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Hi there! ^_^
My name is Stephanie; I’m 22 years old and in college to become an English teacher. I value education, equality, freedom of speech and freedom of religion. I’m charitable (when I’m not broke), a little bit shy, nice – but opinionated, distracted, honest, open-minded and easy going. My favorite things to do are writing, role playing, reading sci-fi and fantasy novels, enjoying nature and learning about science.
And I don’t believe in any gods. SO YOU’VE MET AN ATHEIST(DON’T PANIC!) (This journal has you covered.) - What is atheism? - Atheism is the belief or conviction that there are no gods, including your’s dear reader, if you have one.
There are two kinds of atheism: strong atheism and weak atheism, also known as agnostic atheism. While agnostic atheists don’t believe in any gods they’re open to the possibility that one or more may exist.
Strong atheists (me!) hold that there are no gods. - Is that like a vampire? - No, no… Atheists don’t sparkle.
We don’t drink blood or fear crosses either. We’re your friends, your neighbors, your teachers and class mates. Some atheists are even preachers. Depending on where you live you’ve probably known an atheist or two. Most of us prefer to keep quiet, especially in America, because not believing in any gods is a bit of a taboo in this country so most of us prefer to keep our heads down. - Is atheism a religion? - No. - Don’t you want to get into heaven? - I don’t believe there is such a place.
Some people are compelled to believe in an afterlife because of the culture they live in, the way their parents raised them, or because they’re afraid of dying. Having a fear of death is natural and healthy. I don’t want to die either. At least, not right now. I accept that I will die one day and hope that it won’t be for a long, long time.
Before I became an atheist I used to fear that death would be like staring at the inside of my eyelids in a dark room forever and ever. Now whenever someone asks me “Where do you think you go when you die?” I reply, “The same place I was before I was born.”
Death is a natural part of life. - Why do you hate God? - Disbelief is not hate, nor is skepticism.
Some people take personal offense to those who openly question religion, especially if it happens to be their religion, but my criticism of religion has nothing to do with you as a person. If you don’t want to hear what I have to say you are not obligated to listen. - Do you hate people who believe in God? - Though I have a great dislike of certain beliefs that come out of particular religions (ie women are inferior to men, homosexuals should be put to death, evolution is a lie, ect) I do not neccessarily hate the person.
Even if I met an outspoken creationist I would not hate them for believing the earth is less than 10,000 years old (which it is not; see TalkOrigins for more). I may feel frusterated by them, but I would only hate the person if he or she expressed his or her views in a way that was openly disrespectful (ie like an a*****e).
My mother is a liberal Christian, as is my online BFF, and my father is a moderate. My grandfather is also religious (though I'm not sure how he affliates himself; possibly Mormon?). I love them all, regaurdless of our differences.- Are you going to try to get me to stop believing in God? - Atheism is something you have to come to on your own, if you come to it at all.
However, I’d be happy to have a friendly debate/discussion on religion with you. I enjoy the intellectual merits of debate more than I relish the sweet taste of victory. Although I like to play hardball, I believe in your right to freedom of religion and would never try to scare you into abandoning your cherished beliefs. In fact I’d fight at the side of anyone who faces discrimination because of their faith (or lack of faith), so long as their faith is not causing harm to others.
While I can be pretty vocal about my beliefs, this is not an attempt to sway people over to “my side.” I’m just trying to take atheism out of the shadows.
Atheists are people just like you. We can be good or bad. - But how can you have morality without God? - My morality comes from the same place every other human being gets their morality.
When I was a baby, my parents taught me that I should share my toys, play fair and not be greedy. I learned that bad behavior has consequences. They bought me a pet, a rabbit I named Hoppity, and showed me how to take care of him and be kind to him. I was devastated when he died. My mother told me that when Hoppity died angels came down and took him up to heaven. I believed her with all my heart.
Recently, I asked my mom if she ever told me that certain behaviors were sinful and that I would go to hell if I was bad. She said no, she never told me that. I’m glad she didn’t; I was a nervous child and adding the fear of hell on top of all my other phobias would have been terrible for me.
Reboc, a big blonde long haired tom cat, was my second pet. He had a distinguished face and gorgeous, piercing blue eyes. When I was little I would chase him around the house and try to pull his tail. My parents talked to me and told me that I was hurting him and that my hurting him was the reason he hid under the bed all the time. I felt terrible after that. I tried to make amends with Reboc, talking to him sweetly like any five year old would, and we became friends before long. He passed away when I was 17. Mom kept insisting that she could see his ghost wandering around our apartment. Sometimes I saw a white flash of something that looked like his tail, but it was always my imagination.
Now that I’m an adult I’ve learned that being ‘nice’ isn’t always good for me. When I was in high school a girl asked to borrow my cell phone and I gave it to her without thinking. She and her friends talked on it for the whole lunch period. I was getting worried, but I didn’t want to seem rude so I let them use it. Finally the bell rang and I asked for my phone back. The girls said they’d lost it. They pretended to look through their purses. One girl told me I was cool and gave me a fake name and phone number to call so we could “hang out.” By this point I knew I was being lied to but I still wanted to give them a chance to return my phone. I saw them again at lunch the next day and tried to ask for my phone back. This time the girls just ignored me. They promised to bring my phone back tomorrow, promised to meet me in the same place, and because I was gullible I went back to that spot the next day at lunch and waited in vain. My mom was mad at me for losing my phone and not coming to her sooner, because the girl who took it must have been eating up our minutes, but we had it deactivated and I got a new one. I felt like a fool.
This experience made me wiser but not colder. Even though those girls hurt me, I didn’t hate them for what they’d done.
I’m not the immoral atheist some Christians would like me to be.- Do you have any nifty quotations about atheism? - LOL SURE!
"I don't try to imagine a personal god; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our inadequate senses to appreciate it." - Albert Einstein
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson
"I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time." - Isaac Asimov, channeling my personal feelings on atheism
"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid." - Marcus Aurelius
"Do not pass by my epitaph, traveler. But having stopped, listen and learn, then go your way. There is no boat in Hades, no ferryman Charon, No caretaker Aiakos, no dog Cerberus. All we who are dead below Have become bones and ashes, but nothing else. I have spoken to you honestly, go on, traveler, Lest even while dead I seem loquacious to you." - Roman epitath
"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" - Douglas Adams
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam... Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe:, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves." - Carl Sagan, The Pale Blue Dot - What’s the purpose of life without God? - Thunderf00t says it way better than I ever could. Note that Thunderf00t, while an atheist, chooses to identify himself as a PEARList. (PS – This vid is a bit long but well worth watching.)
In short: if you are an atheist, then YOU decide what life’s purpose is.
Atheists live for today.
That’s all there is. PEACE.
Sergeant Sargent · Tue Sep 22, 2009 @ 09:38pm · 0 Comments |
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