My life is full, with happiness and sadness (and the rest of the gamut of human emotion), and I am free to think and reason, to love and learn, to make mistakes and take responsibility for them (without scapegoating MY failures through a disgusting human sacrifice that Christians profess to believe in, BTW: do you partake of the proper annual cannibalism and blood drinking ceremony or do you follow one of those knock-offs christian-like cults that don't believe in "that part" of Christianity?).
I LOVE my life, even near death (in an accident) I thought of others without fear and only regrets for that which I would not be able to do for them. And I thank Science and the doctors (who truly do sacrifice for others) for my very non-miraculous recovery (minus a few internal organs). Even during hard or emotional painful times I cherish my time here because I know it will end far too soon. And I relish our ability to learn about out universe, every day I follow scientific advances in every field of study I can.
The world may be full of suffering and atrocities but I believe that we must work towards a better future (and I bother to post here in this blog in the hopes of helping towards that end in some small way). In the realization that we do not have true Free Will (at best we have some watered down compatibilist version of "Free Will"), I have sublimated most of my anger though I reserve that which is justified (See also Why Are Atheists So Angry?).
Christians seem to hope mainly for the death of everyone (rapture, apocalypse, etc) so that you can finally be happy in "heaven". This would explain why some Christians unwittingly seem to do almost the maximal damage they possibly can: let's not teach our kids anything truthful about sex, let's preach against using birth control, let's create an environment of sexual repression which leads to rapes and child abuse, let's lie and tell Africans that condoms CAUSE AIDS (note the sexist language there "innocent boys" and "slutty girls", see also this YouTube video) so they will not use the evil condoms - instead they rape women in the hopes that it will cure their AIDS (woo magical cures born of ignorant, superstitious beliefs), let's suppress womens rights (you just let me know when there is a female Catholic priest and Pope), let's push the bullshit creationism in schools, let's fight against the legalization movement because we like abusing civil rights and prohibition has been "sooooooo" effective, etc. It just goes on and on and then on the VERY UNUSUAL OCCASION, when you FINALLY see the TRUE light, you try to take all the credit for every progressive movement ever made. Oh "WE" fought against slavery -- bullshit, you enforced slavery for 2000 years. Oh "WE" fought against racism -- bullshit, you treated Jewish people horribly and consecrated the MASS MURDER of native peoples, Catholic Jesuits were a HUGE force behind the fascism movements (yes, including Hitler). You are a bunch of disgusting, duplicitous snakes. Behind the Dictators - A Factual Analysis of the Relationship of Nazi-Fascism and Roman Catholicism
And consider Christian theology, exactly how happy in "heaven" will you be with a few of your loved ones suffering eternal torment downstairs? Will God remove your pain and tears while your CHILD burns in hell? Is that a doctrine of a "loving god" that ACTUALLY makes sense to you?
So yeah, I feel pretty good about not believing in that. It is a shame that the iron fist of Christianity made it nearly impossible to speak out against it for so long. Thankfully, religion enforced on pain of death is rapidly becoming a thing of the past and more and more people are speaking out.
And no, I really don't feel that the "good deeds" done by religion count because of the history of conversion by intimidation, torture and murder. It seems little more than blood money paid to ensure the silence of detractors. If you want to do good things, try doing them just because, with no promise of eternal bliss behind them. And try doing them without strings attached (strings like: we will build a school here if we can teach our religion in return - because that is no gift at all, it is a Trojan horse).
Spirited! Pun intended.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I have noticed the happiest guy in my village is the village drunk. So, I am not sure happiness is the measure of the correct life choices.
Your view is correct in that any measure of happiness is an absence of suffering to some degree of something like ecstasy. Where religion seems to seldom get very far from mass suffering for the sake of their deity or the doctrines thereof. I needn't even bring the politics of religion's relationship to tyranny up, as you seemed to have covered it nicely. I will be reading the link tomorrow, thanks. Oh, and for the record, happy is something I try to bestow on others because that's I get it for myself. Peace.
Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI agree, we need to (try to) consciously create a space where we facilitate others finding happiness. That is truly the best gift we have for each other.