An interesting article I found.
Dear Christian, I am an atheist…
By Alegria —
Dear Christian,
I am an atheist, that is, from Greek, ‘a-theos’, meaning, ‘without a God’. I do not believe in your God, nor do I believe in the Son/Younger God, or the Holy Spirit/Deceased God(?). I do not believe in Hell, nor do I believe in Heaven. So I ask you, why can’t you put forward a nice argument for believing in God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit without resorting to ‘but you’ll burn in Hell’ and ‘but you won’t go to Heaven’. I repeat, I do not believe in these two metaphysical places and therefore threatening me with eternal damnation is like threatening a mature, intelligent, grown man by telling him that Santa won’t bring him presents.
Furthermore; your continued attempts to tell me that ‘atheism is a religion’ are laughable at best, weepable at worst. Can you remember what ‘atheism’ meant, that’s right; ‘without a God’, from Greek ‘a-theos’. This simply means I don’t believe in a God, an Allah, a Yahweh, or an entire menagerie of Gods and Goddesses. It implies no other beliefs apart from that one. Atheism is a word created simply to define lack of belief in a God, just as bald is a word created simply to define lack of hair on the head. To put it as someone whom I can’t remember said, ‘saying that atheism is a religion is like saying that bald is a hair colour’. Just as ’empty’ is a word created to explain the absence of, well, anything, atheism is a word created to explain the absence of belief in God. Empty isn’t a thing, a place can’t be ‘full of empty’, (unless you’re trying to be poetic, silly, or are genuinely stupid), so is atheism not a religion.
Well I think we’ve made progress, my dear Christian. But we’re not finished yet. Your kind but ridiculous talk of how, ‘you respect my atheism but why don’t I just leave Christianity alone since it’s not doing anything to me’ is next on my little waltz through your arguments.
you know what I hate most about your – loving – religion? I hate it because it demeans Humanity. Why can’t I just leave Christians alone since they aren’t doing anything to me? Well, I’m surprised this is even a question. I will leave Christianity alone when it stops telling people that they’re worthless, that they must be show the ‘love’ of God; I will leave Christianity alone when it stops coming round my neighbourhood, knocking on my door and telling me I must repent, that I am a sinful wicked person because I dare to think for myself and not donate to the upkeep of big useless churches, I will leave Christianity alone when I am no longer demanded to ‘respect’ it and other religions, all while they preach that homosexuals are abominations and must be killed, that non-believers must be shown the light or else, that any non-believer who doesn’t repent will suffer eternal torture at the hands of a loving Father; I will leave Christianity alone when it stops claiming to have a monopoly on morality, saying that people cannot be good without religion, and, even despite this monopoly on ‘morality’, still preaches hatred towards gays, unequal rights towards women, and non-believers, I would argue that Christians are less moral that most, since they require an incentive to be kind, in this case, Heaven.
But you want to know why I hate Christianity, dear Christian? You want to know why I loathe your ‘religion of love’? I hate it because it has started some of the deadliest conflicts in history; the Crusades, the Huguenot Wars, the French Wars of Religion, the Taiping Rebellion, the Thirty Years War. I hate your religion because it tells us that any of the billions of Humans in the past who didn’t believe in God are burning in Hell, even if they lived in the most remote jungle village and had no way of even knowing about God. I hate your religion because it claims that people like me are evil and incapable of kindness, and then goes and spends millions on mega-churches rather than aiding the poor and starving. I hate your religion because it keeps society back, because it stifles creativity and holds back science due to its archaic laws. I hate your religion because you claim God answered your prayer to let there be beef on the menu at lunch today, while on the news we hear of mass-starvation in Africa, or that a plane has crashed and everyone died, or that a man has shot several people dead, and yet God is loving because beef was on your pathetic menu for lunch; where were their prayers? Being ignored so you could have your beef, no doubt.
But you know what I hate most about your – loving – religion? I hate it because it demeans Humanity. I hate it because it claims that Humanity is nothing unless worshipping and serving God in some way. I hate it because it treats people as nothing but God’s possessions. I hate it because it insists that we are nothing but a slave-race, destined to pander to the whims of a certifiably megalomaniacal, angry, vengeful and sadistic Man-in-the-Sky. I hate your religion because you try to spread this shit, you try to force everyone else to recognise that they can never be anything else but slaves, when really, Humanity has the potential to be so beautiful. When really, so many people create wonderful things, write, draw, paint, compose, say, sing, dance, make, wonderful things. Everybody has that potential to be so beautiful, and yet your archaic religion insists that they are nothing but a slave-race, that they mustn’t be beautiful because God doesn’t care for Human potential, he only wants their adoration to satisfy his ego-complex. How can you honestly stand there and tell me that homosexuality is wrong and should be illegal, or even punishable by death? Have you ever been in love? You can’t choose who you fall in love with! How can you say that such as beautiful, cherished and heart-warming thing such as love can ever be wrong and evil? How can you claim that two people of the same-sex will be forever tortured by a ‘loving’ God because they fell in love, they didn’t choose to fall in love, no one can choose who they love.
I hate your religion, dear Christian, because it stands as nothing more than a way of trying to attack what you cannot understand. It has nothing to do with me being ‘narrow-minded’, nothing to do with me being ‘controlled by the Devil’, nothing to do with me being ‘a hate-filled person’; I hate your religion because it does not understand the beauty that is the Human race; the depths of our emotions, the breadths of our minds; the fiery love that sweeps us up and takes us to the arms of another; that passion under the oak tree as two men kiss. It doesn’t understand that moment of silence in the universe as two female lovers stare into each others eyes, that infinite wonder as we create our own salvation; as we, instead of depending upon others telling us what to do, create our own purpose and shape our universe. The great beauty of the Human race is and always will be our emotions, our curiosity; we see something we don’t understand and we try to comprehend it, we try to see how it works, we experiment, we learn, we grow, we think and we question. Your religion doesn’t understand these things, it never has.
