Being an Atheist in a Christian Dominated Country
Religion. My most favorite subject to avoid. Living in a Christian dominated country, people can't help it but raise their brows when they find out that i'm an atheist. They would turn their backs on me as if i have a dreadful disease or something.
Some even try to convince me and read their bible in front of me to prove that their god exists. It seems like a powerful thing, that they expect me to say "Amen" with them. Like they were expecting an "aha" moment with me. Well, sorry but there's gonna be no "aha" moment for me.
To me it's just a story. A piece of book made by some people that was passed on from one generation to another. When they try to rebut, I just politely say, "no, I don't wanna talk about it" and change the subject. Usually they won't give up, so I have to say this, "It's okay if I won't be saved, I got myself. I'm good".
My mind is already fixed, nobody can convert me to become a Born-again Christian because I was born already. If I happen to be Benjamin Button and I would magically turn into a baby and go back to my mother's womb, maybe I will be "born again". As in literally.
One of my friends tried to invite me to listen to their "pamamahayag" or "the message" in Iglesia ni Christo (God's church). When I asked what is it about, she said their pastor will tell their god's message about his second coming and how we can prepare for it. I told her i'll just go home and enjoy a cup of tea with a good book on my hands rather than listen to their pastor's earthquake drill for 1.5-2 hours. Of course i didn't say that to her face, I just came up with a nice alibi.
Lecheon baboy (roasted pork) is one of my favorite Filipino dish, so there's no way I can be a Muslim either. Though I must admit, I got curious at their practice when I found out that some men has the capability to marry as many women he likes. What a lucky mofo! But still, it's not a good enough reason for me to join their forces since I'm not a man. And also, marriage to me is just a piece of paper. I don't need it to prove my love for someone. (More on this on my next post)
I can't also be a Jehovah's witness because the only witnesses i know are the people here on Steemit where you can vote for them on this link: https://steemit.com/~witnesses
You see, I'm not easy. I'm very hard to pleased. People should stop kissing my ass and convince me to join their "kumbaya" because I'm happy being an atheist and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not thinking highly of myself either just coz I'm not affiliated with any religion. I have so much to learn in this world and I'm keeping an open-mind to explore and enjoy things that come along my way.
If law of attraction or thinking positive is a religion, then that's probably where I should belong. But it's not a religion so just be it. I'll just stay as I am and embrace it.
Namaste!
I'm totally with you being an Atheist with a big A myself. I was lucky enough to grow up in Norway though where the large majority are Atheists (or express no religious affiliation).
Anyways, to me the best behavior is to just be a realist and an objectivist. Be the person who asks skeptical questions and demands evidence and reason, and then be consistent with that both with regards to religon and other topics. As Sam Harris put it in a speech I really enjoyed: We don't have a word for non-astrologers, and we shouldn't need a word for non-believers, we should just celebrate reason.
Yeah!!! Celebrate reason! I like your comment man. I am a realist and never been happier. All this dogma that most people follow was designed centuries ago. I wanna make my own path and avoid the norm. I want to reach my potential as a human being and live life the way I wanted it to be and not because everyone else is following other people. Individuality. :-)
@pinaynomad, I agree: celebrate reason. I have a basis for saying that within the context of a Christian worldview. As for you, how do you know your reasoning is valid? Surely you can't give an answer that isn't viciously circular.
Well said both of you! :)
“Is that your final answer? I hope its not. Let me tell you why I choose to believe the Bible. I don’t believe the Bible because I was raised that way—because I wasn’t. I don’t choose to believe the Bible because I tried it and it worked for me. My mother’s Buddhism worked for her—that’s why she was a Buddhist! I need something more than just ‘because it works’. Here’s the answer—I’ll give it to you and unpack it for you:
I choose to believe the Bible because it is a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses. They report [of] supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claimed that their writing are divine rather than human in origin.”
Voddie Bauchman
or try this
Unique among all books ever written, the Bible accurately foretells specific events-in detail-many years, sometimes centuries, before they occur. Approximately 2,500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, about 2,000 of which already have been fulfilled to the letter—no errors.
sorry just could not let this go
https://astuteness.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/voddie-baucham-why-i-choose-to-believe-the-bible-fundamental-astuteness-on-christian-apologetics-parts-5-6/
http://www.reasons.org/articles/articles/fulfilled-prophecy-evidence-for-the-reliability-of-the-bible
Love and peace,
Hi Melissa,
Thanks for the comment. I was raised by my Catholic mum who goes to church every Sunday. I was also sent to a Catholic school for 4 years and studied the Bible. In college, I studied in Episcopal School. So basically, Christianity was part of my life from the day I was born until I finished school. I also attended few seminars when I was invited by some friends. But as I grew older, I started to question things. How can you be sure that the Bible was written by the so-called prophets? Do they have enough evidence aside from the stories that were passed on from generation to generation? Like I said in the first paragraph of my article, Religion is my favorite thing to avoid. But I do appreciate your comment on my blog. :-)
Happy Sunday! :)
Likewise...Happy first day of the week! I am a huge skeptic myself but mostly of what they (from the Romans and even before have tried to do to Christian believers) ..I believe in the bible in its purest form, celebrating on the 7th day, fasting, I have also read many of the early books like enoch. I do respect your right to your opinion and would defend your right to have it, as that is true liberty!
Love and Peace,
Melissa
Thanks Melissa! You remind me of my older sister. She reads the bible every morning. :-)
;)
Distrust for religion should not equate to disbelief in God. That is like deciding diamonds do not exist because you were sold fake ones a few times in a row.
Religion tells us that God is someone who demands praise. But surely a being capable of creating everything we see before us-- including ourselves, would not be so lacking in humility and grace that he, she or it would require their ego stroked in perpetuity.
I think you are right. Religion is most likely bullshit, and nothing more than systems used to control us. However, I feel that if you examine Atheism closely, you will likely find that it too fits all the necessary criteria to be regarded as a religion.
Don't give up on God entirely until you have searched in the right places and still come up short. Whatever those places may be, something tells me religion is not one of them.
Yes! I'm so happy to see atheism being regarded as a religion 3 times this week on steemit. Previously, I had only heard myself say this. Followed!
Many religious and spiritualist people say that as if it is some form of defense when they are demonstrated to believe unreasonable and/or unsubstantiated things. It's basically an ad homenim attack to help them feel as if the position contrary to theirs was as illogical as their own.
Do you have any good reason to claim that atheism is a religion anyway? (note my other comment where I explain why it's not)
I haven't heard it, I don't know many religious people, but I guess I can imagine it being used as a defense.
Agnosticism seems to me like a much more scientific approach to the nature of reality. Not being able to prove something doesn't prove the opposite to be true. I think agnosticism allows you to prefer to believe in no deities without ruling it out entirely.
Agnosticism and atheism are not actually on the same spectrum. Agnosticism is about knowledge while atheism is about belief. Being gnostic means that you claim to know where a deity exists. You can lack belief in a deity without claiming to know for certain.
Your positions on gnosticism and theism don't have to be aligned so you can be a gnostic theists, an agnostic theist, a gnostic atheist or an agnostic atheist.
That is obviously correct. But that doesn't really talk about the general atheist position. When you lack belief in a claim, this doesn't mean that you claim the opposite to be true. You just see no good reason to believe the claim.
Let me explain it from my personal point of view as it would be less confusing. I personally don't believe that there is any convincing evidence to believe that any god exists and thus I do identify myself as an atheist. But I don't claim that it is 100% certain that there is no god as you can't really prove a negative. The exact same logic applies to ferries and leprechauns. You could never prove that ferries and leprechauns don't exist with absolute certainty. The only thing you can do is examine the available evidence and conclude that none of it confirms the existence of ferries and leprechauns. But since we have a lot of data and none of it confirms or implies their existence, it's perfectly reasonable for somebody to not believe in ferries or leprechauns and saying that the logical position is really in the middle ground between believing and not believing is actually fallacious.
In the same way, we have gathered piles of evidence on how the universe works and what the universe is and since none of it proves the existence of god, it's perfectly reasonable to not believe the yet unsubstantiated claim that a god exists. Thus it's quite justified to call yourself an atheist in that case. And this is what I have chosen to do. I don't feel like adding the qualifier agnostic in front of the word atheist despite the fact that it certainly applies for two main reasons - on one hand, it offers very little additional clarity and on the other hand, many people unreasonably view it as the middle ground between theism and atheism and I don't want to fuel a misunderstanding of my position by adding it.
You might feel that way, but that's only because you haven't bothered to actually examine it.
Let me help you with that. Let's start with the definition:
Atheism - the lack of belief in a deity or deities
When somebody is an atheist, this doesn't tell you anything about the rest of their positions, beliefs or their morality. Atheism is not a set of values or even a world view - it's just a way to call the group of people that answer the question Do you believe in a deity or deities?" with No. How does that make that widely diverse group of people a religion? It's like saying that everybody that is not Christian is the same religion - non-Christian...
It doesn't. Disbelief in the existence of a deity or deities for most people stems from the lack of evidence for their existence. Diamonds are something real and demonstrable, not believing in god is like not believing in unicorns as nobody can demonstrate convincingly that they exists. It's the same with god. Until you can prove that a deity of sort exists, it's totally reasonable to not believe that it does.
This is awfully presumptuous of you. I don't know how you can feel that you know me well enough to make such a statement about my experience. I have most certainly examined Atheism very closely, which resulted in me no longer referring to myself as one.
It easy to cite a definition and then act as though that proves something, but it doesn't. An examination should demand one look further than the given definition of any particular word.
I don't have much time but I will try to share my reasoning for the claim as clearly as I can.
I am going to be talking in a general sense, referring to the average person who grows up and churned through a public education system.
As you grow up, you are presented with only two serious theories for where we came from. Creationism, or The Big Bang Theory and Evolution. Through the use of multiple choice questions and "red vs blue" paradigms rampant throughout society, your brain is conditioned to accept beliefs based on the rejection of opposing(and typically limited) choices.
So when one later rejects God and creationism, they subconsciously and automatically invest their belief in the only other viable option that had been presented to them throughout their lifetime- The Big Bang Theory. This results in the lack of the necessity to examine their new belief in the Big Bang Theory with the same level off scrutiny and scepticism.
This is dangerous, because one then invests their faith in the claims of mainstream science by-proxy. This is why almost every, if not every Atheist you meet believes in the big bang theory and evolution as the cause for our existence. Typically, they also dogmatically believe any and all information presented to them under the guise of "scientific research" and thus, they are placing their faith in something they cannot prove for themselves, just like followers of religion.
If you truly spend some time studying evolutionary theory and the big bang theory, and if you do so from an unbiased and open-minded perspective, I believe you will come to the realisation that the claims are just as fanciful as that of most religions.
I suspect you will argue that this is not the journey of all Atheists, and you would be correct. But, it is certainly the journey for a lot of them, myself included. And it is only because of how closely I did examine Atheism and what led me to adopt it as a philosophy, that I was able to put all this together and then come to my own decision for once.
I think you are perhaps just being combative. The analogy was a good one and I see no reason to have to explain it. Also, you could not demonstrate that diamonds, as they are described to us, exist. They are precious because they take however many centuries or millennia to be created.. Can you prove this? No, you can find a scientist to prove it for you with words that they learned from another scientist. That's not proof, unless you have faith in the source of the information. To be clear, I don't believe that diamonds are not a real thing, but my point is that I believe I'd be an idiot to believe 100% that they are what they are reported to be without seeing the transformation from rock to precious stone take place before my very eyes.
Thanks for the lengthy comment. I love long comments coz that simply means people took the time to read my article. :-)
The dogma that most people follow is a total bull. We let the system control us coz it's the best practice most people know. They are scared to get out of their comfort zone and be different. So they go with the flow and associate themselves with religion so people will regard them as their brothers/sisters.
Thanks so much man for your comment, I really appreciate it. Followed you. :)
Well you picked a nice topic. I understand why you'd be frustrated. It's equally hard to be a believer among believers to. Unfortunately becoming a Christian doesn't miraculously empower the person with people skills. There are phases that a person goes through in their faith. Not to mention that true faith is about a relationship with a loving God. Yet so many people get lost in the rules and practises, because of this they attempt to force a religion onto people. I wish you tons success. I've found that God is never late. He knows a person's heart. I've met atheist that are better Christians then most Christians. Lol I pray that God protects you from anyone trying to impose their beliefs on you, and when the time is right he'll work his way into your life. :)
Thanks mate! I really appreacite you saying that. I had so many bashers when they found out that I'm an atheist. Probably, they didn't know the meaning of the word "respect".
Happy weekend mate! :-)
I find they lack tact. Though the bible is full of passages on people skills yet few people take the time to work on theirs. Happy weekend to you. :)
You have a great week ahead! :-)
I like to avoid it as well. It is NOT that I don't believe in a higher conscience to create us, but the religion part is a bit too much for my taste.
In my opinion you can believe whatever you want, as long it doesn't hurt anybody else.
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thanks Etsur! :-)
Bless you 🙏🏽
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god
Yes, that's what I wrote about. About being an atheist. :-)