The Problem I Have With Atheism

It’s a negative thought. That is, it merely takes a position against something.

And, while I proudly call myself an atheist - a person with no belief in gods - I am a whole lot more than that. Aren’t you?

I now fully realize this as the purpose for this blog - to explore all that I stand for and, hopefully, to get you thinking along the same lines. Previous posts are consistent with this purpose. Now, I’m stating it explicity.

A plan for this blog - and my life - is starting to come together.

July 10, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, finding meaning

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The Lord’s Prayer - Sung by a 2 Year Old

A co-worker sent this to me - presumably because she thought it was cute. It did nothing except make me fill ill. If that weren’t enough to make me blow chunks there is a whole youtube channel devoted to this child’s religious indoctrination.

July 8, 2008 · Filed Under religulous, video

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U.S. Doesn’t Have a Monopoly on Fundie/Creationist Crap

Much of the ridicule aimed at fundamentalists and creationists is directed at the US Bible Belt. I’m not from there. I’m Canadian.

And while many people are correct to say that Canada has much less of this garbage going on, there is one province that is the exception. That province is where I make my home - the province of Alberta.

Alberta is known as the most conservative province in Canada. There are good reasons for it being included in a recent variation of the United States of Canada and Jesusland map.

After all, we have our very own Big Valley Creation Museum. Yay Alberta.

dinosaurs among humans

July 7, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, religion

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My Atheism Advocacy Rating - What’s Yours?

Following up on yesterday’s post, here’s where I’m putting myself on what I’ve decided to call my Atheism Advocacy Scale (I should probably update the graphic):

  • Atheism: 6 out of 7 (using Dawkins 7 point scale, I am a “De facto Atheist”)
  • Antitheism: 7 out of 10
  • Evangelism: 8 out of 10
  • Militancy: 5 out of 10 (hopelessly non-committal - give me some time!)

I rate myself 30 out of 37 possible advocacy points. It’ll be interesting to see where I put myself on these scales one year from now.

(I’m really starting to think this would be a cool survey)

July 6, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, finding meaning

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What Kind of Atheist Are You? Place Yourself on the Atheist Advocacy Scale

After my de-conversion to atheism, I was compelled to contribute - to share the great joy of being freed from religion. I decided to start blogging about atheism, naively thinking there didn’t seem to be many atheist bloggers. How wrong I was. There are hundreds - perhaps thousands of us!

Knowing there were many atheist bloggers with far more experience and knowledge made me wonder how I could possibly contribute. I finally realized I can contribute because I am new, am exploring the basics and can relate well to new atheists or those exploring atheism.

With that in mind, today I’m exploring my role in the spread of atheism. What got me thinking about this is the often heated debate that goes on among atheists. We have the “leave religion and religious people alone and live your life” camp versus the “religion must be eradicated because it is hurting people and could lead to the destruction of our world” camp. Each of those camps - and shades of grey atheists between them - have ideas about the activities that should/should not be engaged in to promote atheism.

First, Some Definitions

Atheism is non-belief in gods. Atheists can be divided into strong versus weak atheists (see Richard Dawkins 7 point theism-atheism scale for something more thoughtful)

Anti-theism is opposition to belief in the existence of a God, and belief that theism is destructive.

Militant atheism is anti-theism in action - not only being philosophically opposed to theism, but actively involved to end it.

Evangelical atheism is also anti-theism in action. However, its focus is to spread atheism, rather than to end theism (the militant focus).

Atheist Scales

With the definitions above in mind, I created a few scales to help me decide my level of atheistic advocacy. I’ve labelled the left ends with extreme anti-advocacy statements, and the right ends with extreme pro-advocacy statements. Of course, there are imagined points between the ends - the shades of grey many of us will identify with. I like thinking about these as 10 point scales.

I included a strong versus weak atheist scale because I think the others are all somewhat dependent on one’s placement on that scale. Feel free to challenge me on that one - the scale is based on assumption. At any rate, the scales help me sort things out. Let me know what they do for you (if anything!).

Ok, enough talk. Here are the scales (click on the image to enlarge).

Please let me know your thoughts on this. Also, please let me know if I should make this into a survey - it might be neat to measure the responses.

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Edit: I’ve decided to call this my Atheism Advocacy Scale. Click this link to see how I rate myself.

July 5, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism, finding meaning

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Continuation of the 7 Pillars Stuff

Seeing my 7 Pillars post get linked to by the Friendly Atheist made me as excited as my kids were when we finally got a Wii. I was even happier to see the discussion it generated (32 comments last time I checked)!

But some of those comments made me want to clarify a few things:

1. The graphic doesn’t represent all atheists.
2. The graphic doesn’t even represent atheism.
3. What it is, is a simplified and modified representation of the secular humanism worldview this atheist identifies with.

I feel obligated to say this for two reasons. First, because I don’t want atheists thinking I am that presumptuous. Second, because I don’t want everyone else to think I am some sort of spokesman for atheists. I’m not - the pillars post was my first crack at figuring out what I believe are important ideas to help guide my life.

Hesitations aside, writing that post was an important step in my growth as an atheist (and human being!). Why? Because I honestly had never - in my 40 years prior to becoming an atheist - really put a lot of thought into my belief system. And why is that? Because when I was a Christian, the Bible and teachers of the Bible told me what to believe.

And that right there - being able to truly think for myself - is the most unbelievable, joy-filled reward I could imagine for letting go of religion and the supernatural.

It’s a profoundly fantastic thing.
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Unrelated shout to postsimian: The answer to your question is that I’ve been an atheist for about six weeks - I became one right around the 15th of May, 2008. I’m just a baby atheist!

July 2, 2008 · Filed Under Atheism

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Dawkins Raps

via The Amanda Show comes a pretty funny little video satire of Richard Dawkins (and some like-minded folk) rappin’ Eminem style.

July 1, 2008 · Filed Under funnier than hell, video

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