#athiesim

“There are no stories told in a vacuum,

there is no prophecy lighting our way.

There is just a lot of darkness to be afraid of,

so it's a good thing we are not afraid.

There is no superman in that phone booth,

there is no rewarding our faith.

There is no one who can save us,

so it’s a good thing we don’t need to be saved.

There are no starships in low earth orbit,

no aliens to save us from ourselves

There is no voice willing to speak for us,

So it’s a good thing we know how to yell!

There is no chosen one, no destiny, no fate,

there's no such thing as magic

there is no light at the end of this tunnel

(Disclaimer: This post was written without knowledge of the incident that occured at Chapel Hill. It is an unfortunate coincidence and I meant no harm by my words) 

So I've been browsing some post by the rationalist community (I'm pretty sure, still a very new area I'm looking at), and some of the attitudes I've seen have been somewhat odd to me to say the least. There is seems to be a somewhat obsessive desire for knowledge/intelligence, and it's pretty scary to someone like myself who just can't fathom the attraction to the pursue the science's myself. The extent that this seems to go from what little I've seen is really unsettling as it just seems almost unhealthy to me.

Now seeing that, I got thinking on the aspect of religion and just how it's perceived by communities such as the above and the atheist sect. It's very much viewed often with a lot of disdain (at least it seems to me), be it "backward views", causes of "war", holding society back, etc. All those outcomes of religion are always examined with a fine tooth comb, but I feel like the base of religion is rarely examined by these communities, let alone analysed on how they might affect themselves.

Now I consider myself Christian, I've never really ever had any experience with the stereotype of the creationist or anti-gay and have always had a positive experience with it. I was truly being fair, I'd probably be agnostic, but I guess I'm just hopeful. When I look to religion, I try to look for the benefits in it, rather than all the downsides that is always proudly displayed by it's opponents. I see the community, the laws and the hope that we gain from it. I look for the reasons religion has been able to survive for all these years as humans have developed and why it has basically been an important part of how humans have lived. I look into the proponents and see the universal similarities and how religion has helped us get where we are. But as soon as we have gotten to the point where we can "prove" religion false, we all seem pretty eager to just abandon it to the wind and I don't know if that's necessarily wise. There is a reason religion has been a constant feature in all of human civilizations, and a lot of it seems to be human nature. So what happens to that nature when you remove religion?

Now I'm just a random guy on a computer with basic understanding of philosophy, psychology, and history, but it just seems like to me we have these people who have really just ditched one answer for another (though has evidence) but the all the other aspects that create a religion are just left in a giant mess of what to do and what to grab onto. What I see when I look at the rationalist community is more people who have decided to become "priests" of their answer to the world, almost to the point of obsession. And while that's fine, they also lack the support of the rest of the community that a priest or monk would have, or the awareness of the situation they're in. What I see when an atheist is an asshole and attacks religion, I just see one guy in a religion attacking another religion for not praying the right way, accept he doesn't even have a way to pray. And I just see these aspects in a lot of how these communities/individuals act while simultaneously having an air of smugness over those religious people being in sky people. It just seems like hypocrites to an extent who just aren't aware that they don't realize that they may themselves end up displaying those negative aspects of religion that they dislike.

Again, I'm just a dude rambling at a computer who is probably ignorant at too many things, but this seems kind of like a growing trend and to see it unregulated while also being oblivious to the fact that they are starting to display those characteristics that they dismiss makes me kind of scared. It's a type hypocrisy that they likely don't realize they are exhibiting and can be harmful if it continues to grow in a certain way. While religion isn't perfect and definitely has caused a lot of issues, we've still managed to survive this long despite those faults and I think we might need to potentially address a nonreligious society that acts religious in many of the negative ways.

Anyways, I should stop since I just want to get this out. I do want to explore more into this topic (likely with actual research), and would like to discuss it with anyone if they care (if anyone reads this anyways >_>).