Category: Atheism

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Most inclusively, atheism is the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which, in its most general form, is the belief that at least one deity exists.

If Atheism is a Religion…

Critics of atheism, usually conservative Christians, assert that atheism is a religious belief. It is somewhat bizarre that people, who so strongly cherish the sanctity of their own beliefs, should characterize something so alien to them, as atheism is, as being a religion. – RationalWiki.org

Is Atheism a Philosophy, Religion or a Belief System? Answer: None of the above.Atheist Scarlet Letter

Atheism is not a religion. Neither is atheism a belief or a philosophy. Atheism is merely the word that describes the absence of a belief in a deity (god or gods). An atheist is a person who does not believe in a deity (god or gods). This is difficult for many people to understand.

This concept of “lack of belief in a god” is difficult for many people to understand. For people of faith, the concept of someone not having a religion is unimaginable. Everyone believes in something, right? Non-belief must therefore be a belief.To make it easier for people to understand,

To make it easier for people to understand, atheists have developed a set of clever analogies to demonstrate the point.

Analogies that can be used to explain the lack of belief are:

  • If atheism is a religion, not collecting stamps is a hobby.
  • If atheism is a religion, then pedestrians should be ticketed for driving their cars under the speed limit.
  • If atheism is a religion, then bald is a hair color.
  • If atheism is a religion, then death is a way of life.
  • If atheism is a religion, then “nowhere” is a place.
  • If atheism is a religion, then being dead is being alive.
  • If atheism is a religion, then silence is a language.
  • If atheism is a religion, then not drinking alcohol is alcoholism.
  • If atheism is a religion, then doing drugs is an addiction.
  • If atheism is a religion, then “off” is a television channel.
  • If atheism is a religion, then health is a disease.
  • If atheism is a religion, then abstinence is a sex position.
  • If atheism is a religion, then disinterest in cats equals zoophilia.
  • If atheism is a religion, then silence is a volume.
  • If atheism is a religion, then not playing football is a sport.

The suffix has more than one meaning.

The freedictionary.com defines the suffix, “ism,” as “an unspecified doctrine, system, or practice”. Often words that describe philosophical, religious or political belief systems often end with the “ism” suffix. Some examples of belief systems that use the “ism” suffix are hedonism, humanism, fatalism, fundamentalism, Catholicism, Judaism, Buddhism, liberalism, communism, and socialism.

Unfortunately, atheism ends in the suffix “ism”. Does this mean that atheism is also a philosophical or religious belief system? No, it does not. The suffix “ism” also means “state, condition, attribute, or quality” or an “action, process, or result” or a “behavior or quality”. Such words would include puerilism, pauperism, mechanism, senilism, colloquialism, heroism, criticism, cubism, or metabolism.

Senilism is defined as, “premature old age.” Cubism is a nonobjective school of painting and sculpture. Colloquialism is a word or phrase appropriate to conversation and other informal situations.

The meaning of the word atheism is also very clear. There is not a god. There are no gods. Atheism is the lack or absence of belief in the existence of a god or gods. The lack of belief is not a belief.

I am an atheist. I am godless.

RICHARD DAWKINS

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The Seven Points of the Fire and Brimstone Sermon

On January 12, 2015, Jon Webster, atheist blogger at Examiner.com, wrote an article entitled, “The 6 Emotional Manipulations of the Fire and Brimstone Sermon“. He lists the six ways that Christians manipulate people emotionally as: shame, paranoia, guilt, fear, hope and peace (of mind).

Fire and Brimstone
“Florence Cathedral” by Gareth Williams 2006

I don’t have any problem with his six points. A lot of the sermons I went to followed this pattern fairly often. I would like to add one of my own points based on my experiences. I spent most of my youth and teenage years being subjected to this type of preaching.

