Atheist Gets His Own Newspaper Column at Louisiana College

I completed my bachelors degree at a Catholic college in the bible belt. I never openly discussed my beliefs (or lack of). I remember telling the psychology professor and asking him not to “out me” and he kept to his word. Living in the bible belt holds it own issues. At this point in my life I have only told my family members. It was really hard for my mom to accept. I have 3 children and two are Christians. I believe that is their choice. I raised them to make their own decisions about their lives and beliefs. It was by chance I found this blog. I will be checking it daily now. Keep on blogging.

This is wonderful 🙂  This is exactly the kind of thing that will (over time) dismantle soooo many of the misconceptions surrounding atheism.  Just as with homosexuality, the more  publicly-identified atheists there are, and the more nice/normal/ethical atheists people meet, the harder it will be to sell the ‘they’re all evil‘ idea.

This is great 🙂 When I wrote an article about being an atheist on campus for my Southern Baptist college newspaper, I received similar emails/Facebook messages from a couple of people on campus who are also nonbelievers. It was nice to see that I’m not the only one. I also received one crazy letter from someone telling me that I’m going to hell. He wanted it published in the paper as a response. Luckily, our editor said that we don’t have to publish crazy.

“You’re in the company of …even the Mythbusters.”

I want to see the Mythbusters episode that takes on Christianity or religion as a whole.  That would be one awesome show.

Everyone has father issues if he didn’t buy you a lollipop when you wanted one.

Tim Tebow was not necessarily praised for a Bible verse, but because in an amoral world he supports and upholds morality. To have put “No God?” would have certainly been an outrage because atheism is associated with the rejection of a moral system. Think about it. If there is no Creator who has given instructions for right and wrong; where have these higher ideals of love, peace, joy, happiness, gentleness, etc. come from? Certainly not from any of the renown atheists of the past or present. Certainly not from humanity who, when given an opportunity, is cruel and selfish. A Higher Being who understands social relationships and order has given us His word to govern life peaceably. Oh, but some will say what about the wars associated with religion. To that I say, to some extent justice and discipline is necessary when pain is inflicted (like the police), but corrupt men have abused these truths as satisfaction for their desire of violence. Quit villainizing those who want morality, when that is exactly what you want but without any moral system. It simply will not happen. Atheism is chaos.

It’s heartening to know that an atheist can have his own newspaper column dedicated to his beliefs.  However, he does repeat many of the erroneous statements made about atheism.  For example, neither Thomas Jefferson nor Albert Einstein would have agreed with the claim that they were athests.  Thomas Jefferson was an active member of his Episcopal Church and a declared Christian.  Einstein, a Jew by birth, was educated in a Catholic school which he credits for inspiring in him a wonder for the universe.  Einstein also rejected atheism and declared science without religion to be lame.  Given these errors, his 10% estimate of the population being atheist is likely an over estimate as is the over worn statement that 90% of scientists are atheists There is no reliable or confirmed evidence to back up this estimate.   Historically, atheists have have a world wide presence of about 5%.  Still a sizable number.

That’s why I said “non-believer”. Perhaps that still stretches it a bit, since deists are still believers of some stripe. Also, Jefferson denied the supernatural parts of the Bible, so that’s not a version of Christianity I’m familiar with. 

There is also research indicating that the vast majority of scientists aren’t believers, either: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/sci_relig.htm & http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Jesus/Intelligence%20&%20religion.htm

I was using Pew research for the number of atheists in America:  
http://religions.pewforum.org/reports. 

Thanks for the comments, though. I like being kept on my toes. Reminds me to watch that I’m not full of BS.

Your Higher Being is OK with slavery and commands the stoning of people to death based on their sexual orientation. Our morals come from the fact that we are social animals who have to depend on each other to survive.  You don’t need a god to tell you not to kill or steal – all you need are two people who both agree that they’d rather not be killed or stolen from, and agree to defend each other from others who would kill or steal. Check out the Euthryphro dilemma, which shows some of the inherent problems involved in morality from divine command. 

Jefferson certainly didn’t call himself a Christian. In fact he refused to label himself in any way. His beliefs were light years removed from anything that can considered orthodox Christianity. He rejected the supernatural and the divinity of Jesus. What he was is a Deist. A deist god is simply a creator god that isn’t involved in human affairs. That’s why he used religious language without believing in Christianity.

And Einstein was agnostic. He ridiculed the belief in a personal god and considered the Bible a collection of ancient myths. The reason he rejected the atheist label is because he considered it an expression of too much certainty and considered many of them too be too harsh and strident. That doesn’t make him a believer.

