Atheist Crow - Atheism

Why am I an Atheist?

A is for Atheist

One of the questions I get asked is what happened to make you an atheist? When did you loose your faith? Nothing happened. Babies are not born believing in gods, but they are commonly indoctrinated into the religion of their parents. I am lucky that my parents are not religious, although my mothers grandparents are. I grew up in a house full of debate, my father delighted in reason and argument and often had friends of with quite radical ideas sitting around the table after dinner. From catholic bishops, anglican vicars, humanist and secular political friends. It was a great way to hear the arguments from many different perspectives.

When I read the bible I am able to see the fairy stories for what they are, I know enough about science to see just how silly the biblical claims are. I do not find any claims for the supernatural compelling. None of the "evidence" I've heard leads me to believe in the existence of any of the gods.

If you have a faith then chances are that whatever religion you believe in is based largely on the accident of where you live. If you're an evangelical christian in the bible thumping southern states of America, and you believe Jesus Christ is god - how does it feel to realise that if you had been born in Oman you would almost certainly be a devout muslim? In secular Europe we don't have a particular faith force fed to us, so there's more chance of escaping the delusion and not believing in Bronze age folk tales.

Atheists have no morals

This has actually been said to me a number of times - "You're an atheist so you don't have any morals." If it was said once I would just shrug and think oh someone's upset that their religious argument didn't convert me. When it gets repeated by rote I have to think that its a common mistake by the religious who assume their morals are "god given."

Surely morals are absolutes, written in stone and true forever? Well, no. If the bible is anything to go on, slavery is perfectly moral, rape totally acceptable (as long as you marry the victim after raping her), genocide is only gods will after all. If morals are absolute then all the behaviours acceptable to Bronze age tribesmen in the Old Testament should be equally acceptable today. That civilized people look at slavery as unacceptable hopefully shows that morals do indeed change over time, and I hope for the better.

My personal ethical view is essentially humanist. I believe that people are responsible for their actions, not gods, ghosts or goblins. I believe that this involves accepting responsibility for oneself and caring for others. It involves a recognition that we all have the right to live in a world free from fear and poverty, to be loved and valued, to enjoy activities that bring us happiness and fulfilment without depriving others, and to know that there will be a safe and sustainable environment for future generations to enjoy. I am an atheist and I have morals.

Atheist just means not believing in a god or gods. It does not mean that the atheist is any less moral or ethical than any other person, nor (sadly) any more ethical or moral.

"I can help you..."

This is quite a popular one with the evangelical fundamentalists (fundies). They see me post an atheist quote on Twitter, or just notice my screen name and can't help but jump in with both feet. Quite why they feel I should need help is beyond me. There's usually some lines about their god loving me and wanting me to be "saved". Also quite a lot of arrogant assumptions that I simply don't know my scripture (or science) and they just need to quote a few biblical passages at me for me to be converted.

I try to be polite mostly. "No souls needing to be saved here!" I will quip. They often offer to pray for me... I advise them to pray to their gods for every amputees missing limb to be returned in perfect state, oh and while they're on their knees that everyone, everywhere should be instantly cured of cancer and AIDS would be nice too.

Things generally end up with the believer losing their patience and damning me to burn for all eternity in hell fire. I thank them, but explain hell fire isn't real. Pope John Paul II said on Wednesday 28th July 1999 -"Rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God."

Really you can't "help me" with your religious mumbo jumbo. I'm perfectly happy, thank you very much anyway.

"Evolution is Racist..."

I came across a really bitter little princesses blog where she wrote "Darwinism promotes the general idea or superiority of certain races because some "races" may not be as evolved as others. Racism is fueled by evolutionary thinking... It is not right to, so blatantly, describe humans as merely developed beasts when we so clearly are not."

I was genuinely stunned at how ignorant the American teen blog writer was.. Evolutionary theory (Darwinism if you will) proves that all people are incredibly closely related and the tiny differences of eye and skin colour, height or the shape of your nose are meaningless variations. That the term "race" is a social construct and meaningless in terms of biology is proven by Evolutionary Biology, genetics, biochemistry and anthropology. Evolutionary theory doesn’t make any kind of claim concerning which species are “good” or “bad.” It simply predicts that gene frequencies will change within a population over time.

Creationists do seem to have a problem with the reality that all people are part of the animal kingdom. When Evolutionary Biologists show that genetically we share around 99.4% of our DNA with Chimpanzees it must really irritate them. Their Holy Books tell them that they are special.. separate.. better. It's that kind of thinking that leads to racism.

Orangutan attempting to fish using a spear - Daily Mail picture. Like it or not humans and all apes are closely related.

"If men come from apes why are there still chimpanzees?"

I've heard this so many times from smug creationists as if they were making a huge point. If we descended from apes then how come there are still apes. Actually I'm being kind, most creationists think Darwinism says we evolved from chimpanzees or gorillas. Of course we didn't evolve from the chimps, gorillas or orangutans living on Earth today... but we did share a distant ancestor with them. Richard Dawkins has made a very clear, brief video that explains it nicely.

Copyright stuff. The text on this website is typed by me. A lot of the ideas won't be new, but anything quoted is probably someone else's idea and might well be copyright. Images borrowed from another site like the Buddy Christ belong to whoever holds the copyright - usually hover over the image for more information.