ATHEISM, SELF-REALISATION RATHER THAN CONVERSION

 

Atheism comes from the Greek. In Greek a means without and theos means deity.  Most think it means you deny the proposition that "God exists." 

 

Some define atheism is the rejection of a God with specific characteristics – the power to make out of nothing, who knows all, who makes no mistakes, who tells no lies, who is the total opposite of evil and is wholly good.  Many then who think they believe in God are using the wrong word if their God is different from this. 

Is rejection of a revealing God a form of atheism? Or its basic form?  Even if God does not reveal himself to anybody as in voices or visions it could be that he uses our reason to reveal his love and existence to us.  So the notion that we find God through reason is okay as long as we think that God uses our reason so that we can find him.  Believers and unbelievers both have a problem with people saying that they find God through reason but who seem to think that they can do it independently of God.  It would be vile and arrogant to say your reason finds a God as if you are independent of him.  But if you consider reason to be a tool or the tool of revelation then the problem is that you never know if it really is God or yourself that is at work.  It is far more arrogant to hold that your own path to God that has nothing to do with his input may be God showing you his existence and love than to just simply imagine you find God without God.

 

So whether you think God inspires your reason or not the end result is not anything that a moral God would stomach.

 

If you say God matters more than life or creation and then argue that your reason is inspired to find him then why do you not trust this inspiration in other big matters?  You will not tell somebody to go behind the wheel of a car when they can barely stand with drink and drugs if they say they feel God needs them to do this thing for a major purpose.

Some think that atheism is nothing more or less than simply not believing in God and does not amount to believing there is no God.  But that refers to the proposition "God exists".  Something does not need to be a proposition to be an affirmation of something or a denial.  It is possible to swear you believe in God and think you do and be wrong.  You function as if you deny God and that functioning says more than any proposition would.  And a believer whose idea of God is full of contradictions and errors does not really know what she or he believers and does not realise she or he is atheist.  An atheist says God is nonsense for it's full of contradictions and errors and this believer is really an atheist for not realising she or he agrees that God is nonsense.
 
The world is full of Atheists. The only trouble is they don’t know it yet. That is why strictly speaking there are no converts to Atheism but only people who realise what they are and what they always were.
 
Atheism is described as a worldview. This is as silly as saying people who don't believe in unicorns have a world view. Some atheists barely agree that atheism is correct. Some think atheism is proven true. Some atheists think morality is just make believe and others think it is not. No two atheists think alike. Each one thinks for himself or herself. Each one has their own worldview. There is no such thing as an atheist worldview as such.

 

The trouble with being an atheist is that you have to make your own moral decisions without a God telling you what is moral and ordering you to obey.  You have to assume responsibility for what you say is moral or immoral and also for living out what you say.   It is so much easier to claim that some divine being directed me about the rules or is to blame for misleading me if obedience leads to disaster.  Or you can say the disaster is not as bad as it looks for God will take care of it.   Or I can say I am not to blame but faith is.  I can say faith is the most natural thing in the world so it is not my fault if it draws me to harm with the best of intentions.  People want God for they don't want to do the right thing and be properly and solely responsible.  If they say they want God for the right reasons can we really believe them? No.  We know human nature.
 
It is not true that atheism is largely or totally oppositional to belief in God. I am not against unicorns just because I don't believe in them. And if merely not believing in God makes you oppositional to theism and belief in God, then surely the believers are oppositional to atheism?
 
Atheism is described as a belief system. It is not. An atheist is not a member of a group. With Christianity, you have to believe that Jesus is the Son of God to become a Christian. And to be a Christian is to join a group. Some Christians will not join any formal Church. But they still see themselves as part of God's family. So they are group-orientated in their own way. Even the most individualistic Christian claims to be united to Jesus - making a group of two. And a true atheist is open to changing her mind about there being no god if the evidence is sufficient. There is no group and no rule about what to believe and therefore no system. An atheist is just what you call a person who believes there is no God.
 
People have beliefs and knowledge they try to bury in themselves. They act as if it is not there but it is. A person saying they believe something and acting as if they do does nothing at all to prove that they really believe it. We must not underestimate the awesome power of self-deception.

Nobody really believes in free will meaning the power to intend evil, defined by religion as selfishness, or good, defined by religion as unselfishness. People say and think and feel they do believe but they do not. They feel free during their dreams and when they get loads of alcohol and they are not free then. So we do know that feeling free does not prove we are free. To deny free will is to affirm that you do not believe in God.
 
I know I am most sure I exist therefore anything I do I should do it for me. I should give my money away to the poor because I feel like it. This is not altruism for I am doing it because I feel like it and not for them though they will benefit. To make a God of yourself is to deny the authority of God - it is practical atheism.
 
If I am honest, I do everything I do because I feel like it. If I help others it is because I wish to. It is about my wish and not them. Those who disagree are confusing the benefit for others with the wish to commit the act of benefiting others. The two are separate.
 
Let’s prove it.
 