The Seven Emotional Manipulations of the Fire and Brimstone Sermon

  1. Shame – They made you feel like a dirty sinner.
  2. Paranoia – The gods know all about your dirty little secrets (usually sexual) and your horrible thoughts. Your actions, your sinful thoughts and lusts are filthy
  3. Guilt/Worthlessness – You are dirty. The gods can’t handle the presence of filth. The gods reject you in your present worthless condition.
  4. Fear – If you continue to behave “of the world” by committing sin, you are going to go to hell. Eternal torment awaits the sinners. You will be cast into the lack of fire, where you will burn for eternity.
  5. Hope – Here’s the good news. Jesus was sent down from Heaven to save you from his fathers rather. His blood sacrifice has cleansed you.
  6. Easy Fix/Peace – All you have to do is accept Jesus as your savior and all your sins are forgiven. That’s it. It is easy and you can do it right now even if you have doubts. Faith comes later. You will be rewarded with an eternity of pleasure.
  7. Urgency – Do it now. You could die in a car crash on the way home. You never know when you are going to do, so you have to act before it is too late.


Mr. Webster also writes, “Anytime you hear a person of faith say to a non-believer, ‘Open your heart to Jesus,’ it means one thing: open yourself up to be emotionally manipulated, because belief doesn’t have anything to do with emotions, but rather intellect and critical thinking.”

I think this is completely wrong. During an emotionally charged Fire and Brimstone sermon, people are operating on pure feelings. Their emotions are being manipulated. They are feeling the passion of the pulpit. The music involved is very dramatic. The unbeliever is being masterfully terrified and then given a chance to escape the horrors of hell. There is also immediate peer pressure from all the other believers in the room. Most unbelievers are taken to the sermon by family members or friends. Those theists are most likely putting pressure on the unbeliever to “open their heart” and to accept Jesus before it is too late. They are encouraged to believe even if they don’t. Faith comes later. The whole experience is designed to get one excited, to follow one’s feelings and to stop thinking. They even say, “Don’t trust your mind; follow your heart.”

During the emotionally charged Fire and Brimstone sermon, people are operating on pure emotion. They are feeling the general the passion of the pulpit. The music involved is very dramatic. The unbeliever was masterfully terrified and then given a chance to escape the horrors of hell. There is also gentle peer pressure from all the other believers in the room. Most unbelievers are taken to the sermon by family members or friends. Those theists are also most likely putting mild pressure on the unbeliever to open their heart and to accept Jesus. They are encouraged to believe even if they don’t. Faith comes later. The whole experience is designed to get one excited and to follow one’s feelings. They even say, “Don’t trust your mind; follow your heart.”

To say that the Fire and Brimstone sermon elicits “intellect and critical thinking” is to say that converting to Christianity is logical. If that were true, there would be no need for a Fire and Brimstone sermon to convert people to Christianity. There would also be no need to break people down by shaming them and making them feel terrible. These sermons are dramatic, emotional manipulations, not pleas to reasons. If critical thinking were involved, evidence would be all that it took to convince intelligent people of the message being sold.

The best way to avoid being tricked and manipulated by these con-artists is to learn how to critically think. A really good resource for critical thinking is Stuart Sutherland’s book, “Irrationality – The Enemy Within“. Each time I read this book, I discover new ways that my reasoning is flawed. Fuzzy logic needs to be erased. We all trick ourselves into making bad decisions. Stuart Sutherland’s book will help you learn the art of thinking clearly.

Lastly, I recommend going to Jon Webster‘s blog and supporting a fellow atheist.

“Florence Cathedral” by Gareth Williams (CC BY 2.0)

The Modified Dawkins 7-Point Scale

It has been several years since I first read Richard Dawkins, “The God Delusion”. At the time I read the book, I was already an atheist, but I thought that religion was still a force that produced mostly beneficial results. After reading the book, I no longer thought that religion was necessary at all.

In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins formulated a seven-point belief scale from 1 (total theist) to 7 (total atheist).

Richard Dawkins Seven-Point Scale:

  • Strong Theist: 100 per cent probability of God. In the words of C.G. Jung: “I do not believe, I know.”
  • De facto Theist: Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. “I don’t know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there.”
  • Leaning towards Theism: Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. “I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.”
  • Completely Impartial: Exactly 50 per cent. “God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.”
  • Leaning towards Atheism: Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. “I do not know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be skeptical.”
  • De facto Atheist: Very low probability, but short of zero. “I don’t know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.”
  • Strong Atheist: “I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung knows there is one.”

