm, I am guessing the 9th grade was the last year you were in High School?
  
• Do you ever read what you say back to yourself before you post it?
  1) No science class in 9th grade teaches evolution. You are making that up
  2) Greek and Roman and Norse gods are taught in mythology class. There are no mythology classes in the 9th grade. Those don’t start until college. You are making that up, too.
  3) What would be the problem with teaching mythology? Do you know what mythology means? It means IT’S NOT TRUE!
  4) Greek statues? You mean like the Scales of Justice? So what…do you have so much free time that you have to look for things like this to get pissy about?
• Huh. Oddly enough, I’ve never had any Christian stuff removed from anywhere. Your name suits you, btw.
  

Ok, I'm cherry Picking. There were many good, or at least polite answers on the site. But the highest rated answer was a clever and sarcastic response: 'I have no problem at all with Christianity being taught in mythology lessons.'

Ha ha! Aren't we atheists smart! Ho ho ho!

It's that kind of attitude that first inspired me to start this blog. Everywhere I look this kind of thing is happening. Atheist blogs laugh and mock believers. Believers questions are ridiculed. On twitter, a believer makes an argument and before long a whole pack of Atheists turn's against them, not with reasonable debate, but with insults, or slurs, or 'clever' put downs.

On our blogs we gloat when a believer slips up reproducing the stories like handbills that we can spread all over the internet. We smear a whole of a religion with one person's mistake. We keep our eyes peeled, and our claws sharpened, looking for the weakest prey. We take endless pleasure in mocking the believers and belittling their already little beliefs.<

What are we trying to achieve here?

Yes, religion causes harm. Yes, believers may be deluded. Yes, we are fighting a battle of ignorance. But are we going to fix any of that by being arseholes? Atheism is already a dirty word. We are seen as arrogant, evil or void of feeling. Atheists are the most distrusted minority in America, and even here in the UK public opinion can turn against us. How are we helping ourselves by being argumentative? How are we helping by putting people down, or by mocking them? How are we changing public opinion?

How much more effective would it be to open a discussion with believers, to find some common ground? What happened to the well mannered debate? What happened to etiquette? What happened to respect for your common man? Just because this the internet doesn't mean that people don't have feelings.

Maybe you'll argue that they believers do it too. But isn't it our duty to be better than that. Imagine a world where the atheists are seen as friendlier than the Christians! We can do this. This is within our power. But we have to stop being arseholes!

I'm no better than anyone on this, I've mocked, and I've belittled, and I've felt bad afterwards. Believers may have it wrong, but they have a right to be wrong. And they have a right for us to respect them even if they are wrong. Their beliefs may be stupid, but that doesn't make them any less human. If we want them to respect us, maybe we should respect them first.

Let's try it. Let's try answering their questions. Let's try being friendly, maybe even being humble, and let's just see what happens!

Don't be an Arsehole Atheist! There are enough arseholes in the world without you joining in.

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Why Atheist? Why not Agnostic?

One of most common questions Atheist's get goes something like this:

How can you be Atheist? Surely the only logical response is to be agnostic. After all you can't be 100% sure that there isn't a god can you? You'd need to have absolute knowledge of the universe for that!

Almost all the Open Letters to Atheists on the internet start this way. We are making an impossible claim they say. We are asserting a negative! How dare we assume to know so much.

Firstly, I'm not asserting anything. Nor is any atheist I know no matter how militant they may seem. I don't claim to know undeniably that their is no such thing as God. Indeed I am willing to admit there may be one. I am also willing to admit that people may have been abducted by aliens. I just don't find the evidence very persuading.

But wait! People see Aliens all the time. There have been hundreds of sightings of UFO's!

Most of these sightings turn out to passing planes, weather balloons, planets, or even the moon!

What about all the photographs, and the Crop circles?

Find me a good photo! They are either to blurry to analyse, or can be shown to be a fake. At best they show a light in the sky, which doesn't prove anything at all. (see above)

As for Crop Circles we know that they can and have been created by man. We have the written confession of the people who started the hoax. It makes much more sense to assume that all crop circles are made by man than to assume some are made by man, and some are made by aliens.

And the witness testimony?

Find me a good witness. Stories never hold up to the evidence, and the general themes in abduction stories seem to depend strongly on current popular culture. Way before the Alien craze people believed there were being sat on by witches, or possessed by demons.

Furthermore people also claim that they've seen dead people, or been to other universes, or travelled through time. Ancedote is just not reliable evidence. If it stands up to testing then we can consider it. But time and time again the stories fall down when they are examined

In short, the evidence for UFO's visiting earth doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Certainly there may be UFO's but as yet there is no actual evidence for them. And as such why believe in them?

