One of the most common claims about atheists (other than we're evil sinners) is that we hate god. The usual reply is that you can't hate something that doesn't exist. Well, yes and no. There is no being "God" that I direct my hatred toward, but I can hate the concept of such a god.
I hate the concept of a god who would create imperfect humanity, tempt them when they don't know the difference between good and evil, and then punish them and their descendents forever because they disobeyed when they didn't even yet know what that was. I hate teh concept of a god who would condone genocide and rape. I hate the concept of a god who would have rebellious teenagers and gay people stoned. I hate the concept of a god who would have the power to create the universe, but not the motivation to intervene in it to prevent suffering. I hate the concept of a god who would punish someone infinitely for a finite crime.
I hate what the concept of a god does to people. I hate how it makes them kill others who do not believe the same things as they do. I hate how it stifles their intellectual curiosity. I hate how it represses their natural sexuality. I hate how it wastes their time and their lives.
So yes, go ahead and accuse me of hating god. If theists were to prove the existence of god tomorrow, their job would not be done. The mere existence of a god (which is so unlikely anyway) does not mean that god would be worthy of worship. Don't tell me about god's plan, unless god's plan is to hide all evidence of himself, allow massive suffering, and just see what happens. In that case, god is just a big kid with ants and a magnifying glass. And we would all be justified in hating him, IF he existed.
So, I don't hate "god," because there isn't one, but I hate the collection of beliefs that the word "god" usually stands for. I hate religion (which might as well be the same thing to most people).
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28 comments:
There's a long list of things one would have to prove. Even if you could prove the existence of a god, then you have to prove which one, and if it happens to be yours, then you have to prove your holy book is the actual inerrant word of this god, then prove that your interpretations of that book are correct.
Provided a believer could manage all that, then his god would have to do some explaining, like what's up with all the genocide and the genital snips, and why are genitals bad, and why are most of your followers such pushy assholes, and...
I hate people who sneak those "million dollar bills" or chick tracts into the textbooks that I buy from the university book store.
I could no more hate God than I can hate Darth Vader. Which is to say... I really don't like the horrific, genocidal things that Vader did; but then again, Vader is an imaginary character, and the people he killed aren't real either. To the extent that his actions are reprehensible, they're simply projections of human traits carried to an imaginary extreme. And so it is with God. No point in hating something that isn't real.
kazim,
You say that you can't hate a fictional character, but god is just as much an idea as a character. Can you not say, "I hate rascism," or "I hate communism." I have edited my post some to make it more clear that I hate the concept of god, not the character/person of a (nonexistant) god.
Sure, I could have just said "I hate religion," but religion is the codification of practices surrounding a concept of god. The idea that there is some higher presence that you owe a debt to greater than the respect you owe your fellow humans is the root s lot of violence and oppression.
If theists were to prove the existence of god tomorrow, their job would not be done. The mere existence of a god (which is so unlikely anyway) does not mean that god would be worthy of worship.
In this hypothetical God would be worthy of worship. Sure, he'd be a tyrannical monster BUT one would have to worship Him to deflect the certainty of eternity in hellfire.
Although having said that, it would be hard for me to genuinely worship a God whose sole claim to my adoration was the gun He was holding against my head.
Then we end up with a conundrum, because if our worship is not pure, we'd be cast into the pit anyway - we'd want to worship out of self-interest, but it would need to be out of, er, 'love.'
"Sure, I could have just said "I hate religion," but religion is the codification of practices surrounding a concept of god."
Well then I think you should have said that, because religion is not simply the codification of practices surrounding a concept of god, but PREDICATED on and JUSTIFIED by a concept of god. It's not the concept, but codification of practices that are worthy of contempt. This is like hating guns for what people do with them, when it's what people do with them that is the problem, not the guns. Religion is the same way, only unlike guns, god isn't real.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
Yes, accepting the concept of a god can be troubling. It can lead to an erosion of critical thinking, intellectual laziness, gullibility, and a break with reality, but it's the actions which one takes which are predicated on and justified by this concept that you should hate. Removing the concept of god may eliminate today's religions from having justification for their actions, but it doesn't remove the desire in some to commit evil acts and find some grand justification for them. Communists replaced god with state. Nazis replaced god with race and Fatherland. Bush administration replaced fear of god with fear of terrorists. It's not the concept, but what's done with it.
It is possible to hate fictional characters. Take Popeye character Bluto for example. How could you not hate that guy?
OT, you should drop Mojoey a line and join the atheist blogroll. It will give you some more exposure, and it looks like you have the makings of a very good blog.
god is not fictional, like i said before, just because you IGNORE the existence of something, does not make it go away.
but to your point, i say its clear anger AGAINST god, and not the 'god believing people'. you stated early in your thread that you wanted to have sex with however, whenever without any consequence. and god is in your way with that with his moral and ethics, so you cant possible say your EMOTIONS are not in the way.
you want to do whatever you feel like, and here god comes with MORAL and ETHICAL conduct which simple does not 'fly' with how you want to live the world.
but as you deletee any 'unsuitable' messages (ie, the ones telling you the truth you dont want to hear), i guess im just wasting my time. you are only here to have other communist atheist telling you 'you are right' and banning anyone else.
aaron
"god is not fictional, like i said before..."
Yes, we heard you all those other times, too. Thing is, there's no magic number of times you can say it that makes it true.
And here, in Aaron, is proof of my point. Is it really the concept of god that's worth hating or the ignorance, the stubbornness, the lack of respect, and the general nonsense carried out by him in the name of that concept? Sadly, I think that without that concept our Aaron here would still be an ass, only he'd find some other justification for being so.
god is not fictional, like i said before, just because you IGNORE the existence of something, does not make it go away.
