An Atheist's Argument For Faith

Now, I've spent a good amount of space on my blog defending atheism/science, and arguing against most premises of religion, if not all of it. Though I would like to attempt to defend the idea of faith. Now, I'm sure most you rationalists are thinking, wow, this guy is a mormon, and those of you on the religious right are going to be likely be conjuring some plan to quote me out of context. Those who are moderates, are probably thinking... well, I don't really know what you're thinking.

Now, in recent times religion seems to have hijacked the word faith (they're quite good at that). It seems to have been made some kind of religious virtue to have, and is looked down on by rationalists, atheists, scientists, and so on and so forth.

I would however like to say that it is a very important aspect, and that most of us, to some degree have faith. Heck, I've been an atheist for as long as I can remember. (Course I kept it a secret for a very long time, didn't quite feel like being outcast just yet, though I must say I lucked out in that my family and many of my friends didn't go crazy and stop talking to me, thank Athena for making them all reasonable).

Anyway, back to the topic of faith. I always thought of the word as a type of trust in matters of uncertainty. Not always really a bad thing, and often a necessary stepping stone. For example, when I got my first guitar, I was absolutely terrible. I didn't know anything about guitars (except that they sounded really cool) and that I had nearly failed a guitar class in jr. high.  I had faith (a type of blind trust in myself) that I could in fact learn how to play guitar, and be good at it. It's taken about 5 years but I'm finally a decent player, still have a ways to go, but I likely won't make your ears bleed. The thing is that faith can be a "secular" word, and it can be a very important stepping stone in order to further yourself in situations where there is uncertainty. I still think it's stupid to think that you're right because you have faith, and that it is the pillar of truth, but it is a stepping stone. Let's not throw it away completely.   

Tl;dr  Faith isn't really such a bad thing, as long as it's used as a launching point for gathering evidence, not the verdict.

PS: Like I said before, don't quote me out of context.

Atheists are Intolerant of Faith, not really.

Now, for some reason, Atheists are looked at as the most evil, and immoral people to ever walk on the face of this planet, by many theists.

Now it's true, there are plenty of us who argue against faith, and what not, and why wouldn't we? It's a fair topic of discussion. However, as soon as the debate start..

many throw a fit and go. You can't question my beliefs! How dare you! It's my faith! It's beyond human understanding (funny, they claim to understand it, but claim that it is beyond sciences reach). You're intolerant if you don't let me believe whatever I want to believe!

Alas you see, we are not stopping anyone from believing in anything. We are simply arguing. We are talking and discussing, and we are debating. We are challenging the idea that faith is a virtue. Last I checked, belief without evidence is the most ridiculous concept I can even try to comprehend. It's irrational, and it just plain doesn't make sense..

When we buy food, we look for the label that shows us the nutrients and ingredients.
When we buy medicine, we make sure it has been tested.
When we invest money, we look at the company's credibility.
When we have faith, we do so blindy.
We have no inclination that would lead us to believe one thing over an other (in terms of deities). And in fact when there is no evidence of something, it's best not to believe in it.

But that's not the point here, The point is we atheists, many of whom are rationalists, are in fact very tolerant of faith. Just because we argue against the idea, does not mean we are attacking those who posses the idea. We don't go around gathering up theists and burning them at the stake. Nor do we go hunt witch-doctors and astrologers and gun them down (though ironically there are pro-lifers who go around gunning down doctors that abort).

We are for the most part quite gentle people who would never physically attack anyone for disagreeing with us. We may engage in debate, but since when has, "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" stopped applying. We won't be the ones hurling stones at our opponents, though we may hurl arguments, and try and know the idea that faith is a virtue of it's over-glorified pedestal. However the feeling is not mutual. There are plenty of faithful people (not all of them, and this is not to say that they are bad people, simply delusional, and consumed by indoctrination) who are willing to attack us physically (though it would make sense since there is no rational argument to justify faith). Just look at all the places around the world where people get killed for having a difference in opinion, then look at their levels of blind faith in something. The two are usually positively related.

So yeah. We are infact very tolerant, yes, many of us are against indoctrination, and would like to see religion's role severely diminished, and that people stop killing eachother over whose imaginary friend is cooler. We would like to see a world where reason trumps blind faith.

 You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

Double Standards... Does Religion get undeserved respect and power?

Alright.. lets rewind to the freshman year of my highschool.

I had a gym class in which for three weeks we had a unit on square dancing.. anyone who knows me knows that I dislike dancing with a passion. I just can't dance... I don't know why, and I don't like dancing. If I can help it I'd avoid it for a long long time..

Anyway, what happened is that students who had a "religious" excuse were permitted to not dance, and could partake in a supplementary activity, which was working out. So without saying a word as to why I was doing it, I partook in the supplementary activity. I knew the other two guys who were doing it to. Neither of them were very religious, but because of their parents religion, they were able to squirm out of dancing, no questions asked.

On the other hand there was me. My parents are hindu, (they're very liberal, which is awesome) and well, I was an atheist in practice, an agnostic when questioned, though I preferred to avoid the "what religion are you?" question all together, and where I could help it, I would pretend not to listen to it, or would quickly change topics, or exit the vicinity of the question by actually leaving. It isn't that I was ashamed to admit that I don't believe in any kind of a god, just as I'm not ashamed to admit that I don't believe in Santa Claus, or that I don't believe in unicorns and fairies.

