Purpose…
We all want it, atheist, believer, agnostic, deciever.
Life…
We all live it, christian, muslim, satanist, buddhist.
What seperates us is mere semantics. The agnostic struggling with the ineffable qualities of
god’s existance. The atheist wishing to remain seperate from spirituality, as it’s too… ineffable. The believers fighting and quarrelling amongst themselves claiming that their word is truly the inspired word of god. It’s all insipid, there is no point but to further seperate us from one another. Is the Christian really that different from the atheist? Do morals valued by the christian, have to exclusively belong to the christian? Vis a vie, must they only come from god?
Does reason trump belief?
People desire to belong to something. We are like sheeple, in that way. The non-believers flock together, attaching themselves to morals they may not 100% understand or agree with, the same way the believer flocks to his sheeple and does the same thing. The atheist thinks that he must counter christianity (in this country especially), simply because it is christian. No rhyme or reason needed. If it is an ideal held by christianity it is hopelessly outdated or worthless.
The Secularist (AKA Atheist) in Europe has taken this to the Nth degree and brought Muslims in, to challenge the christian faith… to empower their culture with “the wonders of multiculturalism.” They’ve sold themselves down the river without a paddle.
Multiculturalism by and large has failed in Europe. Muslims think of themselves in such a superior manner, that the only comparison is Adolf Hitler’s Germany. The superiority complex can be a problem within any group that involves itself in group think. The extent of that problem, depends on how compatible the groups ideals are with the world at large. If the group finds itself at odds with the world around it, there will be much violence and pain as a result. (Waco, Heavens gate, Muslims trying to integrate)
So what are we to do?
We must go back to logic. Reason must trump belief in all cases. Belief in a deity is fine, infact like masturbation it is a normal healthy part of being human. Like the hardcore religious person harms their physical and mental well-being by denying masturbation, the hardcore atheist harms their physical and mental well-being by denying god.
But, like the scientific reasons to disallow abortion, the sheeple flock together and confirm to themselves* that there cannot be a god… flying spaghetti monsters cannot exist therefore, god cannot exist. It’s this kind of backwards bad group think that keeps them at odds with the people that are their neighbors. People they could be “loving” (agape style.)
These people preach the golden rule, but only love themselves. They are the ultimate narcissistic-misanthropic-humanist. They are so in love with their own ideas that they place the value of them above all else. They preach tolerance only to be truly tolerant of those who espouse similiar ideals. They are the Harley riders of the intellectual world. They appreciate all motorcycles as long as it’s a Harley…
Case in point, How many “HOG”'s ride around with Honda crotch rockets? (vice versa, how many crotch rocketers ride around with HoGs?) How many “tolerant” people have friends that are complete polar opposites to themselves? How “open minded” are they really? Only open enough to listen to ideas that support their own beliefs? How many people (no matter what semantic they believe in) truly challenge their own “open-mindedness”?
I’m not advocating the erasure of religion, or atheism or anything.
I’m advocating a new level of tolerance and “open-mindedness.”
You can talk the talk.
Can you walk the walk?
EDIT: Fixed the formatting and added:
- this could also be conform. People conform themselves to the group they belong to.