01.13.06
As a militant atheist, I am often consumed in the middle of the night with a deep and festering contempt for all forms of mysticism, whether it calls itself Christianity, Wicca, Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, or Zoroastrianism. My fundamental problem with theology -- which is different from, but inseparable from, religion* -- is that it requires blind faith in place of empirical evidence. Make sure you understand that distinction -- religion does not build faith upon evidence; it builds faith upon the complete absence of evidence. Many believers actually think that this kind of baseless belief makes them more faithful; which it does -- since "faithful" literally means "full of faith" -- but it's not something of which to be proud.
Believers often erroneously point to the lack of evidence that directly disproves the existence of God as circumstantial evidence that supports their case. Unfortunately, there is also a complete lack of evidence that directly disproves that unicorns, leprechauns and dragons ever existed, but anyone who sincerely tried to build a theological construct around their devout belief in those fantastical creatures would be dismissed out of hand as delusional. On the other hand, there is more physical evidence to support the existence of extraterrestrials than there is to support the existence of any god, and yet the sanity of anyone claiming to have been abducted by an alien is immediately called into question.
Carl Sagan summarized the argument succinctly when he posited that the "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Or, to the point, just because I cannot prove that God exists is not, unto itself, proof that God does not exist. And I subscribe to that standard; if I put my keys down on the table before I go to bed and wake up to find the table empty, the absence of evidence that proves the actual location of my keys is not evidence that my keys have suddenly ceased to exist. But conversely, the opposite must also be true; the absence of evidence that disproves existence is not itself evidence that proves existence. The fact that I cannot empirically prove that God does not exist is not, unto itself, proof that God does exist.
I now feel the overwhelming need to clarify, for any theist reader, that my atheism is not to be confused for a "hatred for God;" I cannot hate that which does not exist. Understand also that I am not saying that I cannot hate that "in which I do not believe;" it is specifically because God does not exist that I do not believe in It. On that same token, I am not an instrument of, nor do I worship, the Devil; the Devil, like God, does not exist. I do hate the fact that Mankind has fabricated the illusion of a God as a means to further a myriad of sociopolitical agendas, including invasion, war, oppression, terrorism, and wholesale murder.
I despise being relativistic concerning my opinions; I want to simply make the blanket statement that anyone who would subscribe to a wholly unproveable and irrational set of beliefs is plainly stupid, and leave it at that. But there's another part of me that wants to be compassionate to the people I know -- people that I know aren't outright stupid -- who have yet to escape the terminal gravity of theological superstition.
Most of the people that I love -- family and close friends -- are still firmly entrenched in these mythical fantasies. Some of them are very smart in an academic sense -- summa cum laudes, Mensa-worthy IQs, and the like --and many of them have far more common sense than I (excluding, of course, their beliefs in theological myths). Why, then, do they succumb to this primitive mysticism when their better sense should be able to identify those ideas for what they are: the antiquated superstitions of an archaic society?
I've come to realize that breaking from the strangling grip of decades of theological brainwashing requires a fiercely individual independence, a finely-tuned sense of rational logic, and the willingness to accept the hardest truth that exists: that ultimately, there is no meaning or purpose. There is no afterlife; there is no "right" or "wrong;" there is no "good" or "evil;" there is no Soul. When the physical body dies and disperses back into the universe to be recycled as molecular matter, the consciousness simply expires and ceases to be. It took me five years to come to terms with that truth, and I was actively trying.
The comforts of the afterlife -- of divine justice for actions that seem to go unpunished or unrewarded in corporeal life; of meeting deceased loved ones after death; of the notion that an omniscient omnipotent benevolent creator cares for humans; of the notion that no one is ever truly gone -- these are intensely difficult to abandon, so great is the psychological need for a sense of order. The alternative, literally, is to admit that there is nothing else to existence but the 80-or-so years we spend on an ultimately chaotic planet before dissolving back into random atoms.
I see no problem with that scenario; I can console myself with the idea that, in a metaphorical sense, I will continue to exist in the memory of the people with whom I interact. Following that philosophy actually promotes ethical behavior, despite the common claim by theists that atheists are inherently immoral, since I want pass on a positive legacy to future generations. Of course, this doesn't have to be the case; if I didn't care what future generations thought of me, I could live however I wanted.
But I choose to act as I do -- not because of the "tenets" or "commandments" that someone claimed were given to him by "god" -- because I am not responsible to some fictional father-figure, but to the human race and the planet. My concerns are not glorifying or worshiping some imaginary deity, but promoting the betterment of the environment firstly, and the species secondly.
Theists act morally because they are told to do so; I act morally because I choose to do so. I act ethically because my primary aim is to better the situation that exists, as opposed to theistic individuals who often act immorally by discriminating against various groups (women, gays, blacks, and so on and so on and so on) on the basis of wholly unproveable and irrational theological beliefs.
* -- "Theology" is a belief in a supernatural deity, and includes most agnostics; "Religion" is a politial structure that attempts to draw its authority from a theological deity. I will not use these two words interchangeably.
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