After reading Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris, I have come to the conclusions that not only is religion unnecessary, religion is a force of evil in the world. The only way the humanity will be able to move forward will be for religion to be completely debunked and abolished.

Since Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and other modern atheists writers and scientists began directly challenging religion, a new description for atheists has started to be used: New Atheist. I have therefore modified the Seven-Point Scale by adding an 8th point.

The Bionichead Ten-Point Scale From Braindead Theism to Vehement Anti-Theism:

  1. Braindead Theist: I am 100% sure the gods exist. I have total FAITH in the gods. No amount of evidence disproving the existence of gods will ever change alter my beliefs. All such evidence is the devil’s work.
  2. Strong Theist: I am 100% sure the gods exist. I KNOW the gods exist.
  3. De-facto Theist: I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in the gods and I live my life on the assumption that they are there.
  4. Agnostic Theist: I cannot know whether the gods exist, but I am inclined to believe in deities.
  5. Pure Agnostic: God’s existence and non-existence are have the exact same degree of logical or mathematical probability. There is a  50/50 percent chance either way.
  6. Agnostic Atheist: I cannot know whether the gods exist, but I’m inclined to be skeptical.
  7. De-facto Atheist: I cannot know for certain, but I think the gods are very improbable and I live my life under the assumption that they are not there.
  8. Strong Atheist: I am 100% sure that there are no gods.
  9. New Atheist: Fuck the gods. I am 100% sure that there are no gods of any kind. I think religion is a disease. I would like to see all forms of religion abolished.
  10. Vehement Anti-Theist: “Even if there were a God, and this God came to me in the manner with which he visited Old Job, not only would I still count myself an Atheist, I would spit in God’s face, call him and imbecile and kill myself right in front of him… and do you know what…there is nothing he could do to stop me… there is nothing God could do to manipulate my free will to utterly and completely reject his plan for the universe, reject his version of Good and Evil, reject his justification of Suffering, his promise of Salvation, his bullshit poetry, his lunatic prophets , his idiot child molesting Priests, his impolite church ladies in fine dresses that never think an original thought in their lives, his useless crusades based on faith, his useless martyrdoms based on faith, his narcissistic urge to be worshiped, his neurotic jealousy at not being loved, his demand to be the one and only truth, his intolerance of human creativity, his intolerance of human instinct, his coercive sexual prohibitions, his passivity at the torture and death of innocent people, his passivity in allowing human development to fail, his passivity in not giving good counsel to those who prayed for it, his passivity for not intervening to save us from environmental disasters, his passivity in not saving us from starvation or greed or jealousy or hatred or slavery or any other imaginable nastiness this world has to offer…you see, I do not just ‘lack faith’ in a God, I utterly condemn and renounce all possible gods as demiurgical whispers of pure neurosis and evil… I utterly forsake the need to praise anything, either human or divine… I hate Humanity, I hate ignorance, I hate God, I hate hypocrisy, I hate religion, and I hate every speck of dust in this entire abysmal universe and I cry out to the unresponsive Heavens and in my perpetual misery and hysteria and anxiety and fear and dread and nausea over having been born, I cry out for this wretched dream to end… I cry out that no more torments should be visited upon mankind… I cry out that all life should end… that the entire cosmos should one day resolve upon an infinite and serene silence, never again to be troubled by the voice of man nor God nor woman either… just let it all cease to move, cease to feel, cease to burn, cease to explode, cease to dream, cease to wish, cease to pray, cease to love, cease to sing and cease to hope… because at bottom, my very worst and most inhuman complaint against God and the Universe is that I should feel or have felt any affinity for it whatsoever.”

Point 10 is taken from the Kindle book “Atheism is Winning” by Anonymous. The Kindle book is available as a free download at Amazon.com.