It's a strange kind of Church that preaches that when we die that's it, but there is a new breed of church springing up that isn't all about misbehave and there's a fallen angel waiting to poke you up the jacksy with a trident, this is the Atheist Church.
Atheism, i always thought, was considering the theists theory that God created us from a pile of dust and the rib of the first man and dismissing it as poppycock and then just ignoring it so to try and compete with it by copying it, albeit with an alternative message, doesn't make much sense to me.
Atheism shouldn't be trying to compete with religion, religion should just be ignored and not replaced by anything because there is no need.
The idea of a Church of Atheism is at best mocking religion and at worst an attempt to spread the word that there is no God in the same way that the Church try to spread the word that there is a God.
Both seem to want to drill into their congregations a message, there is even a Manifesto for Atheists, listing 10 virtues for the faithless.
There is the danger that Atheism of this kind could developing into a cult with its own code of ethics, values, rules and belief system that tells Atheists how they should act or what they should believe.
Atheism should be less about trying to take on and compete with religion and more about just ignoring it or rather that's my idea of it.
You can't say to someone don't believe what they are saying but listen to me instead and I'll tell you what to believe, that's just wrong and we moan like nobodies business that the religio's try to shove their religion down our throats but this particular idea is almost shoving atheism down people's throats.
Religion is doing a fine job of eating itself, with each generation the grip gets a little looser, but let's not set up something to replace it with.
We should just leave religion to go away and not put anything in its place, not even Atheism because we don’t need anything in that particular space.
4 comments:
It's not for me either.
My own atheism is all about absence. It's a void upon whom the burden of proof - in terms of proving any proposed 'presence' - is firmly on the proposer. And you definitely don't need any leader or organiser to be aware that the 'proposers' are yet to meet this burden. You just need yourself. No guru, no method, no teacher.
There is absolutely no evidence for God. And it's no big deal. It'll be a big deal if we ever confirm it, one way or the other. Now that might necessitate a trip to church, admittedly. Or the pub. But until we do, the idea of attending a church to voice, or to celebrate, this absence of belief/faith seems very strange to me.
But, I also firmly believe in: 'Do as you please so long as it harms nobody else'... so if there's a load of ostentatious atheists out there who feel the need to do this, then they should knock themselves out.
I absolutely agree, Lucy and Cheezy. No need to worship-- it just is. People are often surprised and a bit confused when they learn that the man and I are athiests, since we try hard to be charitable and kind in our dealings with fellow humans. I mean, how can it be if we aren't church goers?
Hi Annie! :)
Your comment reminded me of this great quote from Penn Jillette... which sums it up pretty well I think...
"The question I get asked by religious people all the time is, without God, what's to stop me from raping all I want? And my answer is: I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero. The fact that these people think that if they didn't have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine."
Aloha, Cheezy. : )
Penn Gillette is one of my favorite athiests. Thanks for that-so true.
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