why I am an Atheist and loving it....

Felix Dakat asks an interesting question, who came to Atheism via
theism…and it got me to thinking… how did I come to Atheism?

When I was in fourth grade, roughly 8 or 9, give a few years, I answered
an question about god from the teacher, I went to public school BTW,
and she asked, “do you believe in god?” she was a Christian, I recall that much
and she did spend time in class preaching… and on that day, I stood up
and said, “no, no I don’t believe in god”… She said “oh, you are too young to know that
and anyone who says they don’t believe in god, will be punished”… the next recess,
a group of kids beat me up…mind you, this was rural Illinois…now it the burbs of
Chicago…

we fast forward to high school… I still didn’t believe in god, but I realized that
I had no reasons, no justifications to hold such a belief… why believe in god
and why not both require some reasons, I had none…so began a search for
god that lasted for over 30 years…I read all kinds of religious text, I read the
bible many times, I read the Quran, I read religious text from China to India
to Europe… I read a lot of biographies of religious types, I read autobiographies
of those same religious types…

I spent 40 years searching for god in an attempt to seek reasons for believing
or reasons for not believing…

after all that time searching, I never found god, nor did I find reasons to
believe… so I stopped the search and accepted that god did not exists…
and to my surprise, I found a great deal of comfort… I realized to believe requires
faith in all kinds of things, god, satan, hell, angels, the entire biblical story,
the end times, there is an whole and rather massive obligations that comes with
a belief in god…that we are simple pawns in gods plan to create the end times
where after wards we have a thousands years of bliss… but it wasn’t just that
theology that turned me off, it was the idea that once I accepted god, my
reward was twofold, a I would live forever and secondly, I would spend eternity
sitting at the right hand of god, in blissful contemplation of god…

now think about that, living forever and basically just sitting there
contemplating god forever…and I realized that those are nightmares…

to live forever is, perhaps, the single worst nightmare a person could have…
that screams a several lifetimes of boredom and ennui… I can’t think
of a worse fate for a human being then living forever…at least forever in hell,
has something to make one feel, even if the feelings are of pain…

and the second part is contemplation of god forever…that is the Greek’s
contribution to Christianity… for the ideal of the Greeks, was the
continuous contemplation of existence… see your Plato or Aristotle,
and I find this another example of a nightmare of existence…spending
all of existence contemplating something, anything is a fate worse then death…

no, I realized that the alleged rewards of belief were so terrible and inhuman,
that hell sounds a lot better and even that doesn’t appeal to me… so, to avoid
all the baggage that belief requires, the belief in god, that I am quite
happy and content to hold to Atheism…in fact, I must admit, when
I came to my realizations, that I feel a weight, a burden came off my
shoulders…I was freed as a human being to simple become who I want to be,
I can pursue my own possibilities of being human…I don’t have to
worry about the expectations or demands of another, be it god or be it human…

I was free in a way I had never been free before… now one might say, well
Kropotkin, you are going to suffer hell forever… but that has nothing to do with me,
that is an guess, a supposed threat that means nothing, because if religion requires
threats to make me believe, but nothing positive to believe in, I shouldn’t hold to
a belief in god anyway…

and let me make this idea of a threat clear…
If I must do something only because if I don’t something bad
will happen to me, that means that there isn’t any positive about
doing that thing…let me give you an example, at work, we are having
the hated Hunger drive program, for $10 a customer buys a hunger bag
but and this is important, why should I engage in upselling these bags?

what positive thing will occur if I were to engage in selling these bags?

at work, I am daily being threatened with being written up, if I don’t sell
these bags… and why the hard core sell from work? because the store
manager gets a bonus check depending on how many bags we sell,
and the district manager gets one and the regional manager gets a bonus
check also…but why would they get bonuses based upon how many hunger bags
we sell? because my little company makes a profit for every hunger bag sold…
it averages roughly around .80 cents per bag… and I hold and I admit it is just
me, but I hold that the company most likely will do this… let us say, for example
sake, sell 500 bags, then takes to the local hunger bank, 200 or even 400 bags,
the company makes a shear profit on every bag sold take 100 bags, at $10. bucks each
that is a thousand dollars in profits, on top of the .80 cents per bag profits…
and the company sells thousands of these bags at immense profits… hence
the hard core tactics of threating me every 12 minutes of being written up if
I don’t sell these bags… but I can see many negative aspects of the bags,
but I can’t see any positive aspects of selling the bags…but Kropotkin
what about those who benefits from the hunger bag? the company doesn’t give
a rat’s ass about the starving or homeless, it’s goal and its only goal is to make
profits…at all costs…and if exploiting the starving gets bigger profits,
then the company is all for it… and once again, where is any positive
that I can take and use to upsell these bags that only reason for existence
is to make the company profits? is it a positive that I am only offered
negative if I don’t sell the bags, being written up and then being fired,
I see nothing but negative there, nothing positive… and the same hold true
for belief in religions, believe or suffer the consequences, as Freespirit
has made clear… but what is the positive I can take from belief in god?

so that is the question here, what is the positive I can take from holding to
a belief in god? because I don’t see one…and I can see many benefits
and positive aspects of no belief in god… I am free to become me, I am
free to pursue my own possibilities, I am not tied down into
beliefs that a negative like being sent to hell or to live forever or
contemplating god forever…think about it… isn’t wanting to live
forever a monumental ego trip… I deserve to live forever…
isn’t that is sheer ego, wanting to live forever…

no, for many diverse and different reasons, I hold that the key to
being content and happy in this existence is to be an atheist…

Kropotkin

The God question, derived from the gods.
Belief in one god does not make theism.
Loosing faith in one god doesn’t make theism.
Theism has to do with forces that are alive and mostly beyond humans.
It’s a massive word-structure.

Ancient Greek gods could allegedly die. They had bodies.
They were like ancestor gods. Old figures that developed over time in primitive cultures.

You can’t be bothered to investigate every god that ever existed.
So you probably just rejected it all instead of going to the trouble of investigation.

I had a brief lucid dream about Belial.
That evocation was quick, but to me, it was more than enough.
To see the being before me.
To feel his personality.
To see his colors and shapes.
etc.

It was a vivid experience.
But you can just say : “That was only a dream, therefor it is invalid.”
If god slapped you in the face, you could just say : “I was a hallucination.”

You see, religion got so corrupt,
that people didn’t see the good/bad ratio as favorable.
They left religion because of religion.
But why bind religion with God?
In my own views : direct theism,
we have to do what god as not or can not do.
And we need to avoid the middle men [ angels, jesus, prophets ]
and just pray to God directly.
Then go about your life knowing that although
there is a God-like effect on reality, we can’t know it at this time.
But we can still live as we ought to.

Hell is not God.
Hell is a religious concept.
The one does not really equate to the other.
But what if a million people say God is a rubber boot.
Does that say anything about the true nature of God?
The argument itself is were lays the error.

If God is true, then untrue things are not God.
This means people can make up a million shits,
which amount to nothing more than confusion and misunderstanding.

You are anti-religion, not anti-God.