Regarding Atheists & Atheism: Some Random Thoughts

*Atheism is not just another faith, a faith that theists are of necessity set up to engage in actual physical conflict with because their god is slightly different from another theist's god. You can't fight against someone else's god when they don't have one!

*The advantage in being an atheist is that you don't need a huge rulebook and rituals and the need to bow and scrape and adopt a carrot and stick approach to your life. Atheists don't have a holier-than-thou approach to life.

*I don't go to church because I don't like to be lied to.

*So why is it okay not to collect stamps or dolls or whatever but not okay not to have any religious faith or belief? So why is it okay not to believe in ghosts, astrology, leprechauns, certain political systems, but not to believe in a deity? And what's it to true believers if someone else is an atheist. Their beliefs have no bearing on yours, or your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

*Atheists can always rely on one religion doing the dirty on another religion and thus saving them the trouble.

*Real atheists have to know the Bible way better than the Christians!

*Double Standards:

If you don't believe in the existence of...

Achilles, Aphrodite, Apollo, Asgard, Astrology, Bigfoot (Sasquatch), Calvin & Hobbs, Centaurs, Cerberus, Chimera, Cinderella, Dick Tracy, Doctor Watson, Doctor Who, Dragons, the Easter Bunny, El Dorado, Elves, Fairies (at the bottom of the garden), Felix the Cat, Godzilla, Hades, Hansel & Gretel, Hel, Helen (of Troy), Hercules, Horus, King Kong, Leprechauns, the Loch Ness Monster, Loki, Mickey Mouse, the Minotaur, Moriarty, Mothman, Paladin, Paul Bunyan, Pegasus, Pinocchio, Professor Challenger, the Rainbow Serpent, Santa Claus, Shangri-La, Siegfried, Sleeping Beauty, Snoopy, Snow White, Spiderman, Superman, Thor, the Tooth Fairy, Turandot, Unicorns, Valhalla, Wizards, and Wonder Woman ...

Then nothing is said of thought ill of you. However, deny the existence of God and of a divine Jesus to a Christian (or Allah and Mohamad to a Muslim or of XYZ to a True Believer in XYZ) and all of a sudden you become at best Public Enemy Number One and at worst a social outcast, a pariah and even someone in some circles worthy of execution - the longer and more painful the better. Why the double standard?

The basic reason is that people do not take kindly to having their belief systems challenged, and unlike the numerous rejected belief examples given above, God and Jesus (or Allah and Mohamad) are really central to the belief systems of multi-hundreds-of-millions. But rather than admit that an atheist has both shaken and stirred their deeply held belief systems they resort rather to name calling and tend to attack the messenger and not address the atheist's message. Such attacks on the messenger are akin to equating atheists to being like a hater of God (which is absolute nonsense as you can't hate something that you don't believe exists); a Satan worshipper (also nonsense for exactly the same reason); arrogant; super-sinner; evil; spawn-of-the-devil; an amoral SOB, son-of-Satan; a blasphemer; and of course - shock, horror - the worst of the worse name possible, "an atheist"! Of course things can and have been ramped up from there to being bullied, discriminated against, tarred-and-feathered, exiled, ostracized, and even burned-at-the-stake (among other methods of execution).

*You'll hear time and time again - it's almost a mantra - from theists that atheists "hate God", which is absolute nonsense since you cannot hate something that you believe has no actual existence!

*Atheists are more moral than True Believers since atheists are moral because morality is good in and of itself; True Believers are moral only because they fear punishment from their invisible 'friend' in the sky.

*Atheism gives you the freedom to think your own thoughts; to think for yourself and rationally consider and reject that which the True Believers try to ram down your throat.

*There is no special word to describe someone who doesn't believe in Santa Claus, or the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny, so why is there a special word for those who don't believe in any deity or deities?

*Know-It-All True Christian Believer to Atheist: "What are you going to say to God that will allow you, the non-believer, into his heaven?"
Atheist to Know-It-All True Christian Believer: "And what are you going to say to Allah that will allow him to let you, the infidel, into his heaven?"

*Atheistic rants and raves are two-fold. The first centers on their acceptance that there is no hardcore evidence for deities or a deity and the entire concept of the supernatural. That instead the concept of a natural world and hence of a 'Mother Nature' if one has to personify things (or a computer programmer) adequately explains all. Further that morality comes from within; from the bottom-up and not something imposed from the top-down.

*The second rant and rave is that therefore atheists get rather angry and really quite pissed off to the historical and ever ongoing atrocities committed in the name of a religious deity or deities, including, but hardly limited to, atrocities committed against atheists.

*Just because an atheist doesn't believe in the existence of God is no sweat off of your back and in no way has any relevance to what you believe, so just get off their backs and deal with reality.

*According to PZ Myers, the "New Atheist" is exactly the same as the old tried and true atheist, only the "New Atheist" is now someone that the Catholic Church can no longer set on fire.

*No atheist argument has ever been proven wrong by any theist argument.

*Atheists delight in asking questions and challenging the status quo. Religious folk totally accept their belief systems status quo and don't tend to ask questions that might challenge their belief systems. Their answer to life, the Universe and everything is - God!

*What probably upsets atheists more than anything else is not that some deluded people believe without evidence that they have an invisible 'friend' up in the sky, but that these people act on behalf of their 'friend' and in the so doing commit all manner of atrocities. For example people who perform and defend genital mutilation defend the religion and not the child.

*Atheists have been accused of being Satanists. I mean it makes perfect sense that just because atheists don't believe in God doesn't mean they don't worship the Devil. As Jaclyn Glenn would say (and has said), "Christian logic"!

*Atheism is a 'science' in that it can be falsified. However, no theists have ever been able to falsify atheism. Theism on the other hand cannot be falsified and so the two contrasting theological philosophies are not playing on a level playing field.

*One advantage of being an atheist - you get to sleep in on Sunday mornings!