Oh wounded Christians, when will you stop your belly-aching and stop acting like you are the victims of atheist aggression? It seems like every other day I have to read some theist’s article about how atheists are either 1) way too mean, 2) clueless about religion, and 3) completely dogmatic about their non-belief. While I could accept the first (in my case, although I’m one of the few very vitriolic ones), the second and third seems to completely ignore the fact that a significant number of non-believers were, at one time or another, believers.

A fan of the site sent me a link to this article, entitled “atheists: can we get along or whatever”, a follow-up to another article he had written called “Dear Atheists: most of us don’t care what you think”. As you might have guessed, after writing the latter (a long diatribe about how faith is unshakable and immutable), he was inundated by comments from non-believers, and decided that more clarification was needed. He was, apparently, unaware that the internet is made up mostly of malcontents like you and me, and felt that we didn’t really understand his religion enough to critique it.

The thesis of my story was this: that debates between the religious and atheists are useless because most atheists do not understand religion, particularly the idea of religious faith.

I’m getting a little tired of the accusation that atheists simple don’t understand religion. It’s obvious from most surveys that we are, in fact, on average much more educated about faith than our religious counterparts. This is usually ignored. We may understand the minutia of faith, but to religionists, our lack of belief must mean that we don’t actually “get it”. Why else would we refuse to accept God into our lives?

But faith is different. It is private. It touches on a different reality that either you get or you do not. Faith is like love and how do you debate love? Faith has driven untold millions, billions, of people through history and cannot be dismissed so easily.

I’ve always hated this line of argument. You might as well just say that millions of people used to believe that the earth was flat as a debate tactic. Simply because tons of human beings choose to believe in absurd things, and feel motivated to do things because of such absurdities does not in fact condon these ideas. If anything, it shows the profound vulnerability of ignorant humans to invent answers and explination when there are no certainties. This is not something we should be especially proud of.

I have no doubt that “faith” is a lot more difficult to hold on to than I can imagine. Objective reality does not conform with religious instructions, which is why faith is so important to guys like Charles Lewis. And while religionists want to pat themselves on the back for believing in the absurd, the rest of us just shake our heads in disbelief, saying simply: it would be a lot easier on you if you just stopped trusting in the nonsense you’ve been fed your whole life, pal.

Faith is not up for debate. I do not care whether Christopher Hitchens or the guy who sits three rows away thinks I am living in a fantasy. Why would I care? If faith could be broken by mindless criticism then it would not be faith.

I agree, which is why we find faith so troubling. If you cannot debate something, than what value does it have? It’s further proof that those with faith are secretly afraid of revealing even their inner-most doubts, out of fear that they may inadvertantly stop believing once they finally begin to question their deeply held assumptions. Any individual who refuses to question even his/her most cherished beliefs is not only weak minded; they are also cowards. If you think it takes more bravery to believe in the absurd, then I honestly feel sorry for you.

A new study published in the American Sociological Review confirmed something most of us already know: it isn’t theology and spirituality that explains the positive relationship between religion and happiness; it’s the community element.

Our study offers compelling evidence that it is the social aspects of religion rather than theology or spirituality that leads to life satisfaction,” said Chaeyoon Lim, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who led the study.

The benefits of religion (yes, there are some, admittedly) is largely due to the fact human beings are social animals. There’s nothing revolutionary about that statement, and yet it seems to be largely ignored by everyone. Understandably, religionists want to believe the benefits of religion is in the dogma and belief, since these serve as proof, in their eyes, that their religion is something special. In reality, the fact humans are interacting with one another AFTER the pastor finishes his little speech plays a far more important role in the degree of satisfaction of everyone in attendance.

As atheists we’ve been forced to admit we cannot hope to grow as a movement if we ignore the important fact our species is entirely dependent on being social and having a sense of belonging. We were always too afraid of being labeled as a religion to seriously consider organizing ourselves the way religions do, but in so doing we ignore a fundamentally important aspect of ourselves. The good news is no dogma or preaching is necessary. So long as people have a place to regularly meet and be social, the rest takes care of itself.

I feel this has already been confirmed so many times it personally bores me: yet another study found people with higher intelligence tend to not believe in God. Professor Lynn at Ulster University in the UK published a study that found the “intellectual elite” seriously devoid of religion when compared to their less educated counter-parts. The study also found since the last time the Royal Society was surveyed for religiosity, belief in God actually went down as well (it wasn’t very high to begin with, as you may have guessed).

Of course, there are those who refuse to acknowledge this obvious fact higher education erodes religious beliefs:

…Professor Gordon Lynch, director of the Centre for Religion and Contemporary Society at Birkbeck College, London, said it failed to take account of a complex range of social, economic and historical factors.
“Linking religious belief and intelligence in this way could reflect a dangerous trend, developing a simplistic characterization of religion as primitive, which – while we are trying to deal with very complex issues of religious and cultural pluralism – is perhaps not the most helpful response,” he said.

Yes, it’s a dangerous trend to be honest, isn’t it?

So religion isn’t primitive, eh? I think your own beliefs betray their ancient origin, my friend. The belief a man was born of a virgin, someone ascended into heaven on a winged horse, or the sun revolved around the earth are all demonstrably false and dumb, and yet billions of people believe in that shit. This survey wasn’t trying to be “helpful” to the delusions of ignorant monkeys; it was trying to determine if religiosity was a matter of education. The conclusion is unmistakable, and for most atheists, completely unsurprising.