Your world wide numbers are ridiculous. Not  every country is as superstitious as the US. It’s really an extreme outlier among western nations

I’m feel perfectly okay telling people I’m an atheist. The kind of mouth breathers that think only religious people can be moral are not people I have any interest in being around. They ignore not only history, but their own hypocritical religious texts… you know, it’s not even worth writing out a whole screed on the subject, so I won’t. To put it bluntly, they’re idiots that aren’t worth my time.

Unfortunately, mankind is not omnipotent, so assertions don’t really lead anywhere – your word is not truth. While I find it amusing that you can claim that good and morality come from god but violence and hatred from, well, human nature it would seem, there’s not really anything backing you up. Are you sure it’s not the other way around? Our prisons have a disproportionate number of religious folk in them, while secular countries have much lower crime and violence rates. You get to see this when you bother to pay attention.

Personally, I use a different measuring stick: is some particular action good, or bad? What more is needed? Isn’t that the whole point of morality?

Can someone be good without resorting to divine authority? Yep. Can they be bad while hewing to such? Yep. If you want to take it farther, are there any tendencies that can be seen within these demographics? Yep – see above.

I won’t argue that many, many people might be so abysmally stupid that they need ultimate rules for them to function within society – but this is pretty derogatory about the brains that we possess, much less the “sophisticated” aspects of theology. Most people I know, however, learned how to wipe themselves without any scriptural guidance whatsoever, and can also figure out that being bad to someone means that antagonism will be returned in kind (I think I figured this out at the age of three, but maybe I was a gifted child.) Most of what I see from religion is claims of divine authority to be judgmental assholes, and I’m quite sure, without any tablets to tell me, that we don’t need that.

Where was your school? The location of ULL in one of the less-friendly-to-atheists states is what makes this news.

Seems like it’s not working, maybe we should try a different book.

God is eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, and immutable. He knows all things, which includes the consequences of every action. Therefore, He is able to make a perfect moral system. He is the Creator of the system, and is Himself bound to the system. He is Love (selfless concern for well-being of others), He is Truth (reality of all things). The moral system He has given is for our well-being. The stoning of people based upon their sexual orientation was necessary for the time the command was given. It was meant to control the progress of degeneration. However now under the law of Christ, God’s punishment is reserved for the final day of judgment. Why, you may ask, do individuals who violate the moral code need to be punished? Let’s take for instance, homosexuality. The homosexual demonstrates a lack of restraint for their sexual desires. Much like the fornicator who can not keep themselves until marriage, or the adulterer who can not remain faithful to their spouse. If left unchecked, these sexually immoral acts will quickly degenerate into worse situations. These acts cause emotional pain, as well as being against the natural use of the body. Homosexuality is against the natural use of the body. Fornication can cause disease, unwanted pregnancy, children without proper love, etc. Adultery causes broken homes, impacting society for the worse. These acts, if left unchecked, and are allowed to grow in their corruption will cause and has caused society to be chaotic. The moral system of God commands us not to engage in such acts, not to make us unhappy, but to keep us from (pain) harming ourselves and others. If you hold the history of the Bible to be true, consider what Sodom and Gomorrah had degenerated into (Genesis 19). Or the Canaanite nations (Leviticus 18).

Is morality independent of God? No, you and others have simply come to terms with the social laws of life. Much like the philosophers came to terms with logic, astronomy, physics, etc. They did not create the system, but simply identified the system. Those laws were already in place. Your contemplation should lead you to ask, “by who?” That is a great question, and the purpose of our differences. If man is able to create a moral system, that is altruistic, independent of God, why have so many rulers, left to their own power become absolutely corrupt? The fact of the matter is, man can not be the measure of all things. By its very nature, what man? Who is better than others? Hitler would have chosen himself as the measure. Would you have agreed?

So, God is capable of delivering a perfect moral system because He is all-knowing and eternal. The fact that He is all-powerful is kept in check with His unchangeable moral character. He created the world, and gave us laws to govern our relationships. Why? To teach us the beauties of morality, and true happiness.

To make your life better you must apply the advice. Like exercising at the gym. Merely knowing the routines does not help you build muscle or become stronger, you must exercise. Knowing about good nutrition doesn’t make you healthier until you actually begin eating healthier. As far as assertion, there is none. The statistics and proofs are all around us. Homosexuals do lack restraint. Fornicators due contract diseases, have unwanted pregnancy, etc. Adultery does destroy emotions, homes, etc. That is what doing wrong (immorality) causes–pain. That’s black and white, no matter how you feel about it.

As far as slavery goes, the Bible never teaches the abuse of slaves. Rather, