Guest Post: How not to be a Religious Atheist

This is a guest post from KoufDaddy, a devoted & proud father. Atheist (except to the baseball gods); LGBTQ supporter and GODDAMN liberal. You can follow him on Twitter here. If you would like to be a guest blogger on godlessmom.com, contact me. 

I am an atheist. And pretty much all of you reading this are probably atheists too. And that’s a great thing. There are many among us, meaning Earthlings (I’m going to use Earthlings here only because we are not unique and hopefully someday other species will read this), who realize that there is no powerful all-knowing all-seeing god. Nobody made the earth; nobody created the heavens; nobody made a woman out of a rib. It’s just impossible. But to you readers, you already know that. The real challenge is how do we get the rest of the Earthlings in our midst to realize that there is no god.

Today we have prominent people who can stand up and share their ideas and knowledge with us. Hitchens, DeGrasse Tyson, Gervais, Nye and others put the word out on how science and fact and reason should be triumphing fable, myth and religion. Essentially education is the way to open people’s eyes. We all know that. Our generation didn’t have those people. All we had was school and church and the opportunity to weigh the pros and cons. And today almost a quarter of Earthlings are atheists. So education works.

But how do we capture that remaining 75%? That’s the problem. How do we do it? (foot tapping). Wouldn’t it be great to put something in the water? Or in the air? Or do a bit of genetic programming? None of that works. So education is still the best way. But we need to segregate education from religion. Many of you were religious because of your parents who tried to reinforce it through Sunday School, bible study, or the like. So even though it was forced upon you, it still boils down to education. Yes, it was an education of lies, but when you’re 8 years old how the heck do you know?

But there is a risk on how to get that 75%. I am seeing atheist fanaticism that exists out in the world. There are people who are espousing forcing others to accept atheism. These people truly believe the world would be better off if we were atheists. I do not disagree with that, but we cannot expect change overnight. How can we change beliefs and fairy tales that have been in place over thousands of years? The same way that we no longer believe in Egyptian half animals, or Greek Olympians. It was over years that change was accomplished. Judaism, Christianity, Islam are just blinks of an eye in the history of Earth. We as atheists need to get our blink in. And it can only happen with science and fact and reason.

Some of you are now saying, “Well heck, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Muslims, Jews, Europeans, Americans have all imprinted their religion using the barrel of a gun”. This is very true. But which religion has lasted. None of them. All the forcing of dogma on the subjugated ultimately yields to new beliefs because that dogma is not satisfying to their lives. We do not want that to happen to atheism. People are inherently weak. When things in their life are failing, they seek out something more powerful that will help them out of their misery. If we force atheism upon people, then the day will come when they will look for a god. And if not god, some other Hitler-like figure. Just like all those other religions “succeeded” over the centuries, so does atheism need the centuries to succeed.

When atheism is commonplace, it will be because education will have permeated into Earthling’s minds and people will understand that they control their own lives. That’s the ultimate understanding that needs to be in place. Any –ism is only as strong as the foundation it’s built on. And education is the foundation that will make atheism inevitable. And only then will people know how to live their lives in peace.

So, atheists, chill. There is plenty of time to succeed. I am one, but I have two young adults who will further the cause. And I’m sure they will further the cause to their progeny. In time, we will succeed. It’s for everyone’s good.

(Unless there’s an extraterrestrial reading this and has come up with the idea that he could make millions just by showing up on Earth and calling himself god).

This was a guest post from KoufDaddy, a devoted & proud father. Atheist (except to the baseball gods); LGBTQ supporter and GODDAMN liberal. You can follow him on Twitter here. If you would like to be a guest blogger on godlessmom.com, contact me.  

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