If I value money my act is to value. The money is incidental. How do I know? Because if I value people my act is to value. In both I value, my action is to value. It is exactly the same act but it is only what is valued that is different. If I throw a snowball my act is to throw. The exact same act will throw a javelin. The act is the same – it is only what is thrown that is different. So it makes no sense to say that to value money is selfish and that it is unselfish to value people. The act is exactly the same, the valuing is exactly the same but it is only the focus of the valuing that is different. It would make as much sense to say that tasting wine was good but tasting milk was bad. Or that tasting wine was unselfish and tasting milk was selfish. Tasting is just tasting just as valuing is just valuing. If tasting something in particular has good results or if valuing something in particular has good results, if they help people better than not doing them would, that is a by-product of the tasting or valuing. People will value what they want or are pre-determined by their psyche to value. It is the valuing that is important – not what is valued. Therefore if I am selfish for valuing money I am just as selfish for valuing people.
 
There is no sacrifice for what I do I want to do under the circumstances. My will is just about me meaning that if I do wrong it is a mistake and not a sin or crime. The will is about gratifying desire not about evil and good which are the consequences of the intent but not the intent itself. Life is easier when we remember that what we do, we do for ourselves even if we are not keen on it and it gives us a sense of comfort. The doctrine of free will takes that away from us. People never do wrong because they deny their responsibility – they do it because they fail to see how useless and unattractive wrong is. The doctrine of free will suggests otherwise which is why the doctrine is a slander against us that we will not stand for.
 
I cannot believe I have free will. I only assume it. I could be programmed by nature to feel free for I wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t feel free. But feelings prove nothing. I cannot see the inner forces in my mind that cause me to act or “decide”.

Because free will is rejected nobody believes in God but they just pretend to themselves that they do by forgetting the facts. God cannot exist if there is no free will in us for that renders suffering meaningless and useless. We should be programmed to do good and live in a perfect world. People don’t really want to believe in God for it means there is this being condemning nearly everything they do for anything imperfect is wrong. Even not sitting upright in your chair is a sin for you are not sitting properly. Not noticing means you are sinfully distracted from God for he is goodness itself. Nobody wants to say that the evil that happens is good in the sense that a good God lets it happen for it is better to see evil as totally useless and hateful for the people we see come before any religious concept such as God therefore belief in God and love for him is against nature and we don’t really want to believe and love him but are deluded by religion and society to think that we do want to. We also know that the harm done by God and religion cannot be made to look better by saying that believers mean well for a man who murders to get money to save his child’s life means well and still we condemn his act.

We all know though many of us act as if we don’t, that you cannot really love the sinner and hate the sin. Who would believe if you if said you wished evil on the sin but not the sinner or you judged the sin not the sinner? The sin is something a person did and to hate what a person did is to hate a person being a person for acting consciously is what makes a person a person. Sins are acts that only persons can commit. You can only have personal feelings in relation to sin – when you condemn sin its personal. Sin reveals the sinner so a separate treatment for sin and another for the sinner is just ridiculous and impossible and deceptive. The fact that we hate those who are evil proves that we do not separate the sin from the sinner for we cannot do it for it makes no sense. Atheists can separate the evil from the person doing it for we don’t believe in free will. If it is right to separate the evil from the person then we may as well deny free will. This means we are Atheists at heart.

Nobody really believes that certain things are wrong no matter what the circumstances for if doing the best is ever wrong it is always wrong.

Everybody knows that the truths about life and decent living should be simple ones both in content and in their verification and that the complexities of religion are disgraceful.

We all know that any evil we do or irrational and hasty thinking we do is motivated by fear. Even if slack thinking is down to laziness, fear is the cause. Laziness is only given in to because one desires to enjoy over-relaxation.
 
Love is happiness and it is contagious. This is the principle which sums up Atheism. It is because we see that loving God or religion is rooted in fear that we reject them. We are all Atheists at heart.

Atheists reject tolerance for tolerance means putting up with something bad so it is quite insulting and grudging. But if people believe what they are doing is good we should encourage them to do it even if it is contrary to our principles. But nevertheless we have to try and win others to our way of thinking because it is the only way to certainty and joy. Can we encourage a person to commit murder? If they believe murder is right and by encouraging them to do what they think is right but to think more and everybody should think more we are not encouraging murder for we are concerned only with them doing what they believe in. If you encourage a Muslim to go to the Mosque though you do not approve of Islam you are not being a hypocrite or intending to further Islam but you are furthering a different and separate thing, the autonomy of the person. People do often make logical mistakes.

 

Atheism is not just about a debate but about the rights of atheists. 

If God can do all things and knows all things past, present and future and lets suffering happen then he is either uncaring or malevolent.  Remember that if this logic is wrong then atheists are being judgmental towards God.  Being judgemental towards a perfectly good being is the limit in cynicism and nastiness.  They also raise an insulting question against believers: "They are worshipping a force for evil are they? They must be surely?"  Atheists are therefore very bad and are refusing to see his holy and good plan at work.  They would judge believers as unable to diagnose evil correctly and thus of ruining the medicine for it.  Belief in God and love for God then simply has to lead to the atheist being feared and hated.  If we criticise faith for such reasons we will be accepted better and listened to.  Believers will see what they are doing.

No Copyright