Second part in the ” What the hell is up with Satan ? ” series asking the question ” Who tempted Satan to fall ? “. Part one can be found here .
Welcome StumbleUpon users ! Make sure to check out part two of my series of questions about Satan, ” Who tempted Satan to fall ? ” right after this video !
Watch part II now !
Question : For most of my life I’ve hidden that I’m atheist from my family and friends. The thing is: I feel embarrassed to be atheist. Is that normal?
Answer : Yes it is normal. When you live in an area thats heavily populated by theists, it’s understandable that one would feel some social and psychological pressures from that community. This can lead to feelings of inadequacy, loneliness, isolation, and even embarrassment when one is feeling judged or ridiculed.
Which is exactly how they want you to feel.
You see, one of the things about theism is that it creates an attitude of fear and mistrust. It teaches you that those that don’t believe the way you do should be shunned or proselytized . The embarrassment you are feeling is probably due to worrying about how others will perceive you, and consequently, whether or not they will accept you. Religion uses this to their advantage as a way of discouraging people from leaving the flock. It’s a method of control.
To combat this, find ways to build up your self esteem about your atheism. Try finding atheist meeting in your area. Join atheist chat rooms or message boards. A great atheist message board is The Atheist Network Find others who have gone through what you have, and gain comfort from shared experiences. As much as you may feel like it right now, you are not alone. This will help to build up your confidence and allow you to feel less embarrassed about your lack of belief.
Once you’ve built up your confidence, this will allow you to deal with your family and friends in a healthy manner. Try to be kind and understanding towards them and when they aren’t towards you, question them as to why. Show them that you being an atheist doesn’t make you less of a person. Show them that you can be more moral, more honest, and more understanding then they can towards you. Make them aware of your feelings and ask them to be understanding even if they can’t relate to your disbelief. They will find it much harder to judge you when they think that you hold yourself to a higher standard then they do themselves.
Remember, you have nothing to be embarrassed about. If you are a good person, then you are a good person no matter what your beliefs, or lack of beliefs are. Help them to focus on that aspect of yourself and do the same for them.
I hope that helps.Jake www.afterfaith.com
Answering a question for www.asktheatheist.com .
According to Mitt Romney you shouldn’t ask him about his faith because it’s private, but religion shouldn’t be private in regards to the government. Can you say hypocrite ?
I wanted to repost this because not only does it echo my own thoughts on the subject, but it’s just so damn well written.
The Infallible Pope Benedict Releases Bigoted Encyclical Vilifying AtheismSubmitted by kellym78 on December 4, 2007 – 2:47am.
Kelly O’Connor
http://www.rationalresponders.com
The Catholic Church has officially ended their campaign to improve the public image of the Church with the latest papal encyclical, Spe Salvi, which means “saved by hope” for the Latin fans out there. The Catholic Church’s history is littered with crimes against humanity, and Pope Benedict XVI seems to desire the return to pre-Vatican II Catholicism. This was a concern voiced by many at the time that the former Joseph Ratzinger* was canonized to this position. The former pope, John Paul II, had made great strides in the modernization of the Church, and many were reluctant to elect somebody who would reverse that trend. Despite John Paul’s dogmatic adherence to the sexual proscriptions of Catholicism, he at least officially accepted evolution, admitted Protestants into heaven, and eliminated limbo. (Where was that place anyway? I may have been there once…) Pope Benedict is turning out exactly as predicted.
The attempt to correlate atheism with violence, hatred, and genocide is the faithful fall-back argument for theists looking for a scapegoat. As in many other situations, their best defense for their beliefs and the resulting atrocities throughout history is something like, “Atheists did it, too! Just look at Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot. You’re just like us!” Well, I beg to differ. Those three well-worn examples did not commit those crimes because of their lack of god-belief. That is where the fundamental difference lies. The communist regimes wanted to eradicate religious belief so that the sole allegiance of the populace would be to the government. It was not driven by an atheistic agenda per se, but rather a power struggle with the religious ideologues who would seek to thwart their dominance over the people. Regardless of what those particular despots may have done, though, Ratzinger’s claim that atheism is the cause of the “greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice” in history falls flat on its face when one thumbs through the annals of history.
A stroll down memory lane with Catholicism gives us the Crusades, the Inquisition, the violence during the Protestant Reformation (some of which continues to this day), and the more recent clergy sex scandals. Obviously, this is a woefully incomplete list, and it doesn’t include Protestants and their scandals, not to mention the conflict that has been inspired by religious beliefs throughout history up until the present day, not separating by specific deity.
Despite the irony of religious people claiming that atheism has been the bully throughout history, the most problematic issue with this argument is the least salient, which explains its prevalence in the world of apologetics: Whether these crimes were committed under the banner of atheism or not does not prove that their god exists in the first place. The crux of the rational position rests not on what atrocities were committed for any reason, but rather on the existence of their deity.
The fact is that the most recent studies show that organic atheism (ie not imposed by the government) has a positive correlation with societal health when measured by various indicators, such as level of education, affluence, and violent crime rates. (See study by Phil Zuckerman, PhD, in the Cambridge Companion to Atheism.) The data show that the so-called “deluding” to which man so frequently falls prey is in fact not “technology, wealth, or political ideologies,” but is religious in nature.
The pessimism that he sees in the world is more likely to have been caused by the precepts and edicts of the religion into which a society has been indoctrinated. If I believed that this life, this planet and its inhabitants were all a part of some kind of cosmic game in which the rules and outcome were already determined, I would be pessimistic as well. For them, all of this is a waiting room for your “real” existence in eternity—whether or not it will be in paradise or perdition. Ultimately, it’s not even up to you or me to make that determination. The Catholic Church has always stood by the doctrine that the status of your salvation is unknown even to you. Does anybody else see how that might cause psychological distress? You’re chosen, or one of the elect–one to whom god has revealed himself–or you’re not. The bible states it clearly:
“Does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory…” (Rom. 9:21-23)
I don’t see the hope of which Ratzinger speaks. I see the violence, division, and psychological terrorism that religion has perpetrated upon humanity since its inception. I see a group of power-mongers struggling to maintain control of an increasingly skeptical society by demonizing their opposition. I see a populace disillusioned with the traditional power structures of government and religion but feeling incapable of affecting change in a society where money buys power and influence, and the only thing that they are sure of is that atheists are evil communist despots. So, I would like to personally applaud Joseph Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict, for projecting the actions of his religion onto atheists. At least we know that the long-standing tradition of sacrificing an innocent being to atone for your own sins is alive and well. (Lev. 16: 9-11) After all, Jesus came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.
Anyone else notice how over the last few years there has been this growing trend amongst theists to change what ” faith ” means ? It seems as if half of them tell us that faith is ” that which is hoped for but not seen ” while the rest are telling us that faith is ” a trust in the evidence ” ? It seems to me that the trend is simply to replace the wishful thinking of the first group, with the ( not so ) reasonable expectation of the second. I say not so reasonable because in truth, it’s still the faith of old, wrapped up in a pseudo scientific box marketed towards people who don’t want to think for themselves. ( only those that fall into the second group will take offense to that. )
So why is this happening ? Why this shift in thinking ? Have xians realized that their faith is, as I have been saying for years, just wishful thinking ? Are they now trying to look towards science, which undoubtedly has produced more answers about the nature of life and existence then their religion ever could ? Why is this happening ?
My guess is that it may have something to do with living in a world where information exchange is as quick as lightening. I know for myself that thanks to web sites like Snopes a lot of old urban myths that I thought were real, I found out weren’t, and because of Snopes my world view became a little clearer. The internet has taught me how to verify information. How to disseminate between fact and opinion, evidence and conjecture. I think for others, even casual internet users, there is enough truth out there, to make the lies a little harder to swallow.
So what is a theist to do ? How does one compete with the facts ? Simple. Spin the facts. Why are there people who believe the earth is only 6000 years old ? We know that the earth is around 4.5 billion years old so why are people convinced otherwise ? Do a google search for ” young earth creationists ” and you’ll find some of the most convoluted, impossibly inept conclusions as to why all of science is wrong, and that the earth is only 6000 years old. The laymen who reads it will more then likely become confused and either accept or reject the information based not on their ability to understand the topic, but instead based on their internal emotional desires to validate their beliefs.
One of the main differences between the atheist and the theist is that the theist believes because he wants to believe. This is the essence of his faith. Believing because one chooses to. Most atheists however, refuse to do this. They can’t or choose not to accept a belief without validation. This causes them to become more skeptical and more critical of the information they’ve been given. I think theists are slowly starting to do the same thing. Atheist websites are seeing today more traffic then they ever have. More discussion are being brought up regarding religion and faith then probably in the last 1000 years. ( just a guess. lol ) More information is being given out, and the only thing the theist can do, is try to spin that information as much as they can.
So why are they changing the definition of faith ? They aren’t. When it comes right down to it, ” that which is hoped for and not seen ” is exactly the same as ” trust in the evidence “. Both rely on wishful thinking and misinformation. Neither one has ever been a valid reason to believe in the existence of something. Not a single theist who reads this post has the same type of criteria for their god, that they use to determine anything else exists. They all rely on wishful thinking. They each believe in that which is hoped for. They’re just trying to make it look prettier.
