The New Road

Richard Dawkins

I've always had nagging issues with my atheism. Probably for the same reasons that I'm an atheist in the first place. Which is that I always question things. And Christianity never provided me with any real answers. I would get to the tough questions, and get the inevitable "That's a matter of faith", and when I would push I would invariably get the teed off "how dare yea" reaction.

Aside: I don't get why people take this 'matter of faith' answer lying down. If I had an employee that told me to take something 'on faith', I'd fire his ass in a heartbeat. So if I'm putting money in the coffers then the pastor is my employee, plain and simple. And his job is to give me answers. Not any 'you have to have faith' crap. Oh, and along those lines, with the advent of the "faith based initiative" church welfare program, all of our taxes now pay for those churches. So feel free to ask all the hard questions you want. You own them; priest, cross, collection plate and all.

Before my mom died she asked me some hard questions, like "Where will I go?" And while I don't think she was looking for concrete answers, because she too was an atheist at the time of her death, I didn't have any answers at all for her, and I still don't. The hard reality is that the only people who know what happens after we die aren't in any position to tell us. And the people that say they have the answers, well, they are selling snake oil from what I can see.

Now I have been an atheist for a long time. I've never actually believed in Christianity. I was taken to a church when I was young. I sang the hymns and carols (love the carolling, actually). But I always thought it was bullshit. Nothing anyone said about it made a lick of sense. And I've always thought that it was a strong position to take. Instead of just giving everything over to the "big guy in the sky" I'm taking responsibility for my decisions, both right and wrong, and having a strong moral compass. In particular the moral compass part. Because, frankly, I think it's insulting to think that I would need the threat of some fiery afterlife to make me not rape, kill or steal. (And with the way these theocons split hairs about torture, it makes me wonder if this church thing is helping their moral compass, or giving it some spin, cause their compass is pointing in the wrong direction.)

What I didn't know was that I'm not alone. Turns out Richard Dawkins has been there a long time. And he makes some great points. And he doesn't take any shit. Which I really like. I mean, seriously, beyond the traditional aspect of religion, why should holy men deserve our respect? Priests have raped kids. They should be locked up for life, chemically castrated and never get within 1,000 yards of a kid ever again. And yet still we for whatever reason, give these guys the time of day. Every fact they have; the earth is 6,000 years old, the sun goes around the earth, etc. It's all provably wrong. And yet, people still listen. What's up with that?

So I feel a little better. Of course, I will continue to question my lack of religiosity, in much the same way that I wish religious people would question their beliefs instead of just driving off cliffs like lemmings. Not that I want to take away someones faith. Whatever it takes to get you through the day. But I would rather that the person think twice about taking non-religious folks on the 'crazy train ride' with them. It's fine with me if you want to bring on your own personal apocolypse, but if you are in elected office, please don't use the office to bring apocolypse down on the whole damn planet.