Subject: re: Music, religion, etc.
From: Robbie (shok@netcom.com)
Date: Fri Jan 07 2000 - 17:14:08 EST
Jon said:
<< Someone said (I'm on the digest, so sorry about the impersonality)
that atheism is not a religion. >>
I said it. My name is Robbie. Well met.
(I'm on the digest too, so I understand ;)
<< I totally agree with that: it's a religious belief, I suppose, but
not a religion.>>
That is the biggest misconspetion Theists have of Atheism. When I say
that Atheism is not a religion, I don't mean that it simply doesn't meet
some institutional definition. Atheism is the *ABSENSE* of religion. I
can't emphasize that enough. If Atheism is a religious belief, then
white is a color and darkness is a light and a vaccuum is a gas and a
plain is a mountain. You see what I'm getting at? The Theist tells me
that I, as an Atheist, have a religion called Atheism. This is not
true. I have no religion.
If most of the people in the world decide to paint their faces, some
paint theirs green, some red, some blue, Atheists are the people who
thought face painting was silly and refused to do it, or washed off the
paint that their parents forced on them. Atheism isn't just another
color of paint, it is no paint at all. Do you understand? We can still
look at all the colorful faces, and we can even appreciate their beauty
if it strikes us, but we dismiss the face painting itself as a pointless
and irrational act.
And we tend to get upset when people try to force us into it. Like when
they try to convince us that their color is the best, or even worse,
when they try to convince us that we too have painted faces, just
painted a different color.
<< Without religion, it can be hard to get large groups of people to
agree on rules and principles necessary to maintain a relatively
peaceful society or culture. >>
I disagree. Rules and principles usually come in the Religion Package
but they can exist very well without it. I believe in no religion and I
believe in no supernatural deity. I do not believe in the literal
existence of a human soul. I am a product of my evolution, plain and
simple.
But I am not some crazed terrorist. I am not a bad guy. I'm not out
wreaking havok or hurting people. I've never even been in a fight; I'm
a pacifist. Having a regard for the common good is natural to an animal
as social as the Homo sapiens. Morality and ethics and values can
thrive in a society without god(s) or religion. Noting the number of
wars that are a direct result of religion, and how religion has
historically been the catalyst for so much pain and suffering, and how
many people are killed annually in the name of religion, it's remarkable
that people will still try and argue that religion is the only way to a
"peaceful society or culture." Probably the largest pool of Atheists
you could conveniently find would be in a list of men and women who have
received Nobel Prizes for scientific discoveries. And yet the
misconception that Atheists must, at heart, be bad, amoral people still
persists.
-robbie
"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for
reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."
-Albert Einstein
"I refuse to be labeled immoral merely because I am godless."
[Peter Walker on alt.atheism]
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