Archive for the ‘Atheism’ Category
It is very often that people must be reminded of what exactly were the intentions and the goals of the founding fathers of America and the constitution that they wrote. People often say, “Well, America is a Christian Nation,” such piece of sheer ignorance does not even deserve a response. But considering this is a blog, and the entire point is to respond, it will get a short one. And so will this new piece of filth proposed by Sam Brownback, Senate Resolution 483.
America is NOT a Christian nation, nor was it ever intended to be. There is not a single mention of “god” or “Christianity” or “Jesus” throughout the entire U.S. constitution. The only mentions of religion are meant to exclude religion from the public arena, as it states “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust” and “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Surely, there is no room for interpretation here. It clearly states what position religion holds in government (absolutely none whatsoever). It is quite possibly the greatest achievement of the Founding Fathers, as we have entirely avoided the sort of mayhem religion causes. One needs only to glance over the history of Europe or the current politics of the Middle East to understand why religion and god must be kept separate from government and politics. Hopefully we have this now established and can move onto this “Senate Resolution 483.”
Here is the: Full Text of Senate Resolution 483 as proposed by Sam Brownback and co-sponsored by Joe Lieberman.
What this resolution proposes is that, the first week of May 2008 be recognized as “Ten Commandments Weekend.” I must now propose that this resolution is unconstitutional at its very core. The Ten Commandments hold power only over the Abrahamic Religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). They simply do not apply to any other religions, so it is therefore established this resolution is indeed “respecting an establishment of religion.”
Further, in (Lemon v. Kurtzman, 1971), the Surpreme Court established a 3 part “test” that determines whether a law is in violation to the 1st Amendment’s religion clauses.
- A law must have a secular purpose.
- It must have a primary effect which neither advances nor inhibits religion.
- It must avoid excessive entanglement of church and state.
If you put Sen.Res 483 through this simple test of unconstitutionality, it fails on every single step. Firstly, it serves no secular purpose whatsoever. It’s primary effect is to advance the Abrahamic religions. And it does not avoid excessive entanglement between Church and State.
Senate Resolution 483 is therefore unconstitutional going on both the words of the Founding Fathers, and the Supreme Court in 1971 when they established their “Lemon Test.”
I must urge you to write to your Senators and Representatives in Congress and make sure this Resolution does NOT get through.
Tags: Atheism, constitution, law, senate
If you missed the previous parts - Click here for Part 1 and Click here for Part 2
I often attempt and try to pinpoint the exact moment in which I left the religion of my parents, Islam. What I have realized is that, it was not just a single moment of “revelation” that no god exists, but rather a series of events which led to my ultimate decision to make leave faith. Honestly, I don’t think it is advisable to dramatically change your beliefs based on simply one event, especially on a question of life itself. A rational approach would largely consist of at the very least a couple weeks of contemplation and research.
To trace back my history with religion, and religious experience, it dates to around October of 2006. That was the month where I finally made the decision (I was 16 years old at the time) to devoutly follow Islam. I prayed five times a day, fasted during the “holy” month of Ramadan and followed just about every possible rule there is to Islam, (everything short of simply leaving society itself). I truly felt that, belief without evidence was virtuous, and belief when there is no evidence would be even more so virtuous. I even thought up what is known as “Pascals Wager” completely on my own, without consciously ever remembering it spoken previously. I defended my faith to anyone who tried a debate, and even started to grow out a beard. I felt a sort of complete dislike toward every other religion, and especially the non-religious, not to the point of violence, since I have never been a violent person, but simply a feeling of disgust to any non-Muslim. I must remind my readers, that this was not due to any sort of religious indoctrination from my parents. My father is a rather liberal Muslim and mother is religious, but truly did not impose it on any of her children. Previously to October 2006, I grew up a “cultural” Muslim more so than a religious one, and this is why it is important to note. I was completely sure of my faith, and simply did not listen to any argument against it, usually dismissing it as “ignorant.”
Fast forward a few months of sheer ignorance (or in other words, faith) on my part. I came across this one quotation that stuck with me to this day, and I will often quote it, or at least paraphrase it to any religious person. If everyone truly followed this model of rational inquiry, given what we know about life and the cosmos due to science, I don’t think anyone could truly be religious, and if they were, it would have to be some sort of Deist similar to Einstein.
“The pursuit of truth can only begin once you start to question and analyze every belief that you ever held dear. If a certain belief passes the tests of evidence, deduction, and logic, it should be kept and defended. ….If it doesn’t, the belief should not only be discarded, but you must also then question why you were led to believe the erroneous information in the first place.” - Socrates
As I said previously, this quote stuck with me, it forced me to reconsider my faith. It would seem like a simple enough method, but ask yourself every time you profess some belief, why do you believe what you believe, how do you know its true…those two questions are essential and will at the very least lead to one abandoning all the absurd ideas (religion and god included).
Now, once I reached this point, I became a sort of “agnostic” or fence sitter, I knew at this point, it is absurd to believe in a personal god, but what about a divine watchmaker? Coming from this background of religion, it seemed impossible that either, the universe was not designed, and secondly that life was not designed, though I knew of the theory of evolution and believed in it, I did not know that it easily answers the complexity and beauty of life and the universe. Day by day, I became opposed to Islam and modern religions in general (this was largely due to reading first the history of these religions, and then the present of them.) It is important to note that I still was not an atheist at this point, I believed in a sort of Deistic god as described by Spinoza. So you may ask, how and when did I become a full-fledged and proud atheist?
Dawkins in Lynchburg VA - Book Reading of The God Delusion
After watching that lecture, I immediately bought The God Delusion online and read the entire book within 2 nights of reading the first words. It accomplished fully and completely one of the goals Dawkins set out to do, push the fence sitters over to one side. His masterful defense of evolution, and his argument that effectively demonstrated that atheism is the only intellectual satisfying position that can be held. I thank Mr. Dawkins, for both his science work, and his work on god, his work has given me freedom from religion and god, and for that, there are no words that can describe my feeling of admiration and thanks.
Due to Dawkins, and his references to other writers, I have read the works of Bertrand Russell, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennet, Stephen Hawkings and quite a few others. Every single one of those authors is someone I deeply admire for their works either on science or religion, or both. They have made me into a rational, reasonable, and more importantly, an overall happy individual. To articulate what disbelief in god does for me, I turn to a lesser known writer and poet, Robert Ingersoll.
Excerpt from, “Why I Am Agnostic” by Robert Ingersoll
When I became convinced that the Universe is natural –that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world — not even in infinite space. I was free — free to think, to express my thoughts — free to live to my own ideal — free to live for myself and those I loved — free to use all my faculties, all my senses — free to spread imagination’s wings — free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope — free to judge and determine for myself — free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past — free from popes and priests — free from all the “called” and “set apart” — free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies — free from the fear of eternal pain — free from the winged monsters of the night — free from devils, ghosts and gods. For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought — no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings — no chains for my limbs — no lashes for my back — no fires for my flesh — no master’s frown or threat — no following another’s steps — no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.
And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain — for the freedom of labor and thought — to those who fell on the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains — to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs — to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn — to those by fire consumed — to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.
Let us be true to ourselves — true to the facts we know, and let us, above all things, preserve the veracity of our souls.
If there be gods we cannot help them, but we can assist our fellow-men. We cannot love the inconceivable, but we can love wife and child and friend.
We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know. We can tell the truth, and we can enjoy the blessed freedom that the brave have won. We can destroy the monsters of superstition, the hissing snakes of ignorance and fear. We can drive from our minds the frightful things that tear and wound with beak and fang. We can civilize our fellow-men. We can fill our lives with generous deeds, with loving words, with art and song, and all the ecstasies of love. We can flood our years with sunshine — with the divine climate of kindness, and we can drain to the last drop the golden cup of joy.
Tags: Atheism, islam, Religion, spirit
The minute I found out on RichardDawkins.net, that Professor Dawkins was on a tour through the US, and more importantly stopping in NYC for a small book signing at Barnes and Nobles, I made plans to meet the “worlds most famous atheist.” Just in case you have no clue who Mr. Dawkins is, don’t worry, I’ll provide a short introduction for him.
Richard Dawkins is a world renowned evolutionary biologist from England. He has attended and taught at both, UC Berkeley, and Oxford University (where he currently holds the position of “The public Understanding of Science.” Dawkins has authored 9 books, the latest of which being, The God Delusion. Each book he has authored gives the reader a better understanding of evolution by means of natural selection, focusing on the gene centered prospective. He has sold millions of books worldwide and has been translated into 32 other languages. He cares passionately for the truth, and his entire life work can be considered a struggle for knowledge. Dawkins is truly an admirable, intelligent, witty and eloquent contemporary intellectual who should be recognized as the most important individual in evolution besides Charles Darwin himself.
