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Of course all this skepticism vanishes when the spotlight turns to their own religion. The truth is, just about everybody is a skeptic-except when it comes to their own "obviously true" belief.
The weight of believers alone is not enough to tip the scales. Only the weight of evidence can do that. Imagine, for example, if a couple of billion people believed that elves were real but none of them had any evidence or good arguments to support their belief. Obviously it would be intellectually lax to conclude that a high number of elf-believers alone meant that elves were real.
Suppose an atheist, refusing to look at any religious claims, were to say, "You must have faith that there is no God. If you believe in your heart that nothing transcends nature and that humanity is the highest judge of morality, then you will know that atheism is true." Wouldn't the Christians [and followers of other religions] snicker?
Every human body, including yours, is actually a complex ecosystem made up of about ten trillion human cells (you) and also more than one hundred trillion microbes (not you). Weird as it seems, if you could conduct a census of the space your body occupies, you would find that what you think of as all you is actually mostly other lifeforms such as tiny arthropods, bacteria, viruses, and fungi.
One does not necessarily have to look any further than family, friends, and the joy from being productive or creative to find satisfaction and purpose in life. These real things can be so wonderful, in fact, that I wonder why anyone would ever want to take time away from them in order to worship a god who has not yet been proven to even exist. Believers might consider the possibility that every minute spent thinking about and talking to gods up in the sky is a minute wasted down here.
Furthermore, you are special because, as a thinking and creative lifeform, you are one of the most fortunate collections of atoms in all the universe.
The weirdest thing about calling atheism a religion is that some religious people say it as if it's an insult. I know they don't mean it that way, but it sounds a lot like, "You atheists are as silly as we are." That aside, believers need to be aware that declaring atheism to be a religion does not help the case for the existence of a god.
Atheism is not a religion, organization, club, philosophy, lifestyle, tribe, race, ethnicity, or team. Atheism is the absence of a belief in a god. That's it. It doesn't even necessarily mean that one is certain that no gods exist. It just means she or he does not believe in gods.
Scientists have observed apes demonstrating sympathy and sharing in the wild. That sounds like moral behavior to me. These "lowly animals" share and help one another because it is natural for them to do so, because they have learned to do so, and because it helps the group to survive. It is unlikely that chimpanzees exhibit what appears to be moral behavior because they believe in an ape god. If they can do it, we can do it. In fact, humans behave morally without gods every day all around the world.
Scientist Francis Collins, leader of the Human Genome Project, believes that Jesus is a real god while simultaneously accepting that evolution is real. Of course he has no choice but to accept evolution because his work wouldn't make any sense otherwise.
Each group of believers dismisses the threats of the other because they don't see any evidence or hear any compelling arguments to suggest that these alternate hells are real. They don't lose a wink of sleep over it because they know those claims are totally unsubstantiated. Meanwhile, atheists don't fear anybody's hell because none of them are backed up by any evidence.
There is really only one way to respond when a believer claims that a sacred book such as the Bible is so special that it is proof of their god's existence. I encourage them to read it. If they have, and still think it is perfect, morally pure, and convincing evidence for their god, I encourage them to read it again.
A 2006 University of Minnesota study asked people to identify the group that "does not at all agree with my vision of American society." Atheists topped the
list with 39.6 percent. Muslims were second at 26.3 percent and homosexuals third with 22.6 percent.
The study also revealed that American parents are more likely to disapprove of their children marrying atheists than any other minority group. It wasn't even close, as 47.6 percent said an atheist is the last person on earth they want to see their child with. Second was Muslims (33.5 percent), followed by African Americans (27.2 percent).
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According to scholars, there are several ancient stories that sound remarkably familiar. Randel Helms, author of Fiction Gospels, describes one:
In the first century of the Common Era, there appeared at the eastern end of the Mediterranean a remarkable religious leader who taught the worship of one true God and declared that religion meant not the sacrifice of beasts but the practice of charity and piety and the shunning of hatred and enmity. He was said to have worked miracles of goodness, casting out demons, healing the sick, raising the dead. His exemplary life led some of his followers to
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I never assume intellectual superiority when talking with a believer. They easily could be "smarter" than I am, regardless of how absurd some of their beliefs may be. If I had been homeschooled by Taliban or Amish parents, I probably would see the world very differently today. Would it be my fault? Would it be right for a nonbeliever to view me as a moron who can't think? Of course not. For most people in this world it all comes down to what your parents believe and which school district you live in.
So many religions that cannot see eye-to-eye on anything else are somehow able to agree on one thing: the gods need lots of money. A god may be able to create a galaxy for nothing, but to get anything done here on earth apparently requires cash.
Death, the most dreaded of all evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist.
-Epicurus
It seemed inconsistent, I thought, for people to get so worked up about one dictator who had a few hundred or a few thousand people tortured over a period of several years when they did not seem troubled at all by their god who,
according to them, has been torturing billions of people for thousands of years and will continue to torture them forever.
one of the fastest ways to turn a believer into a nonbeliever is religious education.
Science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent design is a philosophy of ignorance. You cannot build a program of discovery on the assumption that nobody is smart enough to figure out the answer to the problem.
-Neil deGrasse Tyson
It is, of course, possible that there have been real supernatural events caused by a god. But if miracles were anywhere near as common as believers have claimed for centuries, there should be at least one that the world's scientific community would be able to confirm as undeniably the work of a god. But there are none, not a single one.
However, I cannot imagine a believer simply waking up one morning and deciding that they would no longer believe in gods. It seems to me that, for those who sincerely believe, there must first be a process. There needs to be an erosion or demolition of all the empty arguments and false evidence that previously supported belief in the person's mind. One cannot just dismiss in an instant all those reasons for belief when they have worked so well for many years. Strong ideas have to confront weak ideas. It takes time.
If anything, the historic and global breakdown of who believes what strongly suggests that gods are not real. The existence of so many diverse religions is primarily a reason to suspect that humans have a strong inclination and talent for inventing gods.
Then again, if there is
a judgment day, maybe an omniscient god or gods would know my mind and see that I have only been honest to the reality before my eyes. I'm unwilling to pretend to believe in gods that seem to be nothing more than the creations of human imagination. Maybe upon reflection the gods would blame themselves for being so elusive and see fit to forgive me. Who knows? They might even praise all atheists for their intellectual honesty and brave skepticism.
