Thursday, July 26, 2007

There is No God: What it's like to be an atheist (repost)

The world is a strange place. In America, Christianity is the most common religion. There are Buddhists, Muslims, and others. And there are Atheists. I am one of these persons. Atheists are not a common group of people, and are sometimes even shunned by other religions. Pretty much all religions involve gods and spirits, so a group of people who believe there are no gods or spirits, would understandably seem scary and satanic. But I don't think this gives people the right to treat atheists unfairly. When you think about it, it's just as bad as racism against black people.

If Christianity is such a great and fine religion, why are they so opposed to those different from them? It is human nature to be against the unknown, but shunning them is so primitive.

In my experience, if I tell someone I don't believe in god, (and they are Christian), they say "oh, you're going to hell," or, "Whoa, you're in trouble now!"

This really annoys me. If you believe in God, I have no problem, but if you insist he exists to someone and try to change their beliefs, I do have a problem. If I am atheist, don't tell me something is going to happen, that would only happen if there was a god. It doesn't make sense, so to me, you're just acing like I believe in God.

I predict that in the future, atheism will be much more widespread. Tis is because more and more science is proving things about the past: evolution, the big bang; all of these are explaining how the world started, without there being a god.

6 comments:

Kate said...

You hold a convincing argument...I never thought about it like that. Once you continue to develop you point I think it will be a great essay. :)

Maria said...

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/xx.html

According to that link above, atheists make up only 2.36% of the world. Let's make it a strong & peaceful 2.36%! Okay, I have no idea what that had to do with anything, but it seemed like a good idea at the time....

Firstmate said...

I understand where your coming from. I believe religion is over rated. You seemed to put a lot fo thought into this, it's very good. It does make a good argument.

TishaBrandi said...

yes there are some hypacritical christinas out there, i'm sorry i can't be perfect... i would never tell somebody to go to hell, or they are in trouble. i can tell by this that you are angry. You made the choice to be Atheist... it is very hard to believe in gods or GOD. But that is where faith comes in. I'm not saying change your ways at all, i know it would piss me off if some one said that to me. You're not supposed to put your trust in people, people are temporary, so when a so called "christian" messes up its because people always mess up. Christians are people. If they said that to you they shouuldn't have.

Kate said...

I think I may have found a little contradiction in your essay...the word "Atheist" contains the root "theo," meaning "God," therefore the word Atheist in the sense in which you are using it is a contradictory term. From my understanding of your essay, you are saying that there is no God, but you are using a word that has the word God in it. Words exist, yet you are saying (with a word) that God does not exist, but you give Him existance by using the word Atheist...sorry, that sounds really confusing...but my point is not to trash you essay, because although I am Catholic I do respect your belief (however I do not agree that ALL Christians hate Atheists, as you seem to be saying)...my point is that it is interesting that the word "Atheist" is in itselt a contradiction...i don't know, just something interesting to think about

Anonymous said...

Kate, that's like saying that the word atypical is a contradiction because it contains the word typical in it. Actually, the word atheist comes from the Greek word atheos-, meaning godless, and the suffix -ist, meaning a person. So, technically, atheist means "one who holds godless beliefs".

Semantics.

By the way, Noah did not invent the word atheist, so you can't hold him accountable for any definitions it may hold. :)

& I don't think Noah was implying that all Christians hate atheists. (At least I hope he was not making blanket statements like this. It would refute his entire argument & be very hypocritical besides.)