100 ‘Damned’ Good Reasons to Be An Atheist, Part 2
Many religious people will tell you that it’s better to believe than it is to not believe, and bring out a whole suitcase of ‘logical’ arguments for why that is the case, but they’d be lying. Here’s why it’s better to be a Heathen like me.
11. Lobster tastes good, so does pork — We don’t have arbitrary and unscientific rules about what is proper to eat. If science tells us there is something we shouldn’t be eating, for one reason or another, that’s fine; but we don’t take our dietary cues from outdated Bronze Age moral pronouncements.
12. We don’t celebrate Sundays — Sleeping in on the weekend is a treat. Rolling over is always preferable to rolling out, and it’s definitely better than rolling out for something that isn’t that important to begin with. You’ve spent a stressful week at work. Why compound the stress further with having to dress up unnecessarily during your rest days…? A wedding is one thing, but church is a waste of time.
13. No Mecca to meander towards — We don’t go on pilgrimages. If we want to walk a lot, we go hiking. Vacations are meant to be a respite from the drudgery of the world, not a ‘bowing and scraping before a fictitious deity’ ritual.
14. Wear what you like — Atheists don’t have arbitrary moral codes about what parts of the body must be covered at all times. Modesty may matter, but then again, it may not.
15. No shame in the Atheist game — There are probably Atheists in the world who have used shame to keep their kids in line, but I doubt they are very common. A modicum of healthy self-esteem is essential to a well-rounded life and Atheists are in a better position to understand that given how they’ve been derided and spit on for ages. And that experience has taught us that it’s not right to use shame as a tool of social control. Putting an arrogant person in their place is fine, however. That’s a do-unto-others thing and doesn’t count as part of the shame game.
16. We’ve done our homework — Most Atheists are very intellectual people. We’ve read our fair share of relevant texts because we are constantly on the defensive against ignorant attacks by theists who would just as soon kick us in the teeth for our non-belief than accept that our way is a relevant one. And we know our bible as well. It’s been demonstrated time and again that Atheists as a community have a better grasp of the christian bible than do believers. And it really pisses them off when we pull something like Isaiah 45:7 out of the air to dispute their claims — I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and CREATE EVIL: I the LORD do all these things.
17. No distortions of history — If you’ve ever been to that monstrosity of a creation museum in Kentucky, you know that they have an exhibit which claims humans and dinosaurs coexisted for a time. Clearly science isn’t a high priority for these people when it comes to spreading their propaganda. There is no way that humans and Dinosaurs could have been around at the same time. For one thing, we wouldn’t exist because they would have eaten us all before we had a chance to prosper as a species. We may be the apex predators in the current ecological food chain, but we’re nothing compared to some of the monsters than existed in the age of Dinos…
18. We try and make the most of our one shot — there is no after-life, no eternal continuance. When we’re dead, we’re done and that’s it. Some of us are better at it than others but we still do our best, each in our own way.
19. R-E-S-P-E-C-T — Atheists understand in some sense what it means to be down-trodden, even if we are mostly male and mostly white. Religionists claim to be decent people yet they constantly tell us we are going to THEIR hell because we don’t accept THEIR ways. We definitely have sympathy for those who get spit on by people of privilege.
20. Very few appeals to tradition — The Atheist community does have it’s traditions (like respecting the work of Robert G. Ingersoll) but we are not bound to and blinded by them in the way most religionists seem to be. For one, we don’t use ‘because the bible says so’ as a justification for our views. For another, we don’t accept that something is proper because ‘that’s the way it’s always been.’ There has to be a good reason for what we do, otherwise we try not to do it.
Continued in Part 3.
DISCLAIMER: For those who are curious, I do not allow feedback on posts of this nature due to the fact that religionists have nothing original to say on the matter. They continually trot out the same tired, unqualified arguments for why they are right and I am wrong and I refuse to waste another second of my life re-litigating these issue with people of limited imagination.
