The existence of God

I used to believe in God. ‘No doubt about it’, I remember saying to my friend at primary school (who agreed with me at the time on the subject) ‘if he wasn’t there, there’d be nothing left when we die’. True, true, there wouldn’t be. And there isn’t. It’s unfortunate – and will undoubtedly sound dogmatic – that I have at a reasonably young age concluded that there is no God. It means that I, like my other atheistic friends, have to face up to the prospect of death full-on; ‘no-holds barred’ as they would say in American Wrestling. It is, though, for this reason that I can learn to appreciate life for what it is: fleeting, temporary, but no less joyous as a result. Furthermore, atheism allows for an open-mindedness unknown to the religious, precisely because it does not pretend (or rather, is not deluded into believing itself to be – depending on just how cyncial one really is) to be a licence to allow entrance into heaven, and therefore hold an ultimatum over its would-be-followers. In other words, Atheism doesn’t hold the follower to ransom.

Christianity holds a variety of moral and social axioms which are deemed to be indisputable, presumably because they are ‘God-given’. Stealing is a sin, adultery is a no-no; homosexuality is a moral evil etc etc etc. Many of the maxims are good and noble: ‘do unto others’ and all that. Many, however, such as ‘thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is adomination’ are now thought of as ‘abomination’ themselves; archaic relics from a different historical context that linger like a bad smell in a damp room that not even Febreze can shift. What is important for this discussion, though, is the fact that the Christian moral code is one that is strictly enforced by the suggestion that deviance from it will result unquestionably in damnation.

This is no way of adjudicating moral truth. If anything, it appears as a totalitarian gesture of private oppression towards the masses, who are so deeply – and understandably – concerned about the prosect of death that they will kneel before any vehicle of supposed salvation that may cross their path, even if it forces them to hate homosexuals, never use a condom and give money to the parish on a regular basis. My suggestion here is that moral codes should not operate in this way. Whether one moral code allows access to heaven and another does not should not matter when considering ethics and morality, for these things should be unaccountable to all things other than their own logical value. A discussion on why it is wrong to depise homosexuality is another matter and a deep chasm of a tangent to head into, so I’ll leave that one for a while, but nonetheless we can surely agree that it is wrong to do so, yes? If we decide – as hopefully we have done – that it is wrong to discriminate against homosexuals this is not because we think that it will better our metaphysical situation, but rather because it is logically correct for us to decide so. This is how arguments should be conducted; not at metaphorical gunpoint as occurs with any religion that offers anything in favour of those who subscribe to it. 

 Atheism does not conduct itself in such a way. Therefore, proving that God does not exist (as an obvious prerequisite for atheism) is of paramount importance for it will allow for logical reasoning to progress. 

Activation post

A post simply meant to activate the links to all of the categories that I set up. Only this and nothing more.