Who's Your Daddy?

I feel that I need to better explain my thoughts on life a bit. I will freely admit that this feeling is a direct result of the rather long and in-depth scolding that I received on my Most Intelligent Creatures? post. The fact that I received such a scolding is, by no means whatsoever, surprising to me – this is exactly what is to be expected in a world (such as ours) where the behaviors of the masses are being programmed by the myriad of systems created to do just that – religions. I just think that the time for arguments based upon stories that many people have been falsely (in my opinion) lead to believe were written by some sort of all-mighty being is over. Let’s start living our lives and making decisions based upon reality.

Okay, fine … so where am I going with all this? I realize that many people have figured out that I have actually come to the conclusion that life – in all of its spectacle and glory – is basically meaningless. You’re born; hang around in existence for a bit; and die – that seems pretty meaningless to me. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Neither … it’s just a “thing”. Why is it that everybody wants to label everything as either good or bad? Some things just are and life (once again, in my opinion) just is.

The part that I can’t quite grasp is why so many people want to believe that the purpose for their existence is something that won’t be realized until their existence is no more; that the only reason they exist is to bring glory to some “spirit” that only exists as a belief. The “spirit” takes on whatever form the specific religion practiced assigns to it (and yes, Diane, there are many religions in this world – in fact, if you look into it a bit, you will quickly discover that the religion that you were so quick to rather arrogantly claim as the only one true religion is actually not believed true by a large majority of the world); however the “spirit” is always the same – it’s something that is always described as “too powerful for man to understand”. Seems rather convenient to me that the powerfulness of this being makes its absence of any actual physical presence unnecessary…

The result of all this is basically the current world that we are living in – several groups of people all believing that their religion is the one and only correct religion and that each and every one of the other groups has somehow made a mistake somewhere and got the “actual” truth either a bit skewed or down-right wrong. Here’s something for you all to ponder – what if none of the religions got “it” right? What if this all-powerful “spirit” doesn’t even exist? What if, after your time is up in this existence, you don’t go anywhere but actually cease to exist? This, after all, is what I truly believe and the conclusion that this brings me to is that we might as well do our best to enjoy this existence whilst we still have it.

Now I’m not saying that everybody should just become self-indulgent assholes with absolutely no regard for others (could you imagine how bad life would be if the world was filled with Paris Hilton clones?); the proposal that I am making is that we set aside our differences that are manifested through our beliefs in these various religions and learn to live together in peace and harmony. I happen to think that the world would be a much better place if we stopped teaching these religions as absolute truths and started teaching the ideals behind them for what they really are – good ideas.

That’s actually another issue that I would like to clarify: Although I am a true atheist (and you need to take my word on this – I do not believe in any god), I am not therefore against the ideals that most religions are attempting to teach. I am, however, very much against the way these ideals are being taught. It seems to me that these same ideals can be better realized if the true essence of them was taught rather than creating some fantasized, outrageous penalty for not “following the rules” that will need to be paid after one dies. To be honest, I find this to be an insult to my intelligence. Sure, when I was a child I had direct penalties that were doled out by my parents for doing stupid things – and rightly so; however I am no longer a child and am completely able to understand the ramifications of my actions. I don’t need to create some illusionary father figure to control me anymore – I can take care of myself.

The funniest thing about it is that, in taking care of myself (as well as using what my parents taught me when I was young), I have found that most (if not all) of the ideals that have become buried in the Christian religions are actually the correct way to live. It just makes sense – be nice to people, help out whenever you can and try not to get too caught up in any of the high-risk activities (aka sins) that you lose control. The thing is that I don’t need to actually be practicing any religion (or believing in any god) to come to these realizations – I just need to learn from life’s experiences.

Well folks … that pretty much covers it. I’m an atheist, but I’m an atheist with a heart. I completely understand that the effect that my blog postings are going to have on organized religions is nil; however I am hoping that I may have given some of you a bit of a peek into a different way of thinking…

bis später,

Coriolis