Through out my writings regarding atheism, I’ve always tried to adapt a non-confrontational and more or less academic tone (at least to the best of my ability) when it comes to verbalizing my thoughts and ideas. One thing that I’ve said is that I somehow envy (term used loosely) christians or other people who believe in their respective gods and religions because through that ability to put trust on something that has no tangible existence, they are able to live their lives as if somebody else is making sure that things will go their way. There’s something very appealing with the idea that somebody up there is watching over your – and heck, everyone else’s — move in your day-to-day existence.
Now when I say I envy that type of mindset, I have to make it precisely clear that I’m not insinuating that I aspire to be like the typical god-believing church-goer who praises the lord for everything good that happens in his life. I would like to think that people’s minds are somehow wired in different ways. Everyone has diffferent value systems, paradigms and ethical concepts that they choose to use in their daily lives. Most people start with the same things, it’s just how one’s mind processes the information that create the subtle and glaring variations in our life goals and credo.
When I was growing up, I was exposed to more books than most kids. I was a geek in my early years – I read the encyclopedia like an actual book (from start to finish) during my spare time. Geography was my first love when I was five years old and not soon after, I was dabbling into the basics of astronomy. Those information that were infused to my memory at an early age kept the many christian concepts from concretizing in my head. The concept of heaven which is still seen by a lot of people as something very literal is taught early on in life. That belief is driven by a hard-wired memory that just dictates that the smog-filled atmosphere is the real paradise on earth and is the residence of god. Though a lot of christians are now smart and sophisticated enough to know that there’s nothing up their but vapor and dust particles, a majority of god-believing folk would still look up into the heavens when looking for a “sign” or praying.
Of course, to me, that was ridiculous. At a very young age, I was witness to how christianity has romanticized nature and meteorology to tailor-fit their religion. You can’t really blame the forefathers of the religion because it was a huge business to make believers of everyone back then. It was their job to sell their product and make people believe that what they were saying was true. Judging from the millions that they converted back then, to the strong billion that they have now, they’ve definitely done their job well. I don’t agree with what they did, but from a sales and marketing standpoint, it was an A-plus effort.
I tried to be logical about it a few years back. I knew back then I was atheist and my set of paradigms just wouldn’t allow a believing in a god even if I wanted to. Being the stubborn minor that I was, I tried doing it knowing that I was just fooling myself. I can’t believe in something that doesn’t even have a tangible existence. All manifestations that followers use to justify the existence of a god are mere conjectures and circumstances that don’t really prove anything. But to the willing believer, it’s enough of a proof. I won’t even contest if people believe it too easily without much critical thinking. We have different levels of scrutiny that we employ to choose the ideas that we believe in. Not to sound condescending, but in this particular topic (and this topic alone), I think atheists indeed ask a lot more questions and seek to find more answers as opposed to the average believer who just accepts what he is told and what he was taught. To be clear, I am not saying that Atheists have intellectual superiority over believers – all I’m saying is that Ahteists tend to be more critical regarding THAT singular issue.
At the end of the day, I think it’s clear that Atheism is something that most people don’t understand. People have pre-formed thoughts, prejudice and bias against Atheists and it’s something that Atheists live with everyday. That is why this blog exists – to educate people that Atheism is just like any other factor that is uncontrollable and most atheists are level-headed enough to tolerate people of other religions. Atheists will never become christians, the same way that christians will never become atheist. If they do, then their initial alignment with that philosophy was definitely misguided or done for the wrong reasons – hence, they were never christian or Atheist to begin with.
If you believe in god. Be happy. At least you don’t ask the questions that squeeze the neurons dry in Atheists’ brains.
Peace.
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