I arrived at the Barnes and Nobles around an hour before the event had started, anticipating the large crowd that would show up to meet the Professor. I was certainly correct in arriving there early, as the place already was filling up, but luckily I found a good seat only a couple rows back of Dawkins. The evening started with a 30-35 minute introduction that I was familiar with, as it was quite similar to a few on YouTube. Following the introduction by Dawkins, they started a rather brief Q&A period. The Q&A period consisted largely of the usual questions, stuff about human consciousness, differing views with regards to evolution (form theory and gene theory), a couple about how to react to certain situations, and also the common bullshit question that goes like “weren’t hitler and stalin atheists, doesn’t that make you on equal standing with them?”After that, it was the period I had been looking forward to the entire night, my chance to shake hands with Mr. Dawkins and get a couple books signed. They released the crowd row by row, and so I was up there in no time. Once I got up there, I thanked Dawkins for his “Converts Corner” section of his website (which I have contributed to) and RichardDawkins.net in general, as it is a great service for us non-believers and generally free thinkers. He signed my paperback and hardback versions of “The God Delusion” and made a comment about my TShirt, which is a picture of Jesus handgliding and it poses the question, “What Wouldn’t Jesus Do.” I am actually not sure of exactly what he said, but it was something along the lines of “spot on” or “right on” and he got a chuckle out of it. It was a great night and I hope I get to visit more of his events in the future. Here is a picture of the signed version of The God Delusion.
Tags: Atheism, richarddawkins, thegoddelusion
I hate, those top (insert number here) lists…so in order to avoid such nonsense, I will simply post them in alphabetical order of their authors name.
Part Two is now posted here: Great Quotes for Atheists/Non-Believers (Part 2)
“The world holds two classes of men - intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence.” -Abu Ala Al-Ma’arri
“Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” -Isaac Asimov
“Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.” -Napoleon Bonaparte
“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.” -Richard Dawkins
“I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. ” -Albert Einstein
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” -Epicurus
“The way to see by Faith is to shut the eye of Reason.” -Benjamin Franklin
“What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.” -Christopher Hitchens
“The inspiration of the bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it.” -Robert G. Ingersoll
“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus…will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” -Thomas Jefferson
“Beliefs are dangerous. Beliefs allow the mind to stop functioning. A non-functioning mind is clinically dead. Believe in nothing.” -Maynard James Keenan
“The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.” -Abraham Lincoln
“What have been [Christianity's] fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.” -James Madison
“Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.” -Karl Marx
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, & the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” -Karl Marx
“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church.” -Thomas Paine
“…the Bible is such a book of lies and contradictions there is no knowing which part to believe or whether any.” -Thomas Paine
“Who needs Satan when you have a God like this?” -Robert M. Price
“So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.” -Bertrand Russell
“I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.” -Bertrand Russell
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” -Seneca the Younger
“No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means.” -George Bernard Shaw
“A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows.” -Mark Twain
“Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them.” -Peter Ustinov
“Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.” -Voltaire
“Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.” -Voltaire
“The first clergyman was the first rascal who met the first fool” -Voltaire
“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” -Steven Weinberg
——–
I probably have missed some great ones and I will add to this list often. If you have good quotes please contact me asap!
Update: Added a few more into the post!
Tags: anti-theism, Atheism, church, deism, islam
If you missed the previous part - Click here for Part 1
I remember once when I was around maybe 14 or so, I asked my parents “What are we?” in regards to which sect of Islam…Sunni or Shiite. At the time it seemed like a legitimate question…now with hindsight, I can see the overall ridiculous nature of such a question. Part of my journey away from religion has been due to the whole culture aspect of it. Think of how this really sounds “I support a particular scientific theory on X because I was born in Y”…That is exactly what you are accepting when you are a religious person. The fact that you were born either in a certain area, or to the parents who are from a certain area…is how you view the world! We know from science that, the fact of your birth is itself an improbable occasion. The fact of where it happened is simply a mere random chance, so on what grounds should it be the basis of your view on the cosmos and morality? If such an idea wasn’t so ingrained into society, this would be(as it is) the most absurd notion ever put forth. How can a serious, intelligent, mature adult really accept such a idiotic idea, “I believe what I believe because my parents did.”
As I left off in the last part, the conflict of science and religion is far bigger than one would imagine at first glance. People often say, “well I accept science and evolution, and it makes me an even more firm believer in god”…this often lets me know that my peer has simply not researched science or just hasn’t really thought of the implications of being a believer and accepting science. This is not a “non-overlapping” issue as many people will often argue…the idea that “religion answers “why” questions and science answers “how” questions is absolute nonsense.
I believe what I believe, not because of what some old virgin told me, a delusional bastard child from the 1st century, a genocidal orphan from 3000 years ago…or what some pedophile in the 7th century, preached in their respective times…but because of what the evidence tells me. A proper research into a scientific field like physics or biology would reveal to anyone the quite obvious overlapping that occurs with science and religion, and how science’s answers blow to bit those that religion provides.
To be continued…
Tags: Atheism, atheist, christianity, god, islam, journey, judaism, Religion, spiritual
Subscribe in a reader