In defense of Atheism
I have been on a mild anti-religion kick for the last few years. It’s not that I believe that all Christians are wrong, and that science is right. As an Atheist, I do not define myself by disbelief in the Christo-mythology, rather, I simply see no reason to believe it over any other religion. My argument comes from an absolute lack of faith in a higher power, not just the most well recognized one. After all, Christianity has been around for thousands of years (long time, right?) but that is just a drop in the bucket compared to some of the Eastern religions. And I don’t believe in them, either.
I find it hard to believe that a religion that has borrowed so much from previous religions can truly be anywhere near accurate, or fulfilling. Does anyone else find it odd that Easter, the “resurrection” of Jesus, happens to fall in Spring, a time of rebirth for much longer than Christianity was ever heard of, and just might have coincided with the Spring Solstice?
In fact, there is historical evidence on many levels, showing that Christians, when subjugating (yes, I said subjugating, they weren’t always nice people) adopted the belief systems of the cultures they conquered, then folded it into their own dogma to make it easier for the conquered peoples to accept. Christmas (a namesake holiday, at that) was originally known as Saturnalia, and was a celebration of the winter solstice, and celebrated the God Saturn. By “Pagans”, nonetheless. When the Christians came through the Roman Empire, they moved the date of their messiah’s birth to coincide with popular Roman beliefs. One can almost imagine the Romans saying “See? Look, their gods are the same as ours, their dates match up!” Additionally, this moved conception to March, and lined it up to almost exactly the same date as his crucifixion, living up to a belief in Judaism that a prophet has a fixed number of years to live.
By no stretch of the imagination does this mean that I do not celebrate Christmas. I do. I celebrate it with my family, some religious, some not. We don’t pray around the table, we don’t celebrate the virgin birth, and we don’t go to church for Mass, either. However, we still celebrate the spirit of goodwill, the giving of gifts, and Christmas dinner. To not celebrate Christmas, growing up, is to be ostracized from the other children in your school, and my parents didn’t want that for me, and when I have children, I will not want that for them. I suppose that is a form of “getting along for the sake of conformity”, but it is one that I am willing to accept.
A major problem I have with Christianity itself is the Bible, and the contradiction that it implies, just by its very existence. Let me clarify. The bible is “God’s word”, as told through the Apostles and various other accounts. If we accept this collection of stories (because that is what it is, a collection of stories, as told by “witnesses”), then we only accept the New Testament. Where did the Old Testament come from then? Obviously, it was “true” before there was even writing. So who wrote it? God would not have needed to write a thing. He was there for all of his creations and communicated with him directly.
If we look at the Old Testament, we see a vengeful God, who not only destroys his own creations, but proves himself fallible. If God was all knowing, all seeing, and all capable, then he could have corrected the problems well before it ever came to floods and pestilence. He could have literally blinked them out of existence.
Additionally, where does “The Devil” fall in all of this? If God blessed his creations with free will, and it separated them from the “Angels”, then how did Lucifer ever have the ability to rebel? And how did one third of the host of Angels have the ability to follow him? In the opening chapters of the Bible, Satan is already evil and tempting Eve. There is more before the Garden of Eden, including the Rebellion, Satan’s creation, and a woman that Judaism refers to as Lilith. There are gross omissions in our common version of the Bible.
Why publish a book when people of the time were illiterate? The bible as a book did not garner wide distribution until the invention of the printing press, and most people had to hear their religion from the mouths of priests, at services and mass. The Gutenberg Bible was one of the most controversial books of its time, because it put religion in the hands of the people (who, incidentally, could not read it anyway), and started a movement for literacy.
I, however, do not believe in Christianity as any form of truth any more than I believe that the Earth is a disc supported on the backs of four elephants and a giant sea turtle. There are simply too many holes and contradictions
Christians, however, point to their faith and say that some things are not ours to question, and that God has a plan, and we should trust in God…This, to me, simply says that they don’t have the answers, either, as to where we came from, and that looking too deeply into their own belief structure makes them uncomfortable. I am not saying that I have the answers, nor that Science does. I am simply saying that religion requires a belief system that is inherently full of holes, and not something that stands up to scrutiny.
I am not out to prove that Christianity is a sham or hoax, I simply believe that one should look at the histories of the other religions that pre-date it and compare and contrast. After all, if you never look at anything else, all you are doing is following. Following never got anyone anywhere first. There is no discovery in religion.
Political and personal musings 