"There Are No Atheists!"

Some agnostics say, "There are no atheists; only agnostics."
Some Christians say, "There are no atheists; only believers who are in denial."

And yet, I am an atheist.
I do not believe that any gods exist.
That makes me an atheist.

Supernatural is a word for something beyond the natural physical laws of the universe.
Gods are supernatural. I don't believe in the supernatural. All things are confined to the laws of nature, even if we don't understand some laws, yet.
That I can't disprove the existence of gods does not make me an agnostic, any more than it makes me a Christian.

I don't have to disprove any assertions made without evidence, no matter how many people believe them.
They're just beliefs.
The burden of proof is on the assertion, not the denial.

If someone drops a ball, it proves gravity exists.
That's evidence.
If someone drop an imaginary ball and claims it doesn't fall, do I have to prove the ball doesn't exist?
No, because there is no evidence for the ball's existence, except for the assertion.
I don't believe in that invisible ball.

If someone claims a god is real, do I have to prove the god doesn't exist?
No, because there is no evidence for the god's existence, except for the assertion.
I don't believe in gods.

Disproving gods is not required for atheism.
The only requirement for atheism is disbelief in gods.

Claims that there are no atheists seems more like people trying to make others' beliefs or non beliefs fit into their own view of the universe.
I've seen that a lot with religious people. I expect it.
I'm always surprised to see it in agnostics.
"You can't be 100% sure, so you can't be an atheist. You're an agnostic."
Agnostics are not 100% sure there are no gods.
I am.

I am an atheist.

We Who Wonder

"How do you know there's no God?"

Because I'm alive. Because I'm a descendant of African tribesmen. Because I'm a descendant of creatures that go all the way back to the beginnings of life on Earth. Because I live in a time of the emancipation of the human race from its primitive and superstitious origins.

We're a young species, barely out of the trees and walking upright. From the first ancestor to crush a bone with a rock for the marrow, to exploration outside the atmosphere in a completely hostile environment has been the blink of an eye.
What will we have accomplished in another 100,000 years? How many planets will we inhabit? How long will an individual life last?

I ask these questions to show you how unimportant I think your religion is, to show you that as an atheist, I don't consider religion important enough to imagine having a part in the future of humanity.
Any religion.

We humans are the creators of our own future. We always have been. We have done remarkable things with primitive tools and now we are beginning to do astounding things with better tools.
And as we move forward and learn ever more about the immensity of the universe and seek answers to its origin and mechanics at the quantum level, religion is becoming irrelevant.
Who needs gods when our own accomplishments have long since surpassed anything dreamed of by the writers of holy books? Today's children are better educated than any god we've ever invented, and infinitely more moral.

Who needs imaginary magical beings invented to explain the stars, when we know that we are made of the stuff of stars? That we are the universal lights? That each one of us is a unique view into the cosmic mirror?
The only magic is wonder as we sense our tiny and vastly important place in the scope of all things.

That's how I know there's no god; we live.
What a wonder we are, we who wonder!

Done Turning Away

How many times must an atheist turn away from someone talking about god until he's done turning away and gives his own opinion?
Once?
Five times?
A hundred?
I honestly don't know exactly how many times I've turned away because it's in the thousands.
But not always. Sometimes I speak my mind.
And every time... that's every time... I give my opinion, no matter how politely, I'm labelled as an attacker of Christianity, or a god hater, or a Satanist, or some other lesser or greater label.

I know some atheists that are hurt by these accusations. They're good people and they don't want people to think of them as haters, because they truly don't hate.
I, on the other hand, understand why such labels are put on atheists.

A very hypocritical censorship.

Few Christians really believe we're attacking their religion when we say, "I'm an atheist," or "There is no god."
What they're doing is what they've been programmed to do, what Christians have been doing since Roman times.
They are claiming persecution as a means of persecuting.
They are claiming censorship as a means of censoring.
They are claiming to be hated as they hate.

It's been 2000 years, Christians! Nobody is out to get you! You have one of the biggest followings on Earth! You have palaces of gold while millions starve! You have been living the dream for millennia but you just keep on claiming to be the underdog!
It's time to stop with the incessant victimization claims and sanctimonious finger pointing!

Because we're done turning away!

Morality is Survival

Morality
"Without the word of God, there would be no morality."
Wrong! False! Incorrect!
You couldn't be more wrong!
Morality doesn't come from a book, from a god, or from a religion.
People have morals.

Without humanity, there would be no morality.
Without religion, there would still be morality, as there was before your religion.

Morality is a prehistoric, tribal, survival trait. What was good for the tribe was moral.
Children were the future of the tribe and when they needed protection from the elements and predators, instead of taking their furs to keep yourself warm, you brought them to your furs to keep them warm and the tribe grew stronger.
You taught the children to hunt, to fish, to make clothes, to knap flint bifacially, which berries could be eaten... you cared for each other because it was the right thing to do!
You do not do these things without morality!
Morality grew in us for the survival and betterment of the tribe. It's as much a part of us as parental love.

Recent fossil finds have proven that we were making tools before we were even humans; how could something as important to us as morality not have been with us then as well?
Humans have the innate morality, not any belief or non belief, not any business that calls itself religion, not any fictional deity.

Humans.

And it's long past the time we realised just how special we are as a species that we developed morality, love, kindness, and empathy for others.
Honestly, I think that if we hadn't developed such things, we wouldn't be here.

And it's also long past the time we came to the realisation that we, all of us in all parts of the world, are descendents of the small tribe of humans that fled an African drought some 80,000 years ago..
We're all related.
We're family.
We are all part of that ancient human tribe who passed on to us the most important survival tool we have.

