To be an Atheist
This page is really just a response to a friend
of mine who asked of me, "What does it mean to be an atheist?" So for all
who would like to know, I posted it here for you to read and scrutinize. Enjoy.
To be an atheist is not merely a matter of believing that some
alleged God does not exist. To be an atheist is to not believe
anything without substantial, credible, verifiable, impartial,
consistent argument and evidence. The pious will readily believe something
before (and without) undergoing in-depth research, analyses, scrutiny and
evaluation. Whereas, an atheist will first diligently, impartially probe
and question the credibility of a thing, before s/he can claim to believe it.
An atheist will question first and believe last.
You cannot simply tell an atheist that there are blond haired
mermaids in the sea and expect them to just accept it. You cannot simply
tell an atheist that there are leprechauns with pots of gold at the end of
rainbows and expect them to just accept it. You cannot simply tell an
theist that there are flying purple ponies on mountain tops and expect them to
just accept it. You cannot simply tell an atheist that a guy named Santa
Claus knows when you're asleep, awake, naughty or nice and expect them to just
accept it. You cannot simply tell an atheist that Isis, Osiris, Horus, Ra,
Allah, Ahura Mazda, Zeus, Attis, Dionysis, or Vishnu exists and expect them to just
accept it. You cannot simply tell an atheist that there is an
all-powerful, all-knowing, omni-present, omni-benevolent, celestial dictator who
made us tiny people (and the whole of the universe) to praise him and expect
them to just accept it.
You cannot make
such wild claims and expect an atheist to simply follow you across the street,
eat from the palm of your hand and believe you. S/he will will definitely
have questions for you, before they accept your claim(s). This is one of
the reasons why atheist are so vehemently despised: They irritate and
upset priests by not simply accepting and obeying. They aggravate
congregations by not willfully bowing down and blindly forgoing analytical
reasoning and Socratic questioning. What the pious hate (and fear) most of
all is the fact that atheists raise logical questions which priests have no
consistent, credible answers for. Quite often, priests are left with the decision of
having to either admit that they truly don't know a thing (of vital importance
to the credibility of their claim(s)) or condemn and vilify the curiously
questioning atheist.
Ultimately, the one major difference between an
atheist and the pious is the fact that the atheist will dismiss the credibility
of the existence of all supposed Gods on the basis of insufficient evidence and
inconsistent argument. The pious will dismiss the credibility of all but
one. So an atheist is s/he who does not make an exception for the God (or
Gods) who you may believe to exist. An atheist leaves them all in the same
raunchy cesspool.
To be an atheist is to be non-herding. To
be an atheist is to not be credulous. To be an atheist is to not be
mentally locked in a cage, but rather an inquiring eagle parting the clouds with
tireless wings. To be an atheist is to question everything.
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