I’ve got to thank a friend of mine for giving me two blog post ideas in a row. First was the previous post about Christians praying for non-believers, and now this one. In response to my last post, she posted to Facebook with this:
Like I said before, for a guy who does not believe in God you spend alot of time thinking and talking about Him. I’ll be praying for you Kenneth.
Yes I do spend a lot of time talking about God and Christianity for one simple reason: plenty of people hold a belief in God and subscribe to Christianity. And talk of God is everywhere, especially from Christians: "In God We Trust", "one nation under God", "God hates fags", "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth".
And let’s not forget about Jesus Christ. Oy vey.
It’s not like I can just ignore it, especially since if I say to someone that I don’t subscribe to Christianity, the "I’ll pray for you" reaction is the milder of the reactions I typically receive. So as long as Christian’s won’t shut up in trying to promote God, I’m not going to shut up in trying to counter the unfounded beliefs behind Christianity, Islam, or what have you. Plus there’s the fact that Christian beliefs that get in the way of personal liberty have become the basis for laws in this country, up to and including talks and proposals of amendments to the Constitution of the United States!
And yet there are people who say that without God we have no liberty. Bullshit!
Contrary to a rising belief among Christians, atheists don’t talk about God because we actually believe in him and are just trying to "rebel". That may be true among some people who call themselves atheist or agnostic, but the vast majority of us don’t believe in God or subscribe to Christianity or any other religion because we’ve either never followed it (like me) or see it (and can show it) to be entirely bullshit.
I talk about a lot of things I don’t believe in, simply because they are beliefs people hold and defend with all their energy and might. Read through this blog about the many things people support or believe that I discuss and attempt to counter: socialism, the pledge of allegiance, creationism and intelligent design (not so much), hetero-exclusive marriage, statism, and so on.
If people didn’t espouse a belief in God, or any of those other topics, would there be a need for me to discuss it or counter it? Of course not. It’s a waste of my energy trying to counter a belief or point of view held by a relative few number of people or no one, with one exception: beliefs that pose a risk to human life, such as eschewing modern medicine in favor of faith healing or some other unsupported, unsubstantiated mess that only results in a far more painful death.
I’ve also written about holidays and I’ve considered writing blog posts about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and why you’re doing a major disservice to your children fostering those kinds of beliefs in them.
Here’s the bottom line on religion…
Christians, you can dial the phone all you want, but that voice you think you’re hearing on the other side ain’t God. It’s just your own mind conjuring what you think is God. That’s right, your mind is playing tricks on you. So hey if you want to pray to what is essentially your imagination that I will know my imagination and whatever love it might have, then let me save you the energy: I already know my own imagination, so I don’t need to do anything more to accept it.
However praying to an invisible being that you cannot prove exists that I will eventually know him and his love is about the same thing as my mother saying the same about my father: "your father loves you, and I hope you’ll come to know him and his love". The difference, however, is that I can talk to my father, directly, and he will respond, directly with audible words, and we have a good relationship.
Plus I can prove he exists as he is a physical person who is alive and DNA testing can establish beyond reasonable doubt that he is, indeed, my father. Plus anyone who has met me and my father can tell without any cue that he is my father — with the exception of one waitress in Rock Port, Missouri, who thought we were brothers…
So as long as I still have the capacity to do so, and as long as people still follow Christianity, which is likely for much of the foreseeable future, I will continue to talk about God and Christianity. If you don’t like that, tough luck.
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Resources
Why do atheists talk about God? — Ask the atheists
Why Atheists think about God — Atheist Revolution
Atheists – Always talking about God – Radical Atheist
Why are atheists concerned about other people’s belief in God? — Kylyssa Shay, Yahoo Contributor Network
"If atheists don’t believe in God, then why do they talk about him so much?" — Way of the Mind
Does God Exist? The Nightline Face-off (with links to videos) — Martin Bashir, ABC News
Let’s Talk about God — Lisa Miller, SamHarris.org
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Videos
Why atheists care about YOUR religion — GoGreen18 (YouTube)
Why do atheists care about religion? — ImRational (YouTube)
…and there’s plenty more out there, so google around.
