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12月10日 I am an agnostic-atheist...I am an agnostic because of all the things I do not know. I am ignorant about finances, mathematics, nuclear fusion, automotive repair, starvation, pancreatic cancer, the weather in Portugal in the spring, what happened right before the Big Bang, what will happen right after the Big Crunch (if the Big Crunch does happen), and what happened after the Big Crunch 15 billion years ago (if there was a Big Crunch), and if whatever happened created the Big Bang.
I am an agnostic because I recognize the limits of my mortality, my longevity, my sensitivity, and my spirituality, if such a thing really exists. I acknowledge that I could be wrong about almost everything, and I wish I could be around in 50 years to see all of our current misperceptions of the Universe reduced to something as quaint as the Ptolemaic system.
I am an atheist because I see this label as both religious and political. It puts me on the side of reason, science, and sanity, and wholeheartedly opposed to nonsensical dogma, blind faith, and intolerance.
If I am ever diagnosed with an inoperable tumor, and the doctor knows that I have 3 months to live, and neither prayers nor medical treatment will help me in any way, I wish to be told the truth, so I can use those 3 months to face reality and use the time given to me in the most productive possible way. If I am lied to, comforted with false hope, told to pray to a non-existent god, and given useless treatments which do nothing but cause me more pain, then I will have to wreak a horrrible vengeance worthy of old Yahweh himself upon the people who have deceived me.
We are all sentenced to death from the moment we emerge screaming from our mothers' uteri. We are born by chance, and we have a limited number of years to enjoy before that life disintegrates back into the basic elements from which it sprung.
All the time we spend in church or temple, bending our knees in prayer, asking for help or guidance or forgiveness--every moment of this time is time wasted.
If you think that you can only be a good person if you have some kind of faith, then you are deceived, and you are not giving yourself enough credit. With or without religion, with or without the hope of heaven, you have the choice to do right or wrong. Roughly 10% of all humans are thoroughly good, and roughly 10% of all humans are thoroughly evil; the rest of us lean this way and that, noble, nasty, strong, ridiculous, every shade of gray.
Up until last year, I always assumed I would feel uncertain about the conflict between science and religion. I never thought I would have any definite breakthrough. I felt almost alone. Now I feel supported by some of the smartest people who have ever lived, and some of the clearest thinkers living today.
I give to charities regularly; I have even given to faith-based charities, but I will not be playing their games any longer. Some day I hope they send me the following request: "We are desperate in a Godless world. God doesn't exist, or he is evil, or he is powerless, or he doesn't give a flying fuck, and only humans can solve the porblems of this world, so please give us money." To those honest people, I will donate generously.
If I ever meet a person of "faith" who is not in some way blithely or willingly ignorant, hopelessly gullible, hypocritical, or full of baloney, then I will seriously consider becoming agnostic again.
In the mean time, I am an agnostic-atheist. |
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