"Religion is indeed a prick-stingy poison that dilutes your mind's ability to cogitate, make rational judgments, and promulgate individualism."
It's reason above all.
Today finally marks myself "officially" stripping away from being a "closet" non-believer of something that I felt long before since I was a teenager. I did try to suppress it like a million times but then I figured that the more I suppress it, the more I learn on why I shouldn't side with any religion.
Yes, I will now declare that I don't believe in a hypothetical god anymore, but then, I don't really see myself as a full-blown atheist for I have yet to learn more on my own. Intellectually speaking, I know I'm far inferior compared to those atheists who paved the way to reason above everything else, and to those that I look up to. I wasn't really brought up in what I could call a "religious family", although we practice our religion just for the sake of being seen as a "catholic". My father immensely influenced me of becoming an atheist for he was once a non-believer. He's not anymore since he just decided to subscribe himself to the Pascal's Wager's way of believing, which is blind faith if you're gonna ask me. Although, we now differed in our beliefs, he's not ruling me over to change my ways but instead, he wants me to explore more and see where this journey's gonna lead me to.
When I first heard of the word "atheist", I admit that I felt a sudden rush on my body that made me shiver while imagining of something dark. My religious friends told me that "atheists" are dwellers of darkness and so that's how I got my initial reflex towards them. I thought of "atheism" as powerful but evil. But then over the years, it's kind of instinctive that there's a part of me that wants to investigate and see what life is in an atheist's perspective, or what these atheists are really made of. Eventually, after reading a lot of non-biased books and articles written mostly by self-declared anti-theists and after some very interesting conversations with some of them, I came to a conclusion that "Atheism" is more of a "way of living" than a religion. These people are actually not different from us but in fact are amazing because of their unrivaled intelligence that charismatically justifies things within decent reason. They are ground-breakers to closet non-believers like me to come out, express my stand on religion and to put my mind into sensible use. Personally, I don't really see myself as THAT "critical thinker" but I can say that I spend time to think of things more than most or any of my contemporaries. Atheism for me is the beauty of optimizing your mind's capability to function logically and an application of a well-structured, balanced life that doesn't conform to anything but yourself.. A life that is not fueled by a token of "being rewarded in heaven" if you do good deeds. We are not, in any way, evil. Evil is such a strong word to name after us and is such an oversimplified term.
"My fancy towards atheistic beliefs is not my graceful exit from descending down from a religion who doesn't welcome my thinking, nor it does serve the purpose of a transition to the other side just for the sake of having a platoon of non-believers to back me up."
I was once a practicing catholic who loved every bit of it, I go to church, I was even a devout member of our church choir and I love singing those gospel songs. I pray every night (though I don't attend Sunday masses regularly) and I even talk to god whenever I'm in need of help and someone to talk and cry out to. But talking to him feels more like talking to myself for I always get the answers from my inner voice. I began to question why and seek answers. Eventually, I got an answer and it was from my favorite, most-criticized scientist, "Charles Darwin". Darwin's theory of evolution and natural selection tells us that altruistic genes provides us our "natural empathy" which makes us morally good and able to distinguish right from wrong. I can best define this as an "unselfish behavior of animals" who works together, forming a certain society which looks after themselves.
Atheism is definitely not a last resort thing for me. I don't need to belong to any functional group as an affirmation that I'm an atheist. I agree with some atheists there that Atheism shouldn't be a social thing because it might end up as "just another religion". You can congregate, yes.. an assembly to express that "Atheists" are here to be respected is an important upbringing to make people aware that we are an inevitable part of this world.
"If god despises gays and that I'm gay, then I don't see any reason why I should submit my wholeness to believe in his/her presence in the first place."
The bible tells us that gays will not be welcomed in heaven and that it is a moral sin subject to a wrathful penalty in hell. Therefore, religion taught mankind to despise, make fun of, and kill that "abnormality" which is homosexuality, instead of understanding it or finding a reason out of it. Back then, most of the unexplained occurrences such as "homosexuality" (or "study of astronomy", subject to further discussion) are regarded as a sin not until Science came up with an explanation of why some people (homosexuals) are such. Homosexuality is a psychological disorder triggered by a combination of genetic, hormonal and environmental tendencies which makes an individual become sexually disoriented. And of course, given that you're sexually disoriented, you'll come into terms of liking the same sex and be sexually-gratified with them. Homosexuals shouldn't hold any apology to any prying eyes for loving and having sex with the same sex. Sex is an instinct, a drive, a need and a motivation that naturally needs to be satisfied because we are humans with inborn sexual desires. In my opinion it is no different than a man or woman's craving for sex. Still, I know, that such acts should be regularized within humane and reasonable man-made laws.
