Some clarity.

I thought I should make my position clear. You see, the term atheist is quite a combative word, it makes a statement and puts people on the defensive from the outset. To me, the term atheist says “I don’t believe in god and I think anyone that does is a cretin”. This couldn’t be further from the truth, I don’t have a problem with people who believe in god, even the ones who stand on a box in the town centre, berating me for my sins, and assuring me that I will spend an eternity in a fiery realm paying for them. You see, at least the weekend evangelists berate me because they care. My issue is with organised religion, and the control freaks that pretend to care but really just want to protect their interests. These people incur my wrath frequently.

My hatred of organised religion isn’t why I don’t believe in god though, despite the pain and suffering that they cause around the world… and I’m not picking on any one of them in particular, they would all have questions to answer if they ever met their god, and I sometimes think it would be poetic if the Westborough Baptists actually had to stand before a deity and explain their disgraceful conduct, that’s a rapture I would buy tickets for.

I can no more say to a believer that god doesn’t exist as they can say to me god does. My complete and utter refusal to accept that there is a supreme being is based on empirical scientific evidence, or the complete lack of it. Are we to believe that an omniscient being monitors our petitions and alters the universe accordingly? The circumstantial evidence is manifold, from miracles to faces appearing in tortillas, but there has never been a single shred of testable evidence that a god has ever existed. In my opinion, when Darwin published origin of the species, we, as a species, should have collectively face-palmed and got on with creating an egalitarian secular society, bent on scientific advancement and ending want. But we didn’t, so here I am.

I am quite content with idea that I won’t be reborn, that my death will be the end. I love the fact that every atom in my body came from the centre of a star, and that every atom in my body will one day return to space to become another star. The irony of that vision of eternal life isn’t lost on me by the way, I just love the fact that one day in some far distant future atoms that may have been me or you will meet in the vast emptiness of interstellar space, or the fiery furnace of a star’s core… scary how close to reality the fairy stories are really isn’t it? It’s just the god bit that’s the problem.

I’m going to leave you with the words of an inspirational man…

I'm gonna share with you a vision that I had, cause I love you. And you feel it. You know all that money we spend on nuclear weapons and defence each year, trillions of dollars, correct? Instead -- just play with this -- if we spent that money feeding and clothing the poor of the world -- and it would pay for it many times over, not one human being excluded -- we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace.