Posted inAtheism God Religions

Fear of God’s wrath is a lousy reason to be religious

Life is difficult. This is something almost everyone can agree on, believers and atheists alike. But only religious people add to life's difficulties by imagining God inflicts pain and suffering on those who don't comply with whatever commandments their religion believes in. I was a Catholic briefly as a child. I readily admit that I've never learned why confession is, or at least was, a big part of being a Catholic. I simply remember that as part of my first communion, I had to confess my sins to a priest. Being so young, I wasn't much of a sinner. So…
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Posted inAtheism

Atheism has no doctrines

In Armin Navabi's book, Why There is No God: Simple Responses to 20 Common Arguments for the Existence of God, he has a chapter called "Atheism has killed more people than religion, so it must be wrong." Navabi's main argument against this is in a section called Atheism Has No Doctrines. He makes some great points, so I'm sharing that section here. Atheism Has No Doctrines The violence within Christianity or Islam can often be traced back to the teachings of those religions because it is embedded in the ideology of the religions themselves.  Even though war and violence in…
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Posted inAtheism God Religions

What if God hates religions?

I'm an atheist who likes to imagine how God thinks. What allows me to do this is the same reason anyone is able to make a claim about God. Since there's no convincing evidence that God exists, every person has an equal opportunity to imagine what this non-existent entity is like -- in much the same way that anyone can come up with a fictional story about characters they conjure up in their mind. So I enjoy visualizing how irritated God is at religious people. God is fine with people who use drugs, drink too much, watch porn all the…
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Posted inAtheism Books

I take another look at U.G. Krishnamurti

Back in 2009 I wrote a blog post about U.G. Krishnamurti, calling him intriguing, irritating, inspirational. That was based on reading some of his Mind Is a Myth book, which has an appealing copyright notice. My teaching, if that is the word you want to use, has no copyright. You are free to reproduce, distribute, interpret, misinterpret, distort, garble, do what you like, even claim authorship, without my consent or the permission of anybody. The book is still available online. But recently I got a paperback copy after being reminded of the book when a passage was quoted in something…
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Posted inAtheism

Why atheism makes sense even if theism doesn’t

Even though it's true that usually people aren't described by their unwillingness to believe in imaginary things -- there aren't afairyists who proclaim their skepticism about the existence of fairies -- the situation is different in regard to God. Below I've shared an excellent comment from Appreciative Reader that was left today on a recent post of mine. The comment explains why even if the notion of God is incoherent, which of course it is, there's still good reason for atheists to object to the belief in God held by billions of people.  After all, believers in fairies don't try…
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Posted inAtheism God

Why it makes no sense to ask for evidence that God doesn’t exist

Over the years I've written numerous blog posts about the near-impossibility of proving a negative such as God doesn't exist.  This isn't the way both science and common sense work. We don't ask for evidence that invisible fairies aren't making our cars move. Since cars have engines, or motors if they're electric, there's lots of evidence in favor of engines/motors, so no need to deal with the invisible fairy hypothesis. Same is the case with God. Or at least how atheists look upon God.  Below is how Armin Navabi addresses this issue in his book, "Why There Is No God:…
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Posted inAtheism God

I’m an atheist who has a personal relationship with God

The title of this blog post is surprising, right? How is it possible for an atheist to have a personal relationship with God? Answer: it's easy. I simply define "God" a lot differently than religious believers do. As described in Atheists should redefine "God" as all that exists, I look upon God as being synonymous with reality, or existence. So I find God awe-inspiring, mysterious, impossible to fathom.  After all, the greatest mystery -- one which almost certainly never will be unraveled by humans -- is that existence exists. Or as the mystery often is described, why is there something rather…
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Posted inAtheism God

Atheists should redefine “God” as all that exists

The word "God" has a strong hold on people. So strong, even atheists sometimes use it, as in "God damn it!" Or "God bless you" after a sneeze.  So I've come to believe that we atheists need to appropriate "God" for our own purpose -- living without superstition, supernatural fantasy, and blind faith.  There's nothing wrong with that word, just as there's nothing wrong with any word. A word is simply made up of letters. The meaning those letters represent is entirely in the hands of humans. Unlike "gravity," say, there is no objective reality that the usual meaning of…
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Posted inAtheism

Believers in God have the burden of proof, not atheists

My wife has organized an atheist group that meets every Sunday here in Salem. Recently I noted that someone had shared a link to a book on the group's Facebook page.  It looked interesting, so I bought Why There is No God: Simple Responses to 20 Common Arguments for the Existence of God. I'm enjoying Armin Navabi's book. Here's info about Navabi that's on the back cover and Amazon listing. Armin Navabi is a former Muslim from Iran and the founder of Atheist Republic, a non-profit organization with over one million fans and followers worldwide that is dedicated to offering…
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Posted inAtheism

It was easy to respond to this atheist challenge

Yesterday Anurag Nathyal left this comment on a recent blog post. I'm pleased to take Nathyal up on his challenge. Replies below in bold. At the end of this post I'll also share an excellent rebuttal to what Nathyal said by Appreciative Reader, a regular commenter on this blog. I have a challenge for the atheists here. You say that we can't prove god is there. I ask you can you prove anything in this world? This may sound absurd at first but think about it. It's tough for me to respond about "proof" any better than Appreciative Reader said in…
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Posted inAtheism

