Disbelief

Let me be perfectly clear: I am an atheist. I deny the existence of supernatural intelligences, and I think organized religion is a foolish waste of time.

I’m not usually so direct. I think the vast majority of atheists subscribe to “If you don’t bother me, I won’t bother you.” We’re not out to destroy religion, we just don’t want to get any on us. The problem is that the vast majority of this country underestimate the reach of religion. There are some obvious bits, such as ‘God’ on our currency and in our pledge, that I think most people could point out, but what I’m talking about goes deeper. Ideally, I would be able to live my life with only an intellectual knowledge of religion, with no personal contact. That means no acts of violence, no wars carried out in the name of a god. It means no one would say “Bless you!” to me when I sneeze. It also means no random acts of kindness or charity if those acts were motivated only by a religious belief. If the only reason you’re nice to me is that a figment of your imagination wants you to be – well, I can do without the kindness, thanks.

I recognize that religion is closely integrated in our history so we’ll never be able to purge it completely. I’m not going to lose sleep over silly details. I just want to see an increase in awareness of what religious people are doing to those of us who do not share their faith. And I wanted to get this in the open so that anyone reading my later posts knows where I’m coming from.