We live in interesting times, times that should be enlightened where knowledge, science and reason should be at the forefront of our world but where fear, uncertainty, mysticism and doubt occupy most people’s waking thoughts. Never have we been more connected to each other through the internet, through the media and mobile telephones but we seem to be approaching a new dark age. What is going on?
The world is in the thrall of a Bronze Age cult and its derivatives that threaten to cast aside reason, rationalism and humanity. That cult has many names Christianity, Judaism or Islam which disguise their singular origins. That it dominates the fulfillment of the world’s delusional need for religion is more by chance than anything else. Some other religion may have occupied its need but the effect would have been much the same. Like all religions it is exclusive, will not tolerate other beliefs and believes that it is the only path to the after life. That religions with as little to separate them as these three monotheistic doctrines have such open and bloody antagonism against each other (Iraq, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Israel) is proof enough.
I cannot state this simply enough. I have come to the belief, over a number of years, that not only is there no god, but that religions are not only worthless but also dangerous for the future of civilised society. I am not referring only to fundamentalism but to all religious belief. Fundamentalists of any faith can exist only where a climate of moderation supports their underlying beliefs. Fundamentalism doesn’t have to endanger the physical world. The mental image of a fundamentalist Muslim suicide bomber springs easily to mind. Fundamentalism, whether it be the Taliban or the current Christian Fundamentalist theocracy that dominates America, threatens reason, science and the further development of society. A survey recently found that 50% of adult Americans believe the universe to be 10,000 years old. The belief in the literal truth of the bible is staggering, especially in light of the scientific evidence telling the universe billions of years old. Not content are they in their own delusions but there is a well funded and organised campaign against science. To hear reports that creationism (intelligent design) is taught in place or even beside evolution as a credible alternative is saddening.
My own revelation came as the unification of my rational, logical, reasoning brain with the revultion I felt for fundamentalism. Obviously it is patent nonsense. However, when one instinctively knows that, and one has always instinctively doubted the texts of the New Testament and any other supernatural occurrences it is only a small jump in logic to realise that there is obviously no god. Of any type. Anywhere.
It was so gratifying then to read Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion and have my beliefs confirmed as sane, rational and common. To read the scientific basis of atheism and its accord with my own beliefs was extremely exciting. No longer did I have to try to maintain my belief as god being the force that drives the universe (the last vestige of my Catholicism) I could name that force as physics, nature or anything else.
I am an atheist. I believe in nothing supernatural. I do not have an eternal soul. My consciousness exists only in the chemical and electrical reactions in my brain. When I die I will be as I was before I was born. My existence is the result of a series of amazingly unlikely events going back to the beginning of time. I am liberated. I need not fear anything that is not part of the physical, rational world. I can apply reason to anything and I have no fear of my eventual death.
To some of you this isn’t news. To some of you it is. You may disagree with me. You may argue with me. You may think that I am making a big fuss about a common viewpoint. Let me be clear. I am not agnostic (I don’t claim not to know), I am not a person who has no faith because they have never thought about it. I have considered the evidence and decided that I can’t, as a rational human being, believe.
Religion has done much to harm the world. It may be argued that great works have been done by religion (they could be done equally, or better, without it), that religion gives us a moral code (without it we are possibly more moral – I see little morality in the killing of innocent people, the treatment of women as objects, the hatred that religion engenders, that religion gives people hope (it is false hope). I discount all of that.
You may have notice the large red “A” in the right side-bar. This is the out campaign. More people need to stand up and acknowledge their atheism. Mysticism holds governments and people in its thrall. Atheists and humans need to let our voices be heard.
I will write more about atheism. Until then…
