The prominent atheist Richard Dawkins was asked at some point in the past, "What if you are wrong?" His answer, of course, was brilliant, but I have an answer of my own.
"What if you're wrong?" asks the student.
"What if I'm wrong?" I reply, "What if you're wrong? What if all this time, you have been living a life riddled with guilt regarding the natural lusts and desires of your body for no good reason? Hating yourself without reason or rationale? What if all this time you have been placing your sense of natural awe and wonder of the world and the universe into a man-made vessel, causing your curiosity to short circuit and placating you with simplistic explanations to truly fascinating and complex possible discoveries?
"What if they are wrong and their children die needlessly, and cruelly because they thought some figment of their imagination was telling them that a life saving blood transfusion is a sin?
"What if she is wrong and she stays with her abusive husband because she thinks a fabricated sky father would rather see her beaten to a pulp daily than face the prospect that she might find happiness in another?
"What if those parents are wrong, and they send their child into a spiral of doubt, confusion and self-loathing because they find out the child is gay?
"What if you are wrong and all this time your faith is merely a byproduct of your family, your ancestors some time back being subjugated and forced or duped to convert? What if your made up deity is nothing more than the continued shameful exploitation of you and yours by the descendants of those who abused your ancestors in the past?
"What if you're wrong and all this time you have been praying to a god who isn't there, when you could have been communicating with those who care about you, and getting the love and support you really needed.
"What if you are wrong and all this time you have been living in a bubble of man's fabrication, unable to see the world for what it truly is, painting the rich color palate of reality with a set of 8 crayons?
"What if you are wrong, and you have put your heart and energy into something that does not exist? What if you are wrong and you took this one life we have, the only thing we are sure of, and squandered it away by suffocating yourself in fantasy?
"What if you are wrong and your faith in an afterlife was nothing more than a tragically unmet need that you haven't been able to make peace with the facts of life and death? What if your delusion has prevented you from ever being able to truly cope with the fact that you will never see your loved one again?
"What if you are wrong and all this time you were waiting for god to deliver happiness to you for your piety, you never stopped to realize that you hold that power within yourself?
"If you wish to discuss the potential consequences of a lack of faith, you must first examine the potential consequences of faith."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beYYZRN1sEs
Showing posts with label Atheism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Atheism. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Friday, March 29, 2013
on Atheism, Skeptism and Shambhalalalalalala
I am an atheist.
This is something that I have taken a long time to come to terms with. I was born and raised strongly Catholic. I was an alter server. Took CCD classes, got my first communion and was part of the CYO. My dad saw to it that we attended mass every Sunday. I used to leave my pretty ribbons from birthday presents at the foot of my bed, as a gift for the Virgin Mary. When I was older, I had conversations with the priest and visiting brothers about the "call to priesthood" and how they could possibly know if I didn't have just that call (for non-catholics, females cannot become priests), or how could they know that what I felt wasn't the exact same thing that they felt when they went to seminary, and not an alternate feeling that was a call to nun-hood.
In 7th grade I kinda realized I was just playing around (I did continue to play around until mid high school it should be noted, having sort of a doublethink for awhile). I have a long history of inventing characters, particularly fantasy characters, and keeping them mentally with me. What would Efifi (My most main of guardian angel like characters I developed for myself in the vacuum of social ostracism) think of me doing this action? Eventually, I acknowledged that these were aspects of myself, or of who I wanted to be, and thought of them less often. I was growing up. What other things was I just inventing to replace the lack of role models and friends I had? Christmas Mass that year, it just kinda hit me, and I started tearing up: there is no rational reason to believe any of this - and thanks to their misogynistic outlook, there was plenty of reasons not to support it institutionally.
My dad spent a year not talking to me when I refused to get confirmed and stopped going to church. This was in high school. We have since gotten over that, but it is actually still a sore point to my dad who sees the actions of his four daughters and his wife (in either not attending church or not believing in the system at all), as an act of disloyalty. Sometimes I try to delve deeper into this sentiment, and determine why his prime lesson to us - "Love the Truth" would not apply to religion, and that we should believe out of some perceived loyalty rather than empirical evidence - but this is very touchy to him and I have not been able to develop the topic in conversation without him getting angry. (This, I should note, is uncharacteristic for him in any other topic. He is mostly a rational engineer).
Rejecting a religion is not the same thing as atheism. Though and from high school to college, I did not think in terms of what I am, so much as in terms of what I am not. I dabbled with the label of "agnostic". I thought Buddhism had some cool outlooks from time to time.
Coming to Mount Shasta has firmly put me in the camp of a skeptical, agnostic, atheist though. The breadth of beliefs here, people thinking the mountain is hollow, or the earth as a whole is hollow, and hosts a population of 5th dimensional humans, or aliens, including Jesus, Buddha, and a whole host of people they call the "Ascended Masters" who live on a different vibrational level (whatever that means?) There are people making bank on wild imaginations. But then again, is what they believe terribly different from the idea that a sky man impregnated a woman without sex? Or that a snake could talk?