Shouldn't it be better that a supposed merciful god that "sees no color" tell his people to understand homosexuals and learn to live with them, than to defy their existence and make them unwanted?
"The bible is what I consider as the perfect literature that artificially humanizes people to an extent but remains a collaborative fictional work of art, nonetheless."
The bible is nothing but a piece of hearsay literature. It's complete from A-Z, it's got novels, stories, poems, songs, parables, fables and other sorts of written literature that tells us the teachings of an incomprehensible god. It was composed and passed upon by writers after writers in decades after decades which makes its credibility, arguably questionable. Again, the humanizing effects of reading a bible (or Torah or Koran for that matter) is transitory in a sense that one will only do good out of an expectation that he'll be rewarded in return, as what is thought by that "holy" book.
Eventual miracles that transpired during the Exodus period (as stated in the old testament) such as "The Parting of the Red Sea" has been lifted up to the mainstream and was a center of discussion, it being a by-product of an earthquake, faulting, and a limnic disaster brought about by a recorded "Eruption of Thera". The said eruption happened around that time according to archaeological and radiocarbon dating results. People refer to something "inexplainable" as "miracles" because their religion tells them so. Therefore, religion isn't suggesting the "search for truth" as Science does.
One would also wonder why a "supposed merciful, caring and a perfect" god would kill a bunch of Egyptians just to save his chosen people during that parting of the sea. If Jews or Israelites are his chosen people then what are Egyptians? how about Moslems and other forms of religion, more so, what are we Filipinos to him? Is a god supposed to favor a minority over the majority?
I find it sarcastically amusing that they were able to document events, both from the Old and New Testament, in as much detail as they could (the trees, places, community's way of living, clothes, etc.) but completely failed to tell how Jesus Christ (or god for that matter) looked like, considering the amount of people who've met and seen him face-face. No one even dared or bothered to draw a picture of him in an attempt to make him more believable?
"Doubt can eventually prove something, Faith is merely a blind belief on something which there is no proof."
Doubt provides us a driving force to empirically prove a belief and make reason out of it, while Faith will make you sublime and passive to any form of contest just because it is subjective to gruesome punishments within unholy grounds. Therefore, religion tells you not to argue with Faith (belief in God) just because we were told that it's not within human comprehension or in simpler terms, "it's just it, period! don't ask anymore or god will punish you!". That was almost the same thing that they say early on, when science advancements such as "first man on the moon", "theory of evolution and natural selecttion", "cancer, TB etc treatments in medicine" aren't a reality yet. Remember that the church leads in branding famed scientists, writers and philosophers as heretics or fools just because they dare to think out of the box. My father once told me a story way back in his high school life which somehow attest to this further. He was intently listening to a priest's homily, one Sunday afternoon mass, when the priest went on telling his parishioners that "If humans will find a way to reach the outer space, then they will exceed God's power", of course given that he was a priest that possesses religious authority over them, they all believed in it and in turn, it made a negative impact on Science. Why suppress yourself to doubt when doubt is an intrinsic attribute of us humans being born curious? A doubt will always lead to an answer, a BELIEVABLE answer. Can Faith lead you to an answer? No one knows for we can't prove it in the first place.
"Religion has it's various varying degrees of adversary inclinations to our society which are far more morally damaging."
History is the ace witness that's there to tell how "evil" religion is. You can read a lot of documented events way back from the 1st century and even the fictional Old and New testaments has their own share of stories to tell. It clearly narrates how religion caused a lot unnecessary deaths. A good instance is this, just for the sake of spreading religion, others would kill thousands that will not submit to it. Medieval records tells us about how innocent children and adults alike, died and were killed during religious crusades and invasions that was catapulted by religious differences amongst early European nations. Can religion justify their deaths? Personally, I would prefer to die for our country than to any religion. One good observation that I can say is that, here in the Philippines, "religion is far more important than our country that we tend to neglect what should be prioritized".
