What are the top ten reasons to be an atheist?
What are the top ten reasons to be an atheist?
The Top Ten Reasons to Be an Atheist (in no particular order) are:
Drum roll please…
- It’s obvious that all world religions are the product of extremely ignorant (not stupid) near barbarians who didn’t understand much about the world around them and made up stories to explain things the best they could. We no longer believe that the universe is made of four elements, that our health is governed by the balance of our four humors, that the Earth is the center of the universe with everything revolving around it, that mental illness is caused by demonic possession, etc. Why, then, should we still cling to ancient ideas about gods?
- It’s obvious that most people who say they believe in God believe in the God that is worshiped by the culture in which they grew up. And everybody is convinced that their religion is the only “right” one. They can’t all be right, but they can certainly all be wrong.
- It’s obvious that the universe is just too vast and full of stuff not in any way related to humans to seriously believe that it was all made just for us and that we are the pinnacle of all creation.
- It’s obvious that the religious beliefs of today are substantively the same as every other discarded superstitious belief of the past. If it’s silly to believe in Thor and Osiris, it’s just as silly to believe in Allah or Jehovah.
- It’s obvious that every single bit of proposed “evidence” for the existence of God has either been totally debunked or can be explained through other means. And it is obvious that any justification for believing in God is part of an ever-shrinking “god of the gaps” argument.
- It’s obvious that the various “Holy Scriptures” that supposedly provide the only source for knowledge about God are riddled with internal inconsistencies and blatantly wrong information about the world and world history.
- It’s obvious that every depiction of God that is actually worshiped by anybody is riddled with logical inconsistencies. How can God be all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving if he permits massive suffering throughout the entire universe (and not just suffering caused by man’s free will)? Why would an all-loving God set up a system whereby the vast, vast majority of his children would never get a chance to hear the “truth” and be saved, and thus be condemned to an eternity of torture? How can God simultaneously be immaterial and timeless (“pure mind”) and still interact with the material world?
- It’s obvious that things like “God moves in mysterious ways” and “God always answers prayers, but sometimes the answer is no” are just lame excuses to explain why God rarely (if ever) keeps his supposed promise to actually GIVE the faithful what they ask for in faith (not just “answer their prayers”).
- It’s obvious that “God” is just Santa Claus for adults. Believing in Him may give you comfort in times of trouble and give you something to look forward to, but that doesn’t mean He is real.
- And, to top it off, after thousands and thousands of years, no believer has ever offered a shred of compelling evidence or any sound logical argument to support a belief in such a being. Although, to be absolutely honest, the entire notion of “God” is so insanely ridiculous and childish and obviously the product of ignorant superstitions in the first place that it’s hard to even imagine what sort of “evidence” or “argument” would actually be sufficient to support a belief in such a being. And if you think that makes me sound “closed-minded,” then I’m afraid you’ll just have to blame the people who came up with such a ridiculous notion in the first place.
In #7, you say “vast majority of his children would never get a chance to hear the “truth” and be saved, and thus be condemned to an eternity of torture?” When I have asked about this, I have been told that God gives a pass to those who never heard of him and does not send them to hell. Still not clear on what does happen to them. Regardless, this argument only lowered my opinion of those who insisted on spreading the Word - thus deliberately putting such people at risk of hell.
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Exactly. A very similar argument can be made about abortion. Many fundamentalist Christians believe that aborted fetuses go directly to heaven. However, they are strongly against abortion. But, if we take their beliefs as the truth (yes I know that’s a very big if), then wouldn’t it be better to allow the abortion so the fetuses are guaranteed to be saved, rather than take the risk that they’ll grow up to be either atheists or non-Christian theists and be condemned to hell?
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“not even a fibre from the net of reason”
I like it. Nicely put. If people seriously believe that holy books would have saved us 2,000 years of gradual development of science and engineering, it’s odd that it never helped.
Unfortunately the people who claim there is science in holy books tend to know nothing about science. If you were to ask them where in a holy book there is E = M C^2 or A = V^2 / R or F = M A or A = G M / R^2 or d/dx x^2 = 2x or matrix algebra or anything else so basic and useful such as an actual layout of the Solar System with distances and orbital periods and planetary masses, they would not even know what you meant. It would be like trying to explain science to Flat Earthers, who are always victims of the Dunning-Krueger Effect, and arrogant with it.
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John Bartram
· 1y
““God” is just Santa Claus for adults” - love it!
Profile photo for Barry Goldberg
Barry Goldberg
· 1y
He knows when you are sleeping.
He knows when you’re awake.
He knows when you’ve been bad or good,
So be good, for goodness’s sake!
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With 2,000 years of philosophy and sobering history and astounding science behind us that the authors of the Bible did not have, we are not content with an interpretation of the Bible as its authors would have, we expect something much more profound, hence the tendency to devote much energy and ingenuity to finding non-literal or metaphorical ways of re-interpreting the ancient literature, way beyond anything its authors ever conceived, an act like strangling the book to death to wring out of it some concealed meaning that is not actually there.
Bob Dylan’s lyrics from the 1960s were studied by academics, Hell, he won a Nobel Prize. But whenever he was asked to confirm that an academic had found the true meaning in some lyrics, he always refused, saying in effect that he wrote the way he did because people liked it.
Enid Blyton wrote kids books such as The Adventures Of Noddy And Big Ears. These appealed to kids. Adults know not to expect anything profound from them. They are just decorous tales which adults leave behind. An adult realises there is no point in devoting energy to wringing profound sense out of them. Enid Blyton was not a profound philosopher, she was just a woman who wrote books for kids.
By analogy, the people of 2,000 years ago were ignorant about the nature of the world, in the way children are, and now 2,000 years later when, like adults, we know better, the only problem is the refusal of some people to stop trying to wring sense out of an ancient book we should have long since left behind.
Fools pour over the Bible and take it literally seriously. Brighter people make their own decisions about which bits are sensible in the modern context. But this business of deciding for yourself which bits to believe could be applied to any book full of a random large quantity of bizarre little tales, with the same result.
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Belief in God lets adults feel more secure and protected in a big scary world by a “big strong daddy” that loves them and will protect and take care of them, and give them things they want, as long as they ask really nicely and don’t behave in ways that will make him mad.
He also gives those adults ways to explain things they don’t understand, without the effort of actually having to think about them, because “daddy said so” or “daddy knows what’s right.”
Going to church is like a family get-together with all your other brothers and sisters, joining together to sing, and hear all the familiar stories and then share some refreshments before you all go to your own houses again.
I can understand the appeal, since humans are social animals, and the randomness of bad things happening in life is indeed pretty scary. I was raised in a rational, non-religious family, so was fortunate enough not to have “religious indoctrination” in childhood. I had friends raised in devout families, and went to several different churches at different times with them. I could enjoy the music, the beauty of the churches, and the camaraderie, and even appreciate the appeal of the promise that “if you do what your daddy wants, and behave like he teaches you to, everything will be alright.”. But none of those exposures “took” - they never immunized me against skepticism and questioning.
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Well said.
Basically, religion is just a way for king and ruling class to control the peasants. That way the former get the good life and the latter get the fantasy world of the afterlife.
And from a psychological point of view, anticipation of something good is often better than the present day reality.
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