by ShenGCH » Sun Jan 15, 2017 1:42 am
I don't believe in any kind of god or follow religion in any form, so I am, by definition, an atheist, though I don't identify as an atheist - you know, the "FUCK RELIGION!!!" type you find in YouTube comments, for example - because I see atheism as something of a religion in itself. I'm just not a believer. The reason why: religion has simply never appealed, nor made any sense, to me. Even as a child, hearing the stories about Jesus doing this and that, elephant-headed gods, some dude finding golden plates in a forest, or whatever else; it all just made me think 'Wait, what?...' because it made zero sense in my mind, while classmates who were followers of those religions would lap it all up as if it actually happened and they'd seen it with their very own eyes... and not just because this is what they've been told since the day they were born and would have been chastised for believing otherwise. I used to be completely anti-religion during my angsty teenage years - a mirror image of the aforementioned YouTube comments-like people - but, having grown up a fuck-tonne since then, I'm nowhere near as volatile as I once was, but I still refuse to believe what can only be considered nonsense in today's context, and I'm not afraid to point out my problems with it either.
If anyone can prove otherwise, then fair enough, but they simply can't, and that's because there isn't a single shred of evidence in support of there being a god or higher power of any kind. By that token, there isn't any evidence proving god doesn't exist either, but then you have to ask yourself: if there really were an all-knowing, all-seeing, benevolent power, why would they allow such suffering, misery, and injustice to occur in their world, committed by those created in the very image, and acting on behalf, of the aforementioned power? The get-out-of-jail-free card with this argument is that it's all about keeping the faith in something that may or may not actually be there, and only when we finally leave this world will we know. Well, I'm sorry, but I prefer to keep faith in things that do exist or may exist at some point in the future, such as the cure for cancer, no more wars, economic stability, incredible technological advances, and things in my personal life. I try to be the best possible person I can be, not because I fear I'll go to Hell if I behave otherwise, but because it's in my nature. I didn't need to refer to a holy book in order to be who I am.
Religious texts are not proof of god - they're proof humans are creative beings, and at a time when science was in its nascent stages, humans wanted to know how everything came to be, and thus it was deducted that it must have been something so great and incomprehensibly divine that it couldn't possibly exist within our plane. Hence, religion and worship came to be. Isn't it funny how the majority of these religions popped up in ancient times, but the events/occurrences leading to their creation, and that which fills their books, never happen nowadays? Where's the burning bush? Where's the dude turning loaves into fishes? Where are the half human, half [insert animal here] gods hanging out? If someone were to claim to have been spoken to by god in this day and age, they'd be psychologically evaluated and put on medication. We've come a long way since the days before science was able to give us answers.
Religion... it's just a big football team, isn't it? "My god created the universe!" "No, my god created the universe!" "NO! My god created the universe and here's how it happened!" I fully respect peoples' faiths and their right to believe in whatever they wish, just as long as they don't have the audacity to tell unbelievers the way they're living their lives is wrong because they don't subscribe to <insert god here>, but let's be logical here: if one person believes in one god and another believes in a different god, and so on and so forth, and everyone from all sides are steadfastly denying the existence of the other's respective god and praising their own as the true creator of the universe, extolling their values and virtues with closed ears, just who is in the right exactly? If there are twenty gods for twenty different religions, and the believers in each of those accept only theirs as true, what value does that hold? What does that honestly say about the validity of faith as a whole? Is one out of twenty of them correct when they all believe they're correct? Are none of them correct? It just doesn't make sense to me and, in all honesty, I don't see how it could make sense to anyone.
Same goes for the extremist atheist types; they're just as bad. As for those who don't believe in evolution and other such occurrences with near-watertight evidence behind them? Well, they're lost causes, quite honestly. Religion is the first bastion of the lost and hopeless; if someone is down on their luck, what better way to help them than to tell them their misery was predetermined, but so long as they worship something that may or may not actually be out there, and spend their lives in servitude to this almighty sky person - and, of course, make the occasional monetary donation - they'll be fine. That's not exploitative or manipulative at all. Funny how so many people seem to 'find Jesus' when they're given a life sentence and sent to prison, too, isn't it? LORD, IT'S A MIRACLE!
Religion is irrelevant in this day and age, but the god-fearing are so scared about what might happen to them - not to mention how it will affect their relationships with friends and family - should they abandon their faith they wouldn't dare question it. It's quite sad, really.
(I overdid it, didn't I?...)
ShenGCH has received a thanks from: RootyKazooty