So how does this relate to God?

The evidence for God is even weaker than the evidence for UFO's. As far as I can see there is no reason to suspect that God's exists whatsoever.

But people feel God's presence all the time!

When I listen to music I feel the it's presence in the room with me. I feel the shiver it sends down my spine. It stirs me, makes changes my mood, makes me feel things. But it is not really there. I can't really feel it. All of this is in my imagination, an illusion created by my brain. How do you know that the feeling of God's Presence isn't the same thing?

But what about the beauty of creation?

What about the beauty of evolution? There is nothing more beautiful in science than evolution, a intricate story of who we are that stretches billion of years behind us. And it's backed up by massive amounts of evidence, can stand up to testing, makes predictions and can be recreated in the lab, albeit it on a small scale.

Intelligent Design, or Creation, does not have any supporting evidence for it. It can not be tested, or falsified. It makes no predictions, It can not be re-created. As a theory it is useless, and redundant. The world would look just the same way if a creator had not existed.

And the witness testimony?

Again witness testimony is unreliable. People imagine things, they make things up, they forget things,and change their stories, and their stories fall apart on closer inspection. I can say anything I want to, but that doesn't mean it true. Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe I remember it incorrectly. Maybe I am simply saying what I want to be true. Maybe I am trying to sell you something and so deliberately misleading you. Which of these is more likely, that my story is wrong, or that God exists?

So why do you not believe in God?

Again it is a question of the evidence, and the evidence is not on God's side. Every single argument for God, from miracles, to presonal testimony, to historical stories, can be shown to be doubtful when looked into. There is no argument that has ever stood up to the test of time. Apply logic to God and he simply ceases to exist.

There is no need for a God to be real, and there is no evidence for him either. The most likely explanation is that there is no God.

And so I don't state that God defiintly doesn't exist, but until I see otherwise I will assume he does not. Prove to me that UFO's are real and I will change my mind. Show me that a god exists. And I will worship him.

But until you can do that, don't expect me to live my life as if I'm going to be abducted by aliens tomorrow. And don't expect me to bow to a God, just on the off chance he might be watching.

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No First generation Atheist is possible

"All of the first generation atheists without an exception have residual nagging believes – Freudian remnants of the psychological rapes their poor minds suffered when they were, as infants & teenagers, at the mercy of their brain-washed parents, society and the church! When in doubt, when in fear, and when in need of self preservation - they resort back to religious believes, incantations, and to mother church, synagogue, mosque or temple." [Whole paragraph sic]

As a first generation Atheist I find this intriguing.

There are habits hard wired into me. For example, I still tend to think out loud, as if praying, I still love old fashioned christian Hymns, and I still tend to beg the universe, call it God if you like, when things go wrong. It's a reflex almost, the desire to shout out to some unseen force "Please help me!"

The difference is that I don't expect an answer anymore.

I've had some pretty hard times in my life both before and after losing my faith. Before I would pray to god, I would weep before him, and I would have faith that he would make things right.

Now, I talk out loud, beg the universe for help, and then, knowing that that doesn't achieve anything, I go out and get things done. In the hard times I've had since becoming an atheist, I have neither gone back to God, back to the Bible or back to my church. I've gone to my friends, gone to my family, or simply gone to my own mind, and I've done the best I can to make things right again.

And so, from personal experience, I'd say you can be a first generation Atheist. We may do quirky things, but the difference between us and our parents is that we know our hands are for working, not just for praying that things turn out our way.

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My E-mail to Catholic Care

Following yesterday's post about Catholic Care and gay adoption,  I realised I might be being unfair. After all, I am only hearing one side of the issue, and I'm hearing that through a very biased filter. As far as I'm concerned their decision is an attack on me. They are suggesting that as a gay man I am unfit to raise a child, as if I'm socially and psychologically imparied, and any child in my care would be permentatly damaged.

But this seems to not be a moral battle, but a financial one. It seems that Catholic care would lose their church funding if they go against catholic teachings. And so realising there are other issues that I may be overlooking, I decided to write to Catholic care to see if they would give me an insight into their own points of view. Are they simply upholding the view of their financiers, or do themselves hold the view that homosexuality is immoral and dangerous for our children?

Dear Rev Roche,

I'm would like to discuss the recent ruling by the Charity Commission and convey your opinion, and your side of the story, to a wider audience

First, a confession. I am a gay, UK atheist who blogs at www.spiritualatheist.co.uk. I, and the majority of my readers, disagree with you on this issue. 