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Like Leprechauns? There is no evidence for either, and there should be an abundance of evidence if God existed.
but to your point, i say its clear anger AGAINST god, and not the 'god believing people'. you stated early in your thread that you wanted to have sex with however, whenever without any consequence. and god is in your way with that with his moral and ethics, so you cant possible say your EMOTIONS are not in the way.
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Christians can't even agree on morality. Give me a break. Humans were moral even before our ancestors could walk on two legs. And there are consequences of not going along with the social contract. Extinction as a species is the big one.
you want to do whatever you feel like, and here god comes with MORAL and ETHICAL conduct which simple does not 'fly' with how you want to live the world.
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Is the death penalty moral? Some theists say yes, some say no. There is no such thing as absolute morality. The closest thing we have are the laws of each individual state or country.
but as you deletee any 'unsuitable' messages (ie, the ones telling you the truth you dont want to hear), i guess im just wasting my time. you are only here to have other communist atheist telling you 'you are right' and banning anyone else.
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Communism is actually a concept from the NT that goes with Jesus' mythological teachings.
BTW, there are over 30 million atheists in the US and Canada alone. How many are members of the Communist party?
Even if you could prove the existence of a god, then you have to prove which one, and if it happens to be yours, then you have to prove your holy book is the actual inerrant word of this god, then prove that your interpretations of that book are correct.
And, of course, you also have to establish that said god created human life with meaning and purpose, especially the sort that theists want from their god. Theists don't want the kind of god that determines that their M&P requires them to go hell forever.
Aaron writes,
god is not fictional, like i said before, just because you IGNORE the existence of something, does not make it go away.
The bible promotes belief in witches and witchcraft. I ignore people who call themselves "witches" all the time, and I have done none the worse for it.
Moreover, billions of human lives have come and gone while ignoring this god of yours. What harm have they suffered for it?
I thought aaron was a fictional character...dang...
Doubting Foo may be right, it is better to think of Aaron as fictional. Then he's just a comical little scamp. Thinking he's real is scary and sad.
phillychief,
Then the problem is really even more basic than that. It's not just god, it's not religion, it's DOGMA we should hate. We should hate when anyone holds an idea out as unquestionable based solely on unearned authority. If we always evaluated claims rationally, then we'd keep ourselves out of trouble with relgion, communism, and other evils.
I love all y'all, by the way. :)You really bring up some good points and help me to clarify things in my own mind. Even Aaron has his purpose.
We should loathe any effort that seeks to deny critical thinking, questioning, and challenges to it. Truth can withstand such things, errors and lies cannot.
My mother once told me that anyone who claims to have all the answers is either crazy or trying to sell you something. I don't think this was the intended message, but I've always found that saying to be true in religious matters as well.
P.S. This is Microbiologychick's friend/classmate from the university (the one who studies E. coli, in case you haven't already guessed). I stumbled across your blog yesterday and I'm enjoying every word ;) Keep writing!
Micro, couldn't agree more. I've been saying for a while that the main cultural divide is not between "theists" and "atheists"; it's more importantly between those who view "faith" rather than "evidence" as a legitimate general means to discover knowledge.
Many theists don't fall into this category. Some of them feel that they have had a personal encounter with God which, while convincing to them, they acknowledge cannot be used to convert anyone else. Many others simply compartmentalize "god" away from everything else, and treat the rest of their lives rationally.
But then you have the really dangerous ones, such as members of the Bush administration. These are the guys who apply "faith" to their decision making at all levels. They come to a conclusion first, and then look for facts that support the conclusion. It's anti-science, and it's one of the most dangerous things in all human societies.
I could hug you.
Wow. A blog with actual smart people. You have no idea how glad I am to find this. Thank you for being smart!
P.S. This person who commented here, Aaron, I believe is perpetrating one of my all-time favorite evangelizing techniques---the Theory of Assertion. I describe it in detail in a post I made on Myspace a couple days ago.
But yeah. Rock on with the using of the brains, and the whatnot!
thegecko,
Hey! Glad to have you here. Be sure to share the blog with your man, too. But not anyone else in our lab, ok? :)
I totally agree with you and admire the way you put it. Very will written!
Show what to who? ;)
Don't worry, nobody else hears about it unless you decide to tell them.
"Don't tell me about god's plan, unless god's plan is to hide all evidence of himself, allow massive suffering, and just see what happens."
Beautifully spoken, Microbiologychick. For some reason, that assertion really resonated with me.
I also liked the clarification that proving god's existence wouldn't do the trick of convincing people they ought to worship them. In a forum on atheism and ethics last semester that my significant other and I attended, one of the presentations listed off the horrible characteristics found in the Bible's description of god (jealousy, wrath (isn't that supposed to be a sin anyway?), etc), and used that as an argument against his existence. But my significant other raised an excellent question from this: all these descriptions don't necessarily negate god's existence; why couldn't the faithful just conclude that there still is a god, he's just not worthy of our worship? That got some amusing nonverbal responses from the audience. Not exactly the same criticism, but it got a neat point across.
Glad I found your blog, you and your commenters make many excellent points.
I liked what microbiologychick said about including dogma among the concepts we should hate. Religion as dogma has drenched the world in blood. It says, believe as I do, or I will kill you.
That was an excellent post. I found your blog through the Friendly Atheist and have subscribed to the feed - I'm glad I found it =)
This post reminds me of a quote I ran into on the 'net a while back: "I wouldn't follow god to stay out of hell just as I wouldn't follow Hitler to stay out of Auschwitz."
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