 I just know of the social stigma that comes with being an atheist.. you know, people see you as a immoral, baby eater who is going to fall to eternal torment (granted that this is the US, and the majority of it's inhabitants are followers of some kind of abrahamic religion). Though I must disagree. I do have morals, you can thank my parents for that. You can thank them for being good people and passing that down to me. Also I would never eat a baby. that just sounds plain nasty, and eternal torture, well, there's no evidence for it, so it's probably not going to happen.

Anyway, I digress. What happened then, is that I was put in a bind.. apparently to not fail, I NEEDED a note from a religious leader saying that I was exempt. Darn it. I knew there would be a catch. However, it wasn't going to end like this.. I was about to challenge their logic. So on the spot I made up a "religion", in accordance to this "religion", I was not allowed to dance. Now what? they would have to be hypocritical to fail me for those three weeks. Unfortunately it seemed that the school had no issue with that. I was called into a conference with my teacher and counselor. Well, a chance to defend myself. To defend the fact that personal convictions should be valued just as much, if not more, than religious convictions. The only difference
between me and the other two students was that they had years of tradition on their side. I did not. However their motives could not be questioned, because that would be attacking their beliefs.. yet my own personal beliefs, they had no problem tossing aside as though they were trash. The hammer was brought down on me, and well, thinking that I was completely alone, at that moment. when they threatened to fail me, I broke down.
I felt truly alone. At the time, I thought I was the only person in my entire school, maybe my entire town, heck maybe even the entire state, who found religion to be fairytales taken way too seriously. It was a feeling unlike any other.. A feeling of hopelessness. One that I wouldn't forget for a while. I guess, one could say I could somewhat empathize with the witches during the witch hunts.

Luckily for me, they were somewhat understanding. They told me never to pull a stunt like that. And since I had done the supplementary activity, I was allowed to get a passing grade, a D, for those 3 weeks of gym. On the other hand the other two students got an A for those 3 weeks, only because they had a religion behind them. That sounds a little too similar to discrimination I would say.

Though you must understand, I have nothing against the school nor the people that worked there. What I'm attacking is the double standard that society has set forth, the one where we are forbidden from questioning faith (which by the way is the illogical belief in something in the face of no/ contradictory evidence) From my example you can see what happens though. One persons "faith" is worthless and that person could be considered illogical, or stupid or insane. However when many people have faith and they organize.. it suddenly becomes reasonable and taboo to say otherwise.

As it happens our society give waaaaaaay too much respect to faith. Even more so than to reason. I think that this double standard needs to change. We need to if anything, respect the individuals convictions. However none of this should be done on religious ground. Why is that pacifists are fair game to be drafted, yet priests are not? Why is it that one's political stance can be criticized, but one's religion cannot. Heck, society will go as far to slander the morals of secularists/atheists/agnostics  but it won't even lift so much as a finger if those morals that are derived from a religion. (for more on that check out my older blog, "atheists have no morals?")
This kind of discrimination needs to end. And REASON needs to be valued over FAITH.

The Meaning of Life- Part 1: Evolution?

Yay, Time to speak out on another issue concerning science and it's clash against faith.

Now, this is a legitimate concern in our society, there are people that think that evolution is a hoax. That humans are not animals and did not originate from "monkeys". Actually, their claim is that they could not have, how is it possible that humanity spawned from the monkeys..... because you know.. that's totally what evolution is. One day there was a monkey and the next day they were human beings.. that's completely ridiculous. and yes.. that is.. to assume that evolution takes place that rapidly would be to spit in the face of science. Of course that's not true. That's not science, that is not evolution.

Evolution is a process that takes millions of years. It's gradual, and it's cumulative. It's not like one day, randomly there is random mutation and a monkey gives birth to a monkey man.. No.. not at all. In fact in all reality, it's no surprise many dismiss the theory of evolution so easily and would rather go with the idea of having a deity create everything. However this is because evolution is incorrectly taught in many places.. or at least not enough time is spent on it. I mean.. the facts are all there.. it is a theory that explains far more than creationism ever could, mostly because unlike creationism it does not rely on having an all powerful and untestable source.

 Evolution has evidence, that is something creationism lacks (no sacred texts do not account for evidence)
Anyways, evolution works, it really does. however it is not possible to see it's effects in one lifetime, but rather over thousands of lifetimes. Think about it.. think about the animals that roamed the earth millions of years ago and those that roam it today.. the ones today are vastly different than they were millions of years ago, at least for the most part. Can creationism explain how that is possible? Not really. (Also before you bash me for not giving the creationist theory equal chance, and yell about the missing links and stuff, please go do some real thorough research on evolution, look at the evidence and read the real theories of evolution and natural selection, and go find this on a reputable website or book. Besides, I know you have the internet at your disposal if you are reading this. Also please don't bring sacred text jargon in as evidence.. it really isn't.. )

Anyway.. think of evolution as a cumulative process. Think of it like this.. say you have an hourglass of red sand, 10,000 grains of it to be exact, and once every generation, one of those red grains is switched out for a grain of pink sand. now from one generation to the next, heck even spanning a gap of 100 generations, it would be hard to tell the difference between the hourglass.. however if one were to take the hourglass as it was at the beginning of the process and as it was at the end, they are two different things. One has red sand the other has pink, and all the hourglasses that came in between are intermediate stages. However while after a few thousand generations in between the difference between the hourglasses is apparent, between a just a few generations, the difference is hard to notice..

Anyway.. that's all for now, I'll get back to this topic, once I add in how natural selection and all that jazz works maybe people will come to understand evolution in layman's terms, but at least properly, and not have a skewed view of the sciences.


Note: As I cannot possibly give an in depth look into them, Please study the scientific subjects I have touched on more thoroughly on your own time, it will be rewarding,