Spains' effortless and most effective weapon that had us caught-up and stuck by over 300 plus years is their religion, "catholicism". Locally, "Noli" and "Fili" best represents how religion was used to colonize, threaten, degrade and dumb Filipinos. A Roman philosopher Seneca quoted that, "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful", very true. I can name some religious leaders around who became wealthy because of their "formed" religious sects/organization. Religion's main goal is to make you humble and not to live an ostentatious lifestyle. But look at them now, the most successful ones are actually millionaires already while most of their constituents are poor and uneducated. It's an evident implication that religion was created to control people and gain power.
Another solid example is the crisis in the middle east, what caused that? Isn't it religion? I remember one time I was watching "Al Jazeera TV News Network" and they were airing a usual scenario of a long-threaded conflict between Israelites and Palestinians over the Gaza Strip claims. The Israeli soldiers are all armed with high-caliber guns with trucks and tanks ready to boss around and hurt whoever resist, and across from where they are, are tensed Palestinian inhabitants of the area waiting blankly for what's gonna happen this time around. Thankfully, those soldiers aren't in their "usual" mood of hurting the women and children that's in there (probably because of the presence of media people there). But what they actually did horrified me and made me cry. They had their trucks rolled over the Olive trees that the locals had planted there, destroying all the gentle greenery that's on the vehicle's path. Suddenly, a brave middle-aged lady stood up in resistance and shouted these words in english:
"What religion is it that tells you to kill those trees? We planted those there and nurtured them. If you're gonna kill those then you'll kill us for we get our livelihood from it!"
Now tell me? Jews are the supposed chosen ones right? Is it the will of their god that tells them to do that? In Lebanon's case? Did their god tell them to kill innocent people and children that's only caught about by the war and aren't their enemies at all? I don't envy the Jews because their the chosen people and that I'm not, I don't need that kind of recognition if what they're doing is a complete opposite of what is expected of them as the "chosens". I despise them actually.
"I'm an avid follower/spectator of science but is not devoid of the pejorative presumptions of others that Science is my god."
Science will not and will never be my god. Atheism is an absolute absence of belief to any forms of gods, deities, supernatural beings etc. We don't resort to science to make it our god, we cling to it because it's factual, it's not abstract, it's not something that's derived from hearsays and it's not invented to serve a social function to control people. Science's advocacy is to explain and educate.
Science is not here to make enemies with religion and does not intend to contradict it although in the process of proving, it eventually does. And to anyone who says that Science and Religion can live in harmony, I'll stand up with a big banner saying "A BIG NO!". Science will never get along with religion. Let me give you a question to think about? Say the time comes that Science was able to disprove everything that's written on the holy scriptures? Will you still cling to your religion and your god as a test of faith, taking into consideration that everything was nothing but tattered lies?
The truth is, while Science continues to put its best foot forward and strive for truth, change and explanation. Religion remains stuck and feebleminded. Another example that I'd like to point out is, how religion tells us that the dreaded HIV/AIDS diseases surfaced as a form of punishment from a moral sin instead of finding or laying out a plan for a solution of this problem. This example tells us how a religion can be very "judgmental".
"You can't use the conventional religion to do good without reforming it. It needs to be stripped to basics."
A conventional religion can't be made to be put in good use without tracing it's origin. So, these imperative statements need to be answered first, "Is it true or not?" or "Am i believing in something that's real or not?".
I know you guys finds it evident that I focused more on "Christianity", why? My answer is really simple, it's because all other mainstream religion descends from Christianity and that I find it as the "most" evil.
Now that I've said this, I know that poison-penned comments might go down rushing on me like a heavy flow but I will not be shaken. I know I did not sound self-righteous and I don't assume to be one. I just explained why I chose to embrace atheism and become one. I know for a fact though that I'm not that "ripe" yet.
I would suggest if you have time, please read these worth-reading books. I find it such an honor that I share similar thoughts with these critical thinkers. I've only read some pages of these books only and I plan to buy them soon:
"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins.
"God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" by Chrisopher Hitchens
And oh? Don't let your biased thoughts get in the way in reading these or you will not get the "message".
I still have a lot of questions and hopefully in time, I'd find my answers.
Thanks for spending time to read my thoughts.
Labels: Cogitations, My Mind Speaks
I admire what you posted here. This is something that I've also been contemplating for a while but had to hold back not for fear of being ridiculed but just to evaluate myself again and again before I finally come out and declare my atheism.