I have a hard time taking and religion seriously, because I understand how seriously people can take their imaginations. I think having a creative mind is great. I form stories in my mind more often than they get written down. I spend sleepless nights developing ancient societies and complex mythologies. And this is fun. At one point, I took these seriously. I looked at my hard work in field hockey and thought, Efifi is demonstrating herself through me, strong, stoic, capable. Or when I was feeling vunerable, it was Miranda coming though. I did transition this supernatural imagination to understanding I was expressing parts of myself that exist and personifying them, but this was a slow transition from 6th grade to 9th.
There is of course something to ritual, and community identification, which are two things organized religion provides. Becoming part of something greater than yourself is a great way to feel like you are cultivating yourself and moving towards a meaningful goal. That is what I have Kyudo for though. When I'm part of a D&D game, I feel the community part satisfied.
This is a ramble, and I am going to close now. I note, it is a ramble because half of it was written 3 months ago, in a different mindset, and now I just want to get it done enough to end it... so yeah. blah.
This is something that I have taken a long time to come to terms with. I was born and raised strongly Catholic. I was an alter server. Took CCD classes, got my first communion and was part of the CYO. My dad saw to it that we attended mass every Sunday. I used to leave my pretty ribbons from birthday presents at the foot of my bed, as a gift for the Virgin Mary. When I was older, I had conversations with the priest and visiting brothers about the "call to priesthood" and how they could possibly know if I didn't have just that call (for non-catholics, females cannot become priests), or how could they know that what I felt wasn't the exact same thing that they felt when they went to seminary, and not an alternate feeling that was a call to nun-hood.
In 7th grade I kinda realized I was just playing around (I did continue to play around until mid high school it should be noted, having sort of a doublethink for awhile). I have a long history of inventing characters, particularly fantasy characters, and keeping them mentally with me. What would Efifi (My most main of guardian angel like characters I developed for myself in the vacuum of social ostracism) think of me doing this action? Eventually, I acknowledged that these were aspects of myself, or of who I wanted to be, and thought of them less often. I was growing up. What other things was I just inventing to replace the lack of role models and friends I had? Christmas Mass that year, it just kinda hit me, and I started tearing up: there is no rational reason to believe any of this - and thanks to their misogynistic outlook, there was plenty of reasons not to support it institutionally.
My dad spent a year not talking to me when I refused to get confirmed and stopped going to church. This was in high school. We have since gotten over that, but it is actually still a sore point to my dad who sees the actions of his four daughters and his wife (in either not attending church or not believing in the system at all), as an act of disloyalty. Sometimes I try to delve deeper into this sentiment, and determine why his prime lesson to us - "Love the Truth" would not apply to religion, and that we should believe out of some perceived loyalty rather than empirical evidence - but this is very touchy to him and I have not been able to develop the topic in conversation without him getting angry. (This, I should note, is uncharacteristic for him in any other topic. He is mostly a rational engineer).
Rejecting a religion is not the same thing as atheism. Though and from high school to college, I did not think in terms of what I am, so much as in terms of what I am not. I dabbled with the label of "agnostic". I thought Buddhism had some cool outlooks from time to time.
Coming to Mount Shasta has firmly put me in the camp of a skeptical, agnostic, atheist though. The breadth of beliefs here, people thinking the mountain is hollow, or the earth as a whole is hollow, and hosts a population of 5th dimensional humans, or aliens, including Jesus, Buddha, and a whole host of people they call the "Ascended Masters" who live on a different vibrational level (whatever that means?) There are people making bank on wild imaginations. But then again, is what they believe terribly different from the idea that a sky man impregnated a woman without sex? Or that a snake could talk?
I have a hard time taking and religion seriously, because I understand how seriously people can take their imaginations. I think having a creative mind is great. I form stories in my mind more often than they get written down. I spend sleepless nights developing ancient societies and complex mythologies. And this is fun. At one point, I took these seriously. I looked at my hard work in field hockey and thought, Efifi is demonstrating herself through me, strong, stoic, capable. Or when I was feeling vunerable, it was Miranda coming though. I did transition this supernatural imagination to understanding I was expressing parts of myself that exist and personifying them, but this was a slow transition from 6th grade to 9th.
There is of course something to ritual, and community identification, which are two things organized religion provides. Becoming part of something greater than yourself is a great way to feel like you are cultivating yourself and moving towards a meaningful goal. That is what I have Kyudo for though. When I'm part of a D&D game, I feel the community part satisfied.
This is a ramble, and I am going to close now. I note, it is a ramble because half of it was written 3 months ago, in a different mindset, and now I just want to get it done enough to end it... so yeah. blah.
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