Athiest

I’ve had to tear myself away from watching Marvel’s Daredevil series to write this, which is not an easy thing to do given the quality of it. But I promised to blog at least once a week and so I really must get on and right something. Today I am discussing being an atheist because it’s a subject I have meant to tackle on this blog for some time and haven’t yet.

Apparently this is the symbol for atheism. I was amused by how much it resembles the Starfleet Insignia from Star Trek

Firstly, I feel I should first say that I fully respect religion. It’s great if you believe in something and I don’t think any less of people that do. I am not so keen when people try and drag me into their beliefs and dislike it when a religion says some people are not equal, like homosexuals or women, but on the whole I am happy for people to believe whatever they believe.

I think there are some common misconceptions about atheists. One is perhaps that they hate religion. Perhaps in some cases that is true but for the most part I don’t think it is- it’s certainly not true in my case. There’s a big difference between not believing in something and hating it. The even more common misconception is that atheists don’t believe anything at all. That’s rubbish frankly. I believe in what science tells us, in the big bang theory and survival of the fittest. I have various moral beliefs, which actually have a lot in common with most religions, the biggest of them all being that everyone is equal.

I could well have been a Christian. I was brought up in a fairly Christian place. I don’t know the statistics but I suspect the number of church-goers in our town is considerably higher than the national average. My primary school, although not a church school, considered itself to be Christian and we sang hymns and even learnt the Lord’s Prayer. But I always felt a little uncomfortable with it, not really believing. Perhaps when I was very young I did believe but as soon as I was old enough to think about such things I realised I did not.

Frankly, it is not something I think about very often. I suppose if you are Christian or Muslim or whatever religion you are, your belief and your worship becomes a part of your everyday life. It doesn’t really work like that as an atheist, it’s not like I regularly think about God not existing.

There was a time though when I really had to think about it. When I was about 18 my girlfriend was being gradually sucked into the church. Inevitably, I found myself attending some church services. When you are an insecure teenage boy who has accidentally found a girl that will go out with him, you tend to do what that girl asks you to do, even if you don’t like it. I can distinctly remember sitting in the service baffled as I listened to someone talk about Christianity as if it was true. I sometimes find it hard to remember that people genuinely believe in God and Jesus etc, so far away from my thinking it seems.

The worst service I went to was my girlfriend’s baptism. I desperately didn’t want to go because I knew I wouldn’t like the whole thing. Inevitably, I ended up attending. I felt really uncomfortable as my then girlfriend gave herself to Jesus. It struck me how similar a baptism is to a wedding. Obviously it’s not meant romantically but the jealously swum up inside me. When you’ve been going out with someone for the best part of two years you want to hear them talk about devoting themselves to you, not to someone you consider at best a historical figure.

Ultimately, I think the religious difference was one of the main reasons we split up. It was never explicitly said but I always knew that being an atheist ruined the most meaningful relationship I ever had. That’s what it so odd about being an atheist. You don’t really get anything from it, it’s never done anything positive for my life. I think I need the sort of guidance a religion can give more than most people do, yet I’ve not been able to have it. Religion is a way of explaining the world and your place in it, and without that I still have no idea of my place.

Goodness, this is getting deep. It all went a bit X-Files there- “I want to believe”. The point is, I don’t. I suppose the main reason is that I’ve always been interesting in history and science. History tells me that religion has been used as an excuse for war, for hatred of others and as a way of controlling the lower classes. Science explains how the universe and humans came into existence and there is evidence to support it. I believe in empirical evidence and actually would accept that God exists if there was evidence for it. There is no evidence and no one can argue that there is. There is nothing to say the bible or any other religious text is ‘real’ that the stories within actually happened. They could be true, but there is no other evidence to support them.

But that’s the point of ‘faith’ isn’t it? You believe without evidence.

Hopefully I got through all that whilst managing to be both respectful and honest, not an easy balance on such a subject. I know in my blogging community there are a fair few Christians and if you are one and have actually read all the way through this post, then I salute you. We all, myself included, need to be better at listening to other people’s views. Thanks all for reading and I promise things will be a lot less serious in my next post!