Well, I am an atheist like Donald Trump is a man of faith! The point to be made is labels are excuses for thinking and reasons for dehumanizing. But in the common defense, people in some organized religions are told, "Don't think we will do the thinking for you". The discussion is stifled even before it begins. In other words, labels are officially promoted or at least tacitly approved.
Intrinsic in the label, atheist are concepts like heathen, godless, inhuman, amoral. irreverent and even demonic. Given that list, anyone that does not profess to a faith in a supreme being that is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient will most certainly "roast in hell for all eternity".
Letʻs look at the prejudice intrinsic in the label atheist.
According to the Vancouver Sun, University of British Columbia researchers conducted a total of six experiments on 350 Americans and 420 UBC students, of varying religions (67% of the Americans were Christian). In one experiment, they presented participants with the story of an "archetypal freerider" who cheats and steals a lot, and asked what group they thought that person might belong to. Participants were more likely to categorize the person as an atheist than as a Christian, Jew, Muslim, gay person, or feminist (some of the groups were chosen because they were "often described as threatening to majority religious values and morality"). Only rapists fared as poorly — participants were about as likely to put the "freerider" in this group. According to the study, "People did not significantly differentiate atheists from rapists."
https://jezebel.com/5864303/people-think-atheists-are-just-as-bad-as-rapists-christ
People did not differentiate atheists from rapists; that is a pretty radical view. It implies that religious people are morally superior. The headlines these days about sexual abuse, church fraud, the homosexual hypocrisy of a pastor, Nazi Christians and church members profiting from pornography and prostitution in the hotels they own does not alter the belief at all.
Tom Jacobs wrote in the Pacific Standard 2014.
It’s an important distinction, in that atheists can also form communities founded on ethical principles (humanism being a prominent example). But so long as people are convinced there is no good without God, atheists fighting for public acceptance face a struggle of Biblical proportions.
So we find ourselves trapped in a religious belief that says there is no good without God. This is no doubt a common belief today but to which contemporary god are they referring?
Noteworthy Atheists
Hank Pellissier wrote, Atheists have no faith, no expectation of benefit from a deity. So, atheists are probably selfish, right? Pitiless, parsimonious. Totally stingy misers, not passing a penny off to the poor…correct?
WRONG! Atheists, non-believers, secular humanists, skeptics—the whole gamut of the godless have emerged in recent years as inarguably the most generous benefactors on the globe. That’s right. Hordes of heretics are the world’s biggest damned philanthropists. Both individually and in groups, heathen infidels are topping the fundraising charts.
First, the facts.
The current most charitable individuals in the United States, based on “Estimated Lifetime Giving,” are:
A comprehensive list of important religious skeptics would include Thomas Paine, Clarence Darrow, Susan B. Anthony, Abraham Lincoln, W.E.B. Du Bois, Margaret Sanger, Langston Hughes, Eugene Debs, Thomas Edison, Kurt Vonnegut, Pete Stark, and numerous others. David Niose https://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-niose/great-nonbelievers-atheists-history_b_1677760.html1) Warren Buffett (atheist, donated $40.785 billion to “health, education, humanitarian causes”)2) Bill & Melinda Gates (atheists, donated $27.602 billion to “global health and development, education”)3) George Soros (atheist, donated $6.936 billion to “open and democratic societies”)
My Brand of Atheism.
As a young boy sitting on a desert ridge overlooking vast vast lands of the Anza Borrego State Park, I was struck by the grandeur and symmetry of the place. This desert ecosystem could seem barren and lifeless, yet to me, it was teaming with life, complexity, and wonder. There just had to be a creator, it was far too beautiful to happen by chance alone, my young mind pondered. This same feeling arose one morning as I sat quietly meditating on the magnificence of Mt. Whitney as viewed from the high desert eastern side.
In my early teen years, I found myself identifying with kids from a church camp experience and followed them to church and getting baptized. The months later the spiritual disenchantment grew and I had to leave the hypocrisy of the Sunday- Good People.
Now a college student I was a secular as they come with moments of spiritual connectedness like assisting the birth of my grandfather's horse. And so it went for decades. I knew there was a creative force maybe it is a creator but certainly not one in my image. "Creative Force" seemed to fit fine but even then most would have called me an atheist.
A few more decades pass I am now the equivalent of a full professor and deeply engaged in science and the challenges that society faces. I am a scientist but one that did not believe like some. A colleague scientist told me once, "If we can't measure it does not exist". Wow, really? How do you measure love I asked?
As a biological scientist with a minor in chemistry, that happened by accident, I would often enjoy the musings of Dr. Carl Sagan. He was an atheist but with an astronomic reverence. Then one day, I got my version of a Grand Unification Theory, one Einstein labored on for years. I saw at the moment of the Big Bang all matter was created. All carbon, sulfur, iron, nitrogen phosphorus etc came into existence. Each of these elements has physical and chemical properties intrinsic to their molecular size and weight. Then over billions of years, the cosmic dust stirred, exploded, imploded spun, and settled. The rain came to one planet and the cosmic soup went into solution and walla life began.
That majestic desert landscape like all landscapes and oceans are a product of that soup. The creative force I felt so many times played its hand at the big bang and the elements set on a path that created life and my ability to sit here and write this.
I sit in awe of that force. So why pray tell are we quibbling about my belief in God. I simply spell it differently. No label fits this timeless majesty.
Gervais, Will M., et al. "Global evidence of extreme intuitive moral prejudice against atheists." Nature Human Behaviour1.8 (2017): s41562-017.
No comments:
Post a Comment