There is indeed a presumption of atheism

Yesterday someone  left this comment on my post, "Sorry. No winner in 'Tell me why you believe in God contest.'" There are arguments for theism. There are arguments for atheism. The failure of arguments for one side, does not mean that the other position is true by default. There is no "presumption of atheism" or "presumption of theism." The commenter is completely wrong. What they said lacks any foundation in logic, reason, or direct experience. I talk about this a lot on this blog. Almost always there's no way to prove the non-existence of something. What we do in both…
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Posted inAtheism Science

What is versus what might be — a rationale for atheism

There are several reasons why I'm a proud atheist. For example, atheism is firmly grounded in reality, since there is no demonstrable evidence that a god exists. Hence the "a" before theism.  Atheism also is humble. I'm not saying that all atheists are humble, just that not believing in a god is inherently humble, since there is no way to feel that you're part of a god's chosen people if you don't believe in a god. Here's another reason.  Atheism is focused on what is, not what might be. In contrast, religions have the opposite focus, on what might be…
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Posted inAtheism Religions

Ricky Gervais nails the ridiculousness of religion

It's Super Bowl Sunday here in the United States, so I've got to save my time and energy to watch grown men try to give each other brain injuries in front of a national audience.  (Soccer, which the rest of the world calls "football" for some reason, is less crazy, though its fans are even more fanatical.) So today I'm sharing a great post from the Friendly Atheist blog, Ricky Gervais to Stephen Colbert: "You Don't Believe in 2,999 Gods. I Don't Believe in Just One More." Hard to argue with Gervais' argument. GERVAIS: … Atheism is only rejecting the claim…
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Posted inAtheism Reality Religions

Changing your mind is a superpower. Use it.

I have a superpower. But unlike those with superpowers who inhabit the pages of comic books and the screens of movie theaters, my astounding ability is available to everyone. It's called changing your mind.  I'm sure you've used it  -- many times. After all, we change our minds about countless things during the course of our lives. For example, I've changed my mind about my... Politics (Used to be conservative, now I'm a liberal). Cars (I've gone from a 57' VW bug to a 2017 VW GTI, with many other makes in between). Marriage (Got divorced, then remarried).Profession (Earned a master's…
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Posted inAtheism Comments Religions

Critical thinking welcome here. Preachiness, not so much.

On this blog I've gone back and forth with moderating comments. After deciding a few weeks ago to return to approving comments before they're published on this blog, I'm feeling good about doing this. I'd rather have just a few -- or even just one -- thoughtful comments on a post than a bunch of irrelevant comments, especially if they're of the "Praise God!" or "Praise Guru!" variety. But for many years my boundless Buddha-like compassion for religiously-minded beings has led me to offer an "open thread" option to those who want to express themselves in a fashion that isn't…
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Posted inAtheism Buddhism Death/Rebirth

Here’s the problem with living: we’re going to die

This isn't exactly breaking news, but I'll say it anyway. Each of us is going to die.  Those seven words are undeniably scary. Life isn't always pleasant. Yet the gulf between having a difficult life and no life at all is more than immense. It's immeasurable. There's no way to compare being alive and being dead, or existence and non-existence. The worst day anyone can have is on a different dimension than not existing at all. Understand: I'm not saying that life is always worth living. Suicide and death with dignity testify to the fact that sometimes people prefer to…
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Posted inAtheism Radha Soami Satsang Beas Reality

I’m an atheist with more faith than any religious believer

A week ago I came up with the title to this blog post. The next day I wrote a comment in reply to someone who goes by "In Search Of" that ended up being a good start to explaining why I consider that atheist me has more faith than religious believers. Here it is. Following my comment you'll find excerpts from one of my first Church of the Churchless blog posts from way back in 2004, "Just have faith." I'm pleased that while I've become more of an atheist over the past fifteen years, my basic faith in reality hasn't…
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Posted inAtheism

On living an atheist life: nothing special, not feeling alone

As I've done in previous posts, here's an email interchange I had recently with someone who visits this blog regularly and likes to share ideas with me.  I WROTE: Yes, giving up the feeling of being special is indeed a relief. As you’re probably aware, I’ve written about this from the perspective of index investing. Trying to beat the markets both takes a lot of work and has been proven to usually be a waste of time, since investors typically buy high and sell low, rather than the reverse. Likewise, so is believing that you can beat the God market.…
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Posted inAtheism

Atheists like me are by far the most disliked religious minority

Minorities tend to be misunderstood by majorities. Whites don't really know what it is like to be African American. Heterosexuals don't really know what it is like to be homosexual, or more broadly, LGBTQ. And religious believers don't know what it is like to be atheist. (Note: I was a religious believer for 35 years, Eastern mysticism variety, so I'm very familiar with both religious belief and atheism -- having deconverted from my previous belief about 14 years ago.) So as an atheist, I haven't been surprised by the response of many to my also-atheist wife, Laurel, using the public…
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