Agnosticism and Atheism...

I've been watching a lot of Richard Dawkins clips on youtube and after reading a few of his books (The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, and The God Delusion) it's interesting to look at people with a different scope now.

I've come to accept that the average individual who does have religious beliefs is settling for a life that is tailored towards their institutionalized beliefs. It's clearly a localized choice for people who have a narrow concept of the world.

Not to say that being an agnostic or atheist automatically means you live your life to the fullest but it's ultimately less limiting to free yourself to life for the sake of life, rather than life for the sake of a deity-blessed culture. And it's not that religion is a terrible thing since people should have the freedom to believe what they want so long as it doesn't impede on the beliefs of others.

I've been very careful in making decisions on religion and culture in my life. Many people fall into the stereotypes and love it. Good for them, but I can't see myself cutting myself off from the rest of the world for the sake of an unproven or a limiting idea. I'd rather admire from a distance, and avoid drinking the kool-aide or the red wine.

I come across many student misconceptions that truly favor implementation of religious practices. Some people really do need that structure. And I find that to be a tragic sign that our society is regressing towards the lowest common denominator. Rather than developing and understanding the complex ideas that govern the universe, people are content knowing that somebody or something else did it for them.

I always find it interesting that supporters of religion frequently cite Hitler, Stalin, and Mao as atheists who were destructive dictators simply because they were atheist. Yeah, ok. Like nothing else about these individuals led them to become horrible dictators aside from their atheism.

The perception of evil has also interested me since it's now translated itself into the absence of God. But even with God on your side, you can still be evil. But according to the religious, that's not true or it's not the right God. The threat of fundamentalist religious ideas are exponentially more dangerous when compared to the empirical approach governed by science and reason.

I find that to engage in an argument between science and religion is just a waste of breath. People try to argue that there's some sort of religious claim to scientific truth, which is just irrational. When things like that come up, you just have to remind people that religion is NOT SCIENCE, so stop mixing the two. So what if science can't explain something, science can't explain a lot of things. It doesn't mean that you should turn to religious texts to fill in the gaps.

I find it hard to believe that people are that gullible to believe that living a life without empirical evidence is more fulfilling than a life with empirical evidence.

This in no way influences my teaching practices since it's not something that should be addressed regularly in school. I have my beliefs, my students have their beliefs. But should students attempt to explain scientific observations citing religion, they will get no credit. They cannot be allowed to pawn off their religious ideas as scientifically credible. I've made it very clear to my students that to resort to that defeats the purpose of you being in this class and if they treat the content of the class like a joke, their grade will reflect the hilarity.

Another interesting thing is that I saw a lot of CNN clips where atheists are basically talked down to and basically nothing really good is said about them. "They believe in nothing." "They need to shut up." "They shouldn't impose on my right to believe what I want." "They have no morals or ethics."

People who resort to these sorts of statements are fucking morons. I don't go around converting people, that's what the church does. I'm an agnostic because that's my decision and I'll live with it. By saying stupid shit like that you demonstrate a level of intolerance that is hypocritical and unproductive. Why don't you get to know an atheist or an agnostic before you start pinning labels on them. Also, to assume that because we don't have a doctrine to refer to means that we have no morals is ridiculous. You don't have to be religious to be a moral and upstanding individual. When was the last time you read a story about an atheist or agnostic bombing a cafe or molesting children?

When people make such statements, they're behaving the exact same way that they are supposedly not raised to or morally obligated to. They're defying their own morals by lashing out against a group of individuals who are entitled to their beliefs like anybody else.