I wrote this entry just a few days back on my [url=http://www.xanga.com/TheTroubador]blog[/url]. And though much of my readership is atheist/agnostic it did stir up quite a pot by what I had to say in the theists who read (and actually flocked to read) the entry. Since it's very passionate and I quite liked it for approaching theism from a different direction, I decided to share it with you for your consideration. Before I begin though let me clarify one thing- I use the word "God" here with a capital "G" refering strictly to the Judeo-Christian God which I'm convinced does not exist due to his sheer contradictory nature. This is not to be mistaked with just a broad supernatural power which cannot be disproven (though it's not the non-believers task to), which I simply lack belief in.

[quote]Let us assume that I am wrong and that God does exist. I'm not sure how that would be possible since there are a many contradictions that have to be accounted for, but let us for a moment postulate the existence of a Christian God. Now, then, with that notion we would also have to accept that the Bible is the inspired word of God, since most Christians, especially conservative Christians (and it is the conservative and literal Christian version of God I am talking about), take the Bible as the literal word. Ok, let’s take everything to be literal, the six-day creation we don’t have to, but we might as well for coherence. Ok, so we’ve got the six day creation, the garden, Adam and Eve, snaky, apple, Tree of Knowledge, the Fall, Abraham, the Patriarchs, Exodus, conquest of Canaan, David, Solomon, and the rest of the Old and New Testament as literal fact. Since God, according to literal Christian tradition is also very much active in the world, let us take that too into considerations and say that everything happening is in one way or the other tied to God. So in such a world, I am horribly and significantly wrong about the things I believe are true and that, according to the Bible, I am going to hell for my disbelief which God finds extremely offensive and insulting. That would also go for all the rest of you atheists and agnostics out there you too are going to hell because you do not accept Christ as your savoir (and less, don’t even think he might even have existed). That said, in this hypothetical world is it regrettable, or rather even, is it wrong in being an atheist?

Upon talking a Christian friend of mine over the internet (a conversation which I will sooner or later provide for everyone to read), I have come to the conclusion that the answer is definitely- no. Of course, the claim that God does not exist would be wrong (though not many atheist make that claim and prefer to simply lack belief), and the position of the atheist would be unjustified due to the existence of God. Yet, would the lack of belief itself be misplaced? First look at the word definition of evil, which dictionary.com defines as- 1) morally wrong or bad; immoral wicked, 2) harmful, injurious, 3) characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous, 4) due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character, 5) marked by anger, irritability, irascibility. By all definitions of the word evil, with the exception of perhaps the first one (since some theists claim that all that God does is good), the attribute of evil can be applied to God, both of today and the Old Testament. So no, disbelief in a being is not misplaced because looking at God, looking at his philosophy that is supposed to be perfect and good and just, there is no justice in it. God of Christianity, whether Christians admit it or not, is not a god of peace or love- he is a jealous war god who causes suffering to cause belief. Who causes war to punish misdemeanour. Who kills to make a point- though for the innocent men, women, and children what is the lesson? That death is bad and they should not have stood in front of that tsunami? And for someone who is supposed to be omniscient and omnipotent God surely is the worst teacher in history when he cant even pull out the best and perfect way to educate his “children” which he sees as dust and shit by the way- dust and shit that for some reasons he might like if they sing praises to his glory and power of wiping out millions of people by plague and war. God also has this thing called hell- where atheists will go, even the good ones, who reason out of the delusion of theism. He sends them there for an eternity of torture- and don’t you theists deny it, I read your gospels, and for Jesus, whose supposed to be a great moral teacher, he does have a habit of saying “weeping and gnashing” of teeth a great deal and does refer hell as a place of both flame and suffering. God is omnipotent of course, if he hated atheists so much he could zap them out of existence or put them in a place to sit around for all eternity- but hell is a place of literal torture. Consider also that God is omniscient and can foresee which person will go to hell and which does not based on his own creation and his own design before they are even born. To those who might be claiming that God is just- there’s nothing to punish when you’re the judge and the person and the mastermind of the operation! On the flipside of that, you can get someone like Hitler, who repents, can go to heaven. In fact, if we take the most literalistic approach to Christianity on this one and consider that Hitler was a devout Catholic, we can in fact say that Hitler went to heaven- if heaven exists, while on the other hand, Ghandi, who was always a Hindu- went to hell. That is God’s all-loving plan which he pre-planned this- hypothetically, six thousand years ago. Then there is the simple thing of the Old Testament- war, famine, plague, homophobia, God ordered, if the Bible is to be believed, for women to be torn apart, virgins taken as slaves, and children’s heads bashed out and brains flowing. There are some very obvious moral implications for that- of course Christians refuse to realize it. Perhaps God doesn’t care about little children, or perhaps when their parents happen to believe in a slightly different God.

That all said there’s this whole thing about how literalist Christians see all this as ok- because God says it’s ok- because God is just, and why is God just? Well because for some reason they see it as a fitting title to attach it to their sky being, you can’t have something that’s unjust, right? Yet, where is the justice? Where is the justice when you’re equating Ghandi with murders (unless their Christian murders, than their fighters for the lord). Where is the deserved sentence in that? The deserved law? God of Christianity, for someone who cares about human beings (while thinking they are dust) certainly has absolutely no respect for fairness, individuality, and human life. God acts in total disregard for it, which I can see, because he is, after all, a god, but that does not lead us to call him loving nor justify us to give him our love. Neither is a god who apparently disregards human intelligence by picking only those who rely on faith and blind faith alone without any support in reason and rationality (us atheists) to be his loved and treasured children (which he also considers as dust). To add to this he is also- the omniscient, omnipotent Creator of the Universe, cares for what his subjects believe so much so that he begs, no- he extorts their praises and wishes and prayers and then still causes misfortune to happen on them. Now I’m really just spitting out ideas here but you can see how the Christian God (or even any god for that matter) is by far the most inhuman, the cruelest, the most savage idea ever imagined by the minds of men. It is a tyrant who hates human kind, who is a hypocrite to his own laws, who is a mass murderer, mass polluter, a divine pain in the butt, and so I draw my conclusion that if a god such as that existed atheism (or at least humanism)- the sheer respect for intelligence, the respect for human beings, the understanding that we are not some fallen piles of shit but individuals in our own right with both good and evil in our personalities, the desire for peace and global justice and equality, and the stout refusal to accent anything without any evidence is by far the most morally justified position one can take with or without God. Without God atheism is a good position to stand on against the insanities of the theistic world that continues to believe in Bronze Age myths. With God atheism is a noble and grand show of resistance against the power and heartlessness of a cosmic tyrant. Atheism is justified with not just with reason but with humility, love, and the respect for everything good in this cold place we call the universe.

Thank you Wayne, my dear theist friend, for showing me yet another rotten side of Christianity and I am proud that I do not believe in such a morally-bankrupt faith. I will not be silenced. I will not tone down. I will speak loud and clear as ever about what this thing that people believe is. I am proud to be an atheist and thank God that God does not exist.[/quote]