(This is the 22nd – and last – question in Brett Keane’s Atheist Challenge)
Yes, I have. To borrow the wisdom of Mark Twain: “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
And that does it for Brett Keane’s 22-question Atheist Challenge. Feel free to look back at all of my answers and see if they spark any new discussions – that’s what this blog is all about!
(This is the 21st question in Brett Keane’s Atheist Challenge)
I’m not sure of the exact process, but I know it involves the brain shutting down, followed by all of the body’s organs and functions that it controls. After that, it’s all rigor mortis and decomposition from there.
I’m still a bit iffy on what this has to do with atheism…
(This is the 20th question in Brett Keane’s Atheist Challenge)
Simply put: Yes.
Not-so-simply put: If there was a way to lie, cheat, steal, or kill to spare the precious lives of myself and my loved ones, I would do it in a heartbeat. Otherwise, yes.
As for the “hell” portion of the question – thinking about which of the many hells from the myriad of world religions that I would go to would take way too long, and probably distract me from jumping in front of the bullet / knife / car / train / herd of water buffalo in order to save my loved one. So I’d probably skip it, for the moment.
(This is the 18th question in Brett Keane’s Atheist Challenge)
I used to strongly support capital punishment, but in recent years, I have begun to rethink my position. I have heard some pretty convincing arguments against it, and I am still considering them.
Since I can’t offer a definite answer at this time, I’m going to bow out of this one for now.
(This is the 16th question in Brett Keane’s Atheist Challenge)
I can’t imagine any situation in which I would approve of torture. I was raised with the understanding that torture is something that the “bad guys” do, and I have always tried my best to remain on the side of the “good guys.”
That may seem old-fashioned, but that’s the way I see it.
(This is the 15th question in Brett Keane’s Atheist Challenge)
Evil, no. Unfortunate, yes.
I would like to live in a world where abortion isn’t necessary, but I’m not sure we ever will. When we can permit ourselves to have good sex education for our young people, and make forms of birth control more readily available to help prevent unwanted pregnancies, there will be a great decrease in the amount of people requesting abortions.
Beyond that, as long as there are medical conditions that threaten the mother, and rape, we will always need to have abortion as an option. The former of these two can be eventually solved by medical science. The latter, unfortunately, will always be with us.
Lying about the abortion procedure to prevent people from having them – such as saying that the procedure increases the risk of breast cancer, or using the racial statistics of abortion recipients to make it appear as if it is some sort of eugenics practice – is pretty evil, in my book. But that’s just because I’m a big fan of the truth.
(This is the 14th question in Brett Keane’s Atheist Challenge)
Okay, let’s get back to these questions – it’s certainly taking me long enough…
Why is stem cell research so important? Because of the diseases it can cure, and the lives it can save. It’s important because it is a beneficial procedure that is being blocked because many people believe that it is immoral to perform it.
(This is the 13th question in Brett Keane’s Atheist Challenge)
If you could go back in time and kill Hitler or Stalin as babies so they never kill the millions in the future, would you do it if time travel was possible?
Kill, no. Prevent all of the destruction and pain that they caused, yes.
(This is the 12th question in Brett Keane’s Atheist Challenge)
How do you feel about government/politics?
I hate* politics**, and I am frequently let down by my government.
And in most cases, I do not discuss religion or politics with anyone. Both subjects are practically guaranteed to reverse the opinion that some people have about you, and usually for the worse.
Oddly enough, I’m a big fan of elections, however. Not the smear campaigns that invariably result, but the debates, the strategies, the predictions, the issues, the counting of the polls on election day – I enjoy those parts of it a lot. I figure that enjoy it the same way that most other people enjoy a big sporting event.
(* Yep, you caught me using the word “hate.” You may also notice that I never use it about people, only ideas and concepts.)
(This is the 11th question in Brett Keane’s Atheist Challenge)
Would the world be a better place without religion?
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: As someone who loves artistic expression, humanism, and scientific discovery, it would be common for most folks to say something along the lines of “What about all of the great things that people have done when inspired by religion?”
Things like:
- Assisting the poor, sick, and homeless at home and abroad
- Building beautiful churches and cathedrals
- Inspiring and commissioning incredible paintings, sculptures, and symphonies
- Promoting scientific discovery and knowledge (particularly during the Golden Age of Islam)
- The hope that religious belief brings to so many people
While I appreciate all of these things, I can’t help but think of two points:
1. All of these things can – and DO – happen without any religion as part of the equation. None of them require a belief in any deity. People would still help others out of the goodness of their hearts, artists, composers, and architects would ply their crafts with just as much passion, and scientific knowledge and discovery would have advanced much further than it has today.
2. This meager list is terribly imbalanced by the great amount of wrong done in the name of religion:
- The witch trials in both Europe and the early US colonies
- The Crusades
- The Inquisition
- Any other religious incursion
- The Taliban, and other theocracies
- The Catholic/protestant wars in Ireland
- The subjugation and physical and emotional abuse of women in any belief system that treats them as second-class citizens (or worse).
- September 11th, 2001, and every other religiously-motivated suicide bombing, big or small
- The recent Ugandan bill to allow the execution of homosexuals and AIDS victims, inspired by books against homosexuality written by American evangelicals
- Rampant (often violent) homophobia, occasionally spouted by closeted homosexuals (Ted Haggard and many others)
- The Westboro Baptist Church
- The Klan and other Christian Identity hate groups
- The Library of Alexandria (if you are unfamiliar with this story, I strongly encourage you to look it up.)
- The Holocaust (Despite what you’ve been told, Hitler was not an atheist, and used his belief in God to justify his holocaust – consider these quotes from him before propagating that myth any further.)
- The Catholic Church’s handling of the pedophile priest scandal
- General religious intolerance and discrimination of any degree
- Satanic panic, and the lives that it ruins
- Parents denying health care for their children because their god would rather be prayed to for assistance
- Megachurches (and the people they bankrupt), faith healers (and the real harm that they do), resurrectionists (yes, there are present-day preachers who claim to raise the dead), prosperity preachers (buy their new books!), and Benny Hinn (redundant, I guess, but I didn’t want to leave him out)
- Willful ignorance, lies, and fear of scientific knowledge and discovery, even in the present day (see Ben Stein’s “Expelled”, Ray Comfort, Ken Hamm, Kent Hovind, the Dover trial, and the Creation Institute for more)
…should I go on, or is that enough?
It is true that people will do good or bad without religion. There were great atrocities committed by atheists – Stalin and Pol Pot are two that are always trotted out in these types of discussions. But they just happened to be nonbelievers – they didn’t commit their atrocities in the name of atheism, the way that Hitler believed that he was doing his god’s work. Likewise, there are racial and homophobic hate groups that have nothing to do with any religious belief.
But all of the above is the product of useless superstition, and we would have been much better off without all of it. Taking religion away doesn’t completely take away terrible ideas and deeds, but it does give us less reason to partake in them.
As for the hope and joy that religion brings to so many – I’ve personally found a neverending supply of both from a real, tangible source. Like Soylent Green, it’s made out of people.
And it’s an awesome buzz, man. You should try it sometime
Ongoing discussion