How one atheist sees life

Today I feel like cataloging another baseless accusation made by some Christians: being selfish. Selfish is a word that has negative connotations, implying that one is unreasonably focused on oneself. As an idea, it could be used to discourage behavior and thinking that doesn’t take others into account. But, as it was used on me in relation to faith, it was a device utilized to break me down. I think this is why I have a problem with this rhetoric.

What I’m going on about.
I was told quite frequently while growing up that I was being selfish. Whenever I would try to assert my point of view, the accusation would get thrown out. Instead of figuring out if I was unreasonably focused on myself (and there were times that I was), it was simply insisted upon. The difference between the two practices is important. With the former, it…

These are gorillas. They come from the same place as us – Africa. They are primates who share 98.4% of their genes with us. After the chimpanzee they are our closest relatives. We shared a common ancestor as little as seven million years ago. That’s recent by evolutionary standards

Take a good look because it is probably, outside a zoo, the only chance you’ll get to see one. They are being decimated by ebola, their habitat is being destroyed and they are butchered by humans for meat. That is pretty close to cannibalism.

There are only 880 mountain gorillas left. That does not seem a large number compared to 8 Billion humans. Surely we can leave a little room for the rest of wild-life? Do we really need to take it all?

We need to restrict ourselves to 50% of the available space and limit our numbers. If we do…

I am very tired of theists attempting to poison the well of atheism by erroneously asserting that Hitler was an atheist.  Even if he was an atheist, such a fallacious claim would fail to demonstrate that atheism (a lack of belief in gods) was responsible for any of the atrocities committed by Hitler.  Yet, as will be clearly and unequivocally established, Christianity played a pivotal part in the heinous atrocities committed against the Jewish people in World War II.

Hitler was a Christian.  This undeniable fact couldn’t be made any clearer than by his own confessions.  Yet, I will not merely present you with these testimonies, as damning as they happen to be on their own, but I also intend on furnishing you with a brief history of the inherent anti-Semitism of the Christian religion.  I will do so to demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that Hitler and his Christian…

This question is often leveled at atheists by believers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve personally heard these arguments. The claim is that once you take God out of the equation, what happens to beauty? Without God, the universe and everything in it (mostly life, though) looses an awe-inspiring quality. Indeed, how many times have you heard a believer say something about how “you can see God in the beauty of a sunrise,” or “God’s power is reflected in the enormity and complexity of the universe,” etc? Probably a fair amount.

But is that really true?

It seems to me that a universe with God is a universe devoid of wonder. It’s nothing to marvel at if it was all done with the snap of omnipotent fingers. There’s nothing awe-inspiring. How could the creation of a perfect being be anything less than perfect? It’s impossible, which makes the…