Morality.

No offense but...

"Well, thank God for that!"
...
"There's no god."
"What? I'm offended!"
"Really? Why are you telling me?"
"So you'll stop saying that!"
"No. Do you think you have the right to censor me so your feelings won't be hurt?"
"Yes! You're offending me!"
"I see... do I have the right to censor you if I find what you say offensive?"
"Um... yes, if it's offensive."
"Good! I find your censorship offensive."
"That's not the same thing!"
"You're right... trying to censor free speech is much worse."
"No! Freedom of religion comes before free speech!"
"There is no freedom of religion without free speech, you idiot!"

Yes, I can write any conversation to show anything in any light I choose and it's not fair because I'm writing both sides and I know how it will end.
But you can also claim offense by anything you don't like and tell me I can't say it. Ever! And then call it fair. This works for any social tweaking you choose if... you ignore the whole free speech thing.
Being offended has become, (to my mind ridiculously), a way to censor people who don't agree with you... about anything.

But this is An Atheist Thing, so...
In the past, the Christian religion stated, "If you blaspheme, (or don't profess belief), we will torture you, maim you, burn you, and crucify you," and then made good on that promise.
This is what I'm not supposed to offend? An organisation of terrorists who repeatedly crushed whole cultures, who deliberately and systematically to this day allow the rape of children and hide the pedophile priests in their untouchable city?

Who could thinks well of themself and be shamed to silence by this religion of ultimate hypocrisy when it claims it is offended?
The shame would be in silence.

I will have my opinion and speak it loudly and often.
I will not be silenced by this ruse, this call for morality from an immoral religion.
I will cede them no power in schools or government.
They've had their day of power. It's called the Dark Ages.
I prefer the light.

Just a Bigger Cult

At its core, Christianity is about power. It was started as a tool to gather power and money and it is still used to gather, hold, and wield that power.
The council of Nicea altered the Christian religion and its bible to separate it from the Jewish faith and to raise Jesus from a prophet to a god, for the sole purpose of gathering power.
Power corrupts in many ways but mostly in attracting those who are already corrupt.
Religion is a tool to corrupt people from childhood and tell them they are among the chosen people, that all their sins, no matter how heinous, will be forgiven if they repent, that they can do no wrong in the lord's name.
That is a system maliciously designed to corrupt.

It's intention is to corrupt.

The sickening part, the sheer evil of this system, is that this corrupt system claims that followers of Christianity are the only good people of the planet, that they are chosen to do God's work, that only they will go to heaven and avoid everlasting torture in fire.
And all the while the powerful Christians at the top are buying political power, lobbying for a theocratic state and creationism in schools, manufacturing weapons, and living in ridiculously lavish wealth.
Does religion do any good? Yes, at the grass roots level, there are truly good people who help the lost, volunteer their time, literally giving portions of their lives to help others. I applaud them. But I do not credit their religion for their kindness. I believe they would give of themselves just as readily if they were not religious.
As some people are easily corruptible, others are empathic and tribal in nature.
There has never been anything accomplished by religion that could not have been accomplished without it.

Religion flaunts its power openly, confident that it's followers will be so enamoured of their own salvation that they will not see the abuses of their religion. They willingly turn their eyes and ears from such corruption in cowardly fear of the possibility of hell, much in the same way they turn from evidence that denies their religion. It is as if a self delusional fog surrounds them when they hear of pedophile priests, of the rape and torture of non Christians orchestrated by Christian priests in the poorer parts of the world.

People think the inquisition has ended? No. Look at Africa, where people are still burned alive for not being Christian.

I know we're a young species. I know we're about a chromosome away from chimpanzees, but with all our knowledge and abilities, all our technology, our promise of greatness, of going to the stars... when will we stop being such primitive, superstitious creatures that allow corrupt faith healers and mouthpieces of an invented magic being to control us?
When will we grow up?

When we stop being afraid of being natural, mortal humans.
The cure for fear is knowledge, not faith.

Pascal's Wager

Pascal's Wager
"Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists."
Blaise Pascal

The harm that comes to you is the harm of living a cowardly life by the rules not of a god, but by the rules of bronze age men who, rather than earn a respectable living, plagiarized widely from previous religions and wrote a book intended to control populations through fear of death.
These are not men whose book I would read when in need of moral advice.

My personal morality is based on what I believe is right and wrong and on what will make me feel good about myself.
Morality is a prehistoric, tribal, survival trait. What is moral is what is good for the tribe.
These is the moralities by which I live my life. My personal morality and the morality of the human tribe.
There's no book that can tell me what my heart can tell me, nor any cleansing ritual that can erase the past. I cannot forgive myself with magic words.
Self forgiveness lies within a true and honest effort to become better than your previous moral lapses, so you will no longer feel bad about yourself.
The truly righteous person will understand that the love of self is a necessary and prior condition to the love of all else.
And to accept a cowardly wager like Pascal's is no path to the love of self.
As the love of self is based on truth and striving to improve yourself beyond immorality, I don't see how Pascal's Wager can be anything but self delusion; a pathway to a religion which doles out forgiveness for immorality without the need to improve moral character.
Pascal's Wager is a hedged bet and a hedged bet removes or reduces risk of losing.
It is removing or reducing the joy of life to coerce a god to give you a good afterlife.

I give you Varga's Wager:
Try to be a moral person in the human tribe.
If there is no god, you will have lived a good and worthy life.
If there is a god, it will embrace you for having lived a moral life.

But it all starts with loving yourself first.

Love you.