A Request For When I Die

As I lay dying, respect my wishes enough to say no prayers to save my non-existent soul.  You may pray as much as you wish to hasten my demise if it makes you feel better, it will do no harm to me.  Do not come to my bedside to proselytize or send a pastor or priest to do the same; allow me the decency to die in peace free from religious noise.  Do not approach my family and offer any religious sentiments; if you really care you will only offer secular words of comfort.  

When I am dead, should you care, do not pray for me or my family, but leave them to grieve without the stale odor of religious platitudes.  Do not claim I am in a better place - I am worm food - good for them, not so much for me.  Do not make false claims about my character, either good or bad, but speak the truth whatever it may be.

When I am gone and can no longer speak for myself, should you hear from someone that I have had a deathbed conversion, DO NOT believe it.  Let me assure you that there is no god that I have heard of that I believe in or would turn to in my last moments.  Reason, fairness, and compassion for all living things has been my guiding light, not some musty, Bronze Age book of fairy tales or the stories of some demented father figure.

If you are a true friend, you will honor me most by honoring my wishes.

It's Called Dying with Dignity

The headline for this article is clearly slanted to indicate that atheist doctors, and by association all atheists, are immoral because they are eager to end a patient's life.  Later on it softens ever so slightly to indicate that perhaps the religious are slow to act to reduce pain if it means shortening the lifespan of the patient.  I think this article fails to clearly state the obvious; the atheist doctors are doing what is best for the patient, while the religious doctors are doing what is best according to their faith.  There is more regard for the patient's wishes and level of pain in the atheist camp and more concern about religious dogma in the believer camp.  This antiquated notion of the soul and the sacredness of human life as preached from the pulpit is prolonging the agony of terminally ill patients by placing obedience to an unhelpful god above the dignity of the individual.

Which Is More Moral, Mercy Or Justice?

Mercy: the discretionary power of a judge to pardon someone or to mitigate punishment.
Justice: the quality of being just; righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness.

If a man commits terrible crimes like rape or murder, or even lesser offenses such as theft or assault, but at the end of his life recognizes the error of his ways and comes to sincerely repent before the Christian god, he gains entry into heaven.  This is claimed by Christians to be evidence of their god's mercy.  You cannot earn your way into heaven; God must grant his mercy.

However, if another man has lead an exemplary life, one without crime and full of compassion for his fellow man, but simply cannot see any reason to believe the fantastical tales of the Christian religion or their savior, he does not gain entry into heaven, but faces an eternity of punishment.  No mercy here; and no justice in either outcome.

Of course, the Christian may say that all have sinned and any sin is abhorrent to their god, so both men are equal in the eyes of their god.  The one man receives mercy because of his honest acceptance of Jesus.  That's right.  It doesn't matter how heinous your crimes or how trivial your missteps, they are viewed as equally reprehensible to God. I find it disgustingly laughable that the being directly responsible for the deaths of millions, perhaps billions in the Bible finds even the most gentle, compassionate, and honest citizen of this planet too sinful to accept.

Of course, he can accept the good person, the rapist, the pedophile, even the mass murderer, if they pay the right price; absolute belief in God and along with it their intellectual freedom as well as their sense of fairness.  Turn over your life and place complete faith in a being that has demonstrated that he is far worse than you and you can be forgiven anything, but live a good life of reason and compassion and deny this being and there is nothing that will save you.

There is no justice in this Christian view of God.  In fact, it looks more like a religious version of organized crime's protection money scheme: "Pay me now, with your unquestioning faith, or something bad might happen and neither one of us would want that now would we?"

Faith or Reason

Critical Thinking
Focused, organized thinking about such things as the logical relationships among ideas, the soundness of evidence, and the differences between fact and opinion.

Dogmatic
Characterized by assertion of unproved or unprovable principles.

Faith
Belief without, or in spite of logical proof or material evidence.

Agnostic
One who holds that God is unknown or unknowable.

Atheist
One who does not believe that there is a god.

Those who believe in god do not rely on evidence for proof, but instead accept the existence of god on faith. In a discussion, they may occasionally try to use certain information as evidence, but ultimately they claim faith is sufficient.  If they hold these views without trying to impose their beliefs on the rest of us, then I have no major issues with them.  I simply disagree with them and hope that they will start to critically examine what they believe.

Unfortunately, this group lends support to those that I do have a major issues with --- the dogmatic faithful.  This group generally asserts that God exists, the Bible is the revealed word of God, and only through a belief in Jesus does our life have any meaning, period!  It is this group that tries to push their beliefs on the rest of us through any means possible.  Their only justification for what they believe is that the Bible says so.  They do not examine the Bible or church dogma critically.  They praise blind allegiance and are in opposition to any investigation of truth other than the Bible.  They stifle scientific progress and the benefits to mankind that flows from it (e.g., stem cell research, genetic therapies derived from evolutionary theory, AIDS prevention through contraception).

Atheism is simply a lack of a belief in god.  Some atheists believe that it is impossible to know if god exists, while others believe it is possible to make the determination, at least in theory.  So you can have agnostic atheists and gnostic atheists.  Atheism does not mean that someone is stating emphatically that god does not exist.  While some individuals may hold this view, it is not the common position.

Atheists do not base their lack of belief on any dogma or ancient scripture.  They use their minds and critical thinking skills to examine the evidence and to draw the most reasonable conclusions from the available information.  We are willing to change our views in light of new evidence - the dogmatic faithful are not.

Many people often mistake attacks on the Bible as examples of atheists being as dogmatic as the faithful.  This is not true.  A critical review of the Bible shows many contradictions and scenarios that are inconsistent with certain concepts of god.  If we define god with certain defined characteristics and then show evidence of inconsistencies related to that definition, then we can say emphatically that that particular definition of god cannot be correct.

Intolerant, Loving Christians

A pro-atheist billboard in Cincinnati was removed due to threats to the owner of the land where the billboard was located.  The message was simple and not offensive at all: "Don't Believe In God? You are not alone."  And yet some thin-skinned, hypersensitive Christians had to spread their Christian message of love and compassion, intolerance and bigotry and threatened the landowner. Why?  This billboard did not say there was no god or say anything malicious about religion - contrary to some Christian signs that I have personally observed which tell me that I am damned to burn in Hell for eternity (just travel to Arkansas or Mississippi sometime).


This situation reminds me of an Ingersoll quote that I have on a T-shirt: “This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves”


If Christianity (or any other theistic religion) was true, it wouldn't need to be defended by blasphemy laws or ignorant thugs.

God Knows

God, according to most religions including Christianity, is all-knowing. If a god exists, it knows why I don't believe in it. It knows exactly what I find troubling about the various religious definitions of and explanations for god. It should also know exactly what information or experience that I would require to be convinced that he/she exists. So far, this invisible sky-god has chosen not to do so. Apparently, this god doesn't exist or doesn't want me to believe or is incapable of doing so.

If the god is not capable, then it's not much of a god. If the god chooses not to reveal this information, then how could it be considered compassionate or just, since it knows that I am doomed to eternal damnation?

I know that some would say, "but it has been revealed to you, you are just closed to it". Bull. The kind of information and god that I am talking about would make it impossible for me to not believe in its existence. And this is not an issue of free-will since, believing in a god's existence doesn't mean that I would necessarily worship this god - far from it.

If I were provided that evidence right this second, I would believe, put God would still have a lot of questions to answer and I highly doubt that I could worship this god given everything I know about its cruelty and injustice.

If god exists and has the capabilities ascribed to him/her, then apparently god wants to me to be an atheist.