However, It has occurred to me after writing a post short, bitter post discussing this,  that I may have the situation completely wrong. The more I read about this story, the more I see that this may be a financial problem, rather than a religious one, and I, and my readers would like to hear your views on the matter more directly. 

Of course, I am far from unbiased. As a gay man I feel you are discriminating against me personally, as if I am unworthy to raise a child. But I aware of my bias and I am eager to try to understand why you feel you must now close, rather than offer adoption to gay couples. 

My blog readership is small, but the gay and atheist online community are well connected and I am confident that I will be able to fairly, and accurately, convey your point of view to a large audience. At a time when the reputation of the Catholic Church, and Catholicism, is suffering, it may be beneficial to help your strongest opponents understand your point of view. 

I would happy to carry out this discussion by telephone. MSN or E-mail and keenly await your response.

Yours

Simon 

I do not, of course, expect a personal response. They have not been responding to direct requests by news Journalists, so I hardly expect them to respond to me. But I hope they at least send me a short form e-mail explaining their position.

What do you think? Are Catholic care simply reliant on funding from the Catholic church, or is this their own Moral objection to Gay Adoption? Are the Catholic Church right to withraw their funding if it they violate catholic Teachings?

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Catholic adoption agency 'disappointed' they can't deny Gay's happiness

A Roman Catholic adoption agency, Catholic Care, is considering closing it's doors after their appeal to refuse adoptions to same sex couples has been overturned.

"The charity is very disappointed with the outcome," a spokesperson said,  "[and] will now consider whether there is any other way in which the charity can continue to support families seeking to adopt children in need."

This is of course the only logical thing to do. Gay's mustn't be allowed to adopt children: that would be immoral.

Never mind that hundreds of children are being robbed of the chance of a happy home, never mind that homosexual's are being denied the right to a family, never mind that study after study after study has shown that there is no significant difference in raising a child in a straight or gay household.

The Bible says it is wrong, somewhere, if you interpret the passages in a certain way. God doesn't want kid's to be happy if they have to live amongst the gays to do it.

And so rather than carrying on helping willing adults and homeless children come together. They may close their doors altogether.

It's just what Jesus would have wanted.

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Atheists are afraid to believe in God

J Pelikan Sarcophage thinks atheists have it all wrong. We start from the premise that God doesn't exist. That's the only way we can explain the unfairness of the world. This he argues is all backward. Instead, we should assume that God does exist, and is an absolute bastard.

"Too often, intellectual communities today assume godlessness as a baseline. Allow me instead to suggest a new foundation for intellectualism. A thinking human’s initial position on the existence of God should be one or more of the following: (a) God exists, and He/She/It is hopping mad and/or malevolent; (b) God exists, and He/She/It is a myriad of spiritual personalities—that is, a pantheon or a split-personality singular being—many of which should be avoided like the plague or propitiated in order to avoid being turned into a shrubbery; or (c) God exists, but what the fuck was He/She/It thinking when He/She/It created a yummy vegetable like asparagus which, upon digestion, causes one’s urine to smell like rotting venison?!"

Here he has the upperhand on me, I have no idea what rotting venison smells like, but the rest of the argument leaves me unsatisfied as well.

Firstly, if God was an absolute bastard then what would be the point of him/her/it? A God who does not intervene because they are malevolent, schizophrenic or unfazed by the effects of asparagus serves no purpose. The world would be the same whether this God existed or not, and so it is impossible to take such an argument seriously.

But that isn't my main problem. Sarcophage's definition of an atheist, as someone who doesn't believe in God because there are bad things in the world, just doesn't ring true. " I think [atheists] believe in God but just don’t want to admit it", he writes. Atheists are afraid to believe in God, because if God exists then he must be a horrible person.

I completely disagree. I don't not believe in God because of greed, evil, or suffering: these would exist whether or not God was real. I don't believe in God because I don't believe in God.

Belief in anything requires evidence. For example, when I see a play, I believe in the existence of stagehands. But my belief is not blind. The curtains raise and fall, scenery changes, spotlights follow the actors. I may never see the stagehands themselves, but I have a very good reason to believe they exist. They leave evidence behind them.

I do not however believe in Rainbow coloured leprechauns. This is a shame, because rainbow coloured leprechauns would be the ultimate fashion accessory. But I have no reason to believe they exist. They are no leprechaun fossils, no genuine photographs, no rainbow coloured footprints left in the mud, or rainbow drop sweets left on my pillow in the morning. I have no reason to believe that Rainbow coloured leprechauns exist. And It's a pretty safe bet to say that they don't.

I don't believe in rainbow coloured leprechauns because I don't believe in rainbow coloured leprechauns. I wish I could, because that would be awesome, but I have no reason, and no evidence, to make me believe in them. I don't believe in God, because I don't beileve in God. I wish I could, who wouldn't want to know there is an omnipotent being looking after them? But I have no reason, and no evidence, to make me believe in him.

And so whether God is good, or bad, or mad, or just hates asparagus, is irrelevant. He/she/it has given me no reason to believe. And so therefore, I don't believe.

This is why we have 'God does not exist' as our baseline. There is no reason to believe anything other than this. And so the Sarcophage's argument's fall flat. I am not afraid to believe in God, I do not think God is a bastard. I just think God is a fictional character. And like all fictional characters, he exists only in the mind.

Do you agree? Or does Sarcophage have a point? I'd love to hear your opinions in the comments.

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"Joyous atheists: the ultimate oxymoron?" says bigoted Cathoilc

A writer at the Catholic Herald believes she has discovered a new oxymoron

"I heard the expression ‘joyous atheists’ the other day and it struck a tinny note against my lexical eardrum. Indeed I refudiate it on the grounds it is an oxymoron. ‘Joyous’ has spiritual connotations and atheists have rejected the life of the spirit. They can of course be ‘happy’ – a word that is much lower in the hierarchy of the emotions."

What a daft thing to say. She might as well say that Atheists can't do crossword puzzles for all the sense it makes. Joy is an emotion, a feeling of extreme happiness. Not believing in God doesn't mean I don't believe in Joy. The way I see it this is probably felt more by Atheists than by believers anyway.

I feel joy everyday, knowing that my life is my own, that the world is a wonderful place and that I am deeply connected to it. I can feel joy knowing that my only goal today, and every day, is to live the most worthwhile life I can.

I wonder how many believers truly feel joyous when there is the constant fear of a vengeful god watching your every move ready to punish you when you go wrong. How many feel joyous with a life full of contradictions, having to constantly struggle to make theirs beliefs and the real world agree? How can they be joyous when their Church is got in the deeply embroiled in a scandal, over the way it's leaders have betrayed the trust of, and deeply scarred, hundreds of children?

With all that you'd think it would be difficult to be a joyous catholic.

I can be a joyous person. And my joy comes from something real. The experience of being alive. If my joy came from a sense that I would one day live forever in heaven, at the cost of living half a life now, I don't know how rewarding that joy would be.

What do you think? Is joyous a word reserved only for believers?

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Atheist is a four letter word

"I think this is absolutely disgusting. It is wholly inappropriate to promote religion in a public library. We do not pay our taxes to have this derisive, evil and destructive rubbish rammed down our throats."

A self-confessed agnostic wrote the above in an exhibition guest book at Bristol public Library. The Exhibition, isay:usay:wesay, was put together by young Christians and Muslims, expressing their faith through paintings which they discussed with each other to see what their religions share.

The paintings are largely harmless, symbolic paintings, with religious symbols, such as the cross, or the dove, or words of arabic used to represent beliefs and feelings.

There was a guestbook by the exhibition for the visitors to give their opinions. It was full of meaningless praise, as the British are inclined to give, until the comment above. Then the equivalent of a handwritten flame war began.

People were offended that someone had dared to voice these thoughts in writing. They called the commenter 'an absolute disgrace!!!' and told them to 'Go home and be quiet like a good atheist'  'An absolute disgrace!!!' And so it goes on for the rest of the guestbook. People criticise the writer for questioning the rights of religion and throw in the occasional insult for good measure.

I don't agree with the original comment. The library is a place of learning, a place of thousands of opinions waiting to be read and understood, and an exhibition about two faiths getting to know more about each other is a display that belongs there. Rather than ramming religion down our throats it was an exhibition about understanding other faiths, and about training our children to think of other point of views. It was education in art form.

But the response to their comment scares me. Would the replies had been so vitriolic if the commenter had mentioned politics instead of religion? Almost certainly not. For a country that is largely considered Secular, openly questioning religion still causes offence, and 'Atheist' is still used like a four-letter word. The UK may not be so welcoming to atheists as I thought, maybe even less welcoming than we were 20 years ago. The stigma is so strong that the original commenter felt the need to deny any association with Atheism. They were 'Agnostic.' And agnosticism is the default, and therefore safe, position in the UK.

If religion is going to cause this much debate every time it is aired somewhere publicly then it should be done as often as possible. But we need atheists who can fight against it with charm and skill and make the word 'Atheist' a positive one, rather than link it to anger and hate talk. Because, to my surprise, it seems that atheists in the UK are still largely unaccepted.

What do you think? I'd love to hear your opinions in the comments. Maybe I'm reading too much into one guestbook. Or maybe I'm idealist and the situation is worse than I think!

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