Fact and Belief

Those of you who know me will know that I am an atheist. As far as I can remember I have never believed in the Christian God, or any other God for that matter. I have always tried to look to more rational of scientific explanations as to the cause of things. To me Christianity seems irrational, illogical and totally out of place in todays society, particularly when science can answer so many questions. Science provided us with proof, whereas religion is merely theory and speculation.

1) THE IDEAS OF THE BIBLE ARE STOLEN

            In ancient Rome the people believed that the emperor Augustus Caesar was sent to Earth by the God Jupiter in order to save the people of Rome and to bring prosperity to the empire. The people were losing track of morals and religion and were in need of a leader who would show them the right path and how they should live their lives. Does this story ring any bells? It certainly should do. Augustus came to power in Rome after the Battle of Actium in 31BC, many years before the birth of Jesus Christ.

2) CHRISTIANITY IS A CONTROL METHOD

            Most religions can be seen as a control method. They are run by a central body, in the case of Christianity the church. The church preaches to people and tells you how you should run your life, what you should and shouldn’t do and how you should behave. Surely people can make decisions for themselves rather than being mindless clones of one another, who have the same shit shovelled down their open throats.

3) CHRISTIANITY CONTRADICTS ITSELF

            How can you possibly have free will if God already has a purpose and a chosen path for you? I have never fully understood this, and have never heard a convincing answer to this question. The two points are a complete contradiction in terms. You can have one or the other, but you cannot have both.

If you have free will that is all well and good, but for Christians their life would become meaningless because God has no plan for them. And to say God doesn’t have a plan would be to undermine him or deny his existence altogether.

If God has a chosen path for you, your life once again is meaningless. You merely have the illusion of choice, but whatever path you take will just be the one that God made you take.

As an atheist I am very keen on the idea of free will and because there is no “set plan” for me I am able to create of myself what I will. God? What God? He doesn’t exist so I am not restricted in my choices. The only thing that can restrict me is circumstance. But these circumstances arise from the totally free choices made by others.

4) CREATION

            Christians continually try to defend their beliefs by saying…

“Well if God didn’t create the universe then who did?”

To this comment the atheist would reply…

“The universe was created by the big bang, when tightly compacted gas and matter exploded to eventually form what we have today”

Again the Christian would attack this argument with…

“Well God must have put the gas and matter their in the first place and caused the big bang to happen”.

Have Christians not thought that the Universe might be a never ending cycle of big bangs. Allow me to explain…

• Tightly compacted gas and matter explodes
• The Universe continues to expand
• Plants, stars and solar systems are formed
• Eventually the Universe grows too big for itself
• It begins to collapse in on itself and everything is destroyed
• All that remains is a compacted mass of gas and matter
• Eventually there is another big bang and the process repeats itself.

If this theory is true then there was no beginning and there will be no end to the Universe.

At least most Christians are sensible enough to accept that God didn’t literally create the Earth and everything on it in seven days.

5) GOD DOESN’T LOVE YOU

            If God really loved everyone why would be cause famine, disease, war and disaster? You could claim that these things can be attributed to free choice by humans. But as we have already established humans cannot have free will if God really does exist.

The only possible explanations are…

•  God doesn’t exist, never did and never will.

• God is dead

• God doesn’t love you. We are just experiments being treated like vermin for Gods own ends.

I will leave you to decide which of these three options you want to take.

6) WHY BELIEVE IN GOD

            Why do people believe in God when the whole idea seems so irrational? Science can offer explanations as to the creation of the world, and provide us with evidence. So why would you chose to follow something that has no evidence to support it?

Christians need to give themselves a reason for existing. They can’t just accept that they are here. They can’t just get on with their lives and create reason for themselves. They need god to give them a reason to exist.

As an atheist I don’t think there is any particular reason for my existence, but I can create a reason for my being through the choices that I make.

I think that Christians are scared, scared of the possibility that their life doesn’t have any real meaning. They need a reason for being and don’t want to create themselves, they would rather be mindless clones.

You might also believe in God because you can’t understand that maybe this life is all we have. We only get one chance at life and if we mess it up tough shit, it’s your own fault. If you believe in God you can tell yourself that you have heaven to look forward to when you die. Although heaven seems like a nice idea, to me it seems more like fantasy than fact.

 

 

 

 

Freedom

The recent debate between the Catholic Church and the Government [see previous post] has prompted me to think about the issue of free speech. As far as i can see there are three possible stances you can take when it comes to the issue of free speech.

1. We can be totally free to say what we want, even if it does infringe upon the rights of others.
2. We can say what we want, so long as the rights of others are not affected.
3. We shouldn’t have free speech. Instead the state should be allowed to boss us around and make up do what it wants. [Although this is very illiberal you could argue that it is a very effective form of leadership. Without people voicing their opinion a government can pass far more legislation - Personally i don't agree with this view].

Personally i most agree with point #2. We as individuals should be free to voice our opinion… but we shouldn’t infringe upon the freedoms of others. To give an example. After a Danish newspaper printed cartoon depictions of Mohammed the Muslim community acted very badly. I don’t have a problem with them voicing their opinion, but i do have a massive problem with them wishing death upon their fellow citizens. They were using free speech as a means to take away the rights of others. This can never be right.

Living in a democratic society the elected government is there to legislate to us, but it is also there to be challenged. Everyone should have the right to voice their opinion against the government, as long as this does not involve preaching death, hate and suffering.

Catholics Hate Gays

There has been a lot of talk in the news recently about the Catholic Adoption agencies. They feel it is their right to opt out of government legislation which forbids discrimination against gay & lesbian couples. In other words they don’t want to let gays adopt children because they hate them [and its part of their religion].

There are a few problems i can see with this. And i now hope to pretty much invalidate the opinion of the Catholic church…

1/ The legislation was laid down by a democratically elected goverment. So even if you disagree with the law you still have to go along with it. If people only went by the laws that they liked then there would be chaos.

2/ Although they try not to say it, everyone knows that the Catholics really really hate gays. They would love to see all the gays burn in hell [along with the Protestants]. However we live in a liberal society and it is simply not acceptable to say that you “hate gays”. Infact its not acceptable to have a deep found hate for anyone. Catholics may argue that they are meerly exercising their right to free thought and free speech. But these Catholics are using their free speech in order to spread hate. Again this isn’t right.

Basically the Catholic church has no right to opt out of the legislation. They should shut up and do what the law says rather than moaning. Anyway, they are hardly the right people to talk about moral values… they’re always fucking children.