This particular entry is written as a sort of response to many of the posts that I see on a regular basis from my friends who have faith. While I doubt they mean to offend anyone, repeated postings of items that state that without God, there is little meaning to life, or that without God, I am not a good person, or any number of such statements can be taken a bit personally for someone who doesn’t believe.
I’m not sure I’ve ever made this entirely clear, but I am, in fact, an atheist. I used to be agnostic, but as time went on, I felt a stronger pull away from the idea that there’s some omnipotent being that had some hand in creating everything, and is now watching over us and protecting us. Science has always been something I’ve trusted and relied on, due to evidence and the ability to back up the claims that it does make, and the ability to admit when it makes mistakes, and continues to search for the correct answer. It appeals to the analytical part of my mind, which admittedly, makes up a lion’s share of my thought process.
Anyway, here’s the problem. Because of my atheism, it bothers me when people imply that I am not a good person because I don’t believe in a god. The majority of the time, it’s in relation to the Judeo-Christian god. Quotes from the Bible that proselytize, and admonish those who are non-believers regularly take up residence on my newsfeed, and memes from pages that extoll the virtues of being a believer or claim some sort of disability of the mind if you aren’t a believer flash across my face more times than I care to remember. I know that not all of my religious friends are guilty of this, and I’m not writing this to place any blame, or to tell them to stop. They have every right to express their faith in any way they care to. I fully believe in the right to religion, and the freedom of speech, as long as there are no words of hate being spewed where religion is the justification for that type of action.
However, I do feel I have to say something. My being a good person is not dependent on what god I believe in. My ability to do good is neither hindered nor helped by what faith I do or do not have. I choose to do good things, and try to generally be a positive influence on the world around me because I think it is the right thing to do. That belief comes from a life filled with the love of friends and family who have shown me that doing good is a reward in itself, and not due to an external influence. I am not doing good to reach some vaunted afterlife, nor do I believe that doing good in this life will make things better for me after I die. I believe that the life I have now is the only one I’ll ever have, and that I must use it to the best of my abilities to bring positivity to the world, which means the life that I have is the most important life I’ll ever get. I have never needed the threat of punishment to understand that doing good is much better, by an order of magnitude, than doing bad.
That being said, here comes the problem with being an atheist. When the conversation of why you don’t believe in a god comes up, especially when speaking to someone who is passionate about their beliefs, the conversation inevitably comes around to the reasons why religion makes no sense to an atheist. It will always seem like an attack, because you have to question the other person’s belief system. It will tend to make the faithful think that atheists believe all people of religion are gullible and stupid, because an atheist will repeatedly punch holes and bring up contradictions within any religious belief system. This is precisely why an atheist is an atheist, but to the faithful, all of those questions are answered by their faith, and that if the atheist would just believe, there would be no reason to ask the questions. This, I believe, is the major impasse between the two groups.
This brings me to one of the reasons why I have been slightly hesitant to full out declare my atheism. Much of the time I did any research into the atheist culture, I regularly run into smug, pretentious, overbearing people who believe that atheism is the only way to go, and that those who believe are moronic because of their faith. Routinely, I have seen statements made that are made to ridicule people for their beliefs, and attacking the faithful for no other reason than to make the originator of that attack feel superior. They try their best to make religion seem as ridiculous as possible, by condensing an entire belief system into silly imagery, or making it sound as outlandish as possible. The majority of the hate is directed at Christianity, as that is the predominant religion in the world, especially in the US, so there are routinely references to “Zombie Jesus” or the justification of horrendous acts due to “God’s will”. The only thing this serves to do is make people hate atheists, as it’s not the lack of belief that bothers people, but because the atheists come across as pompous jackasses.
Here’s the thing for me when it comes to all of this belief vs non-belief stuff. I chose to be an atheist because there isn’t enough evidence for me to believe there is a god, of any religion. I do not understand faith because I simply don’t. Those who have faith have a hard time understanding those without. Both sides believe the answer is right in front of the other as long as they’d just look, but unfortunately, neither side sees the same thing. As much as atheists aren’t terrible people because they don’t believe in a god, the same can be said for people of religion just because horrible things have been done in the name of a god. Horrible things are always done with a justification, and religion is the easiest scapegoat, because it’s always easier to go “I’m doing this because I got orders from above” and not because the person doing it is a raging asshole. If it wasn’t religion, it would’ve been something else, and then whatever that something else would’ve been blamed for the troubles of the world.
There has been a lot of good done in a god’s name, I’d dare say much more good than bad. However, there has been just as much good done for the sake of doing good. All I care about is the fact that good is being done, regardless of the reasoning behind it. Ultimately, caring for your fellow man, and not being a selfish, greedy prick, is a good place to start for being a good person. What leads you to that decision doesn’t matter, as long as you do it. I just hope people can understand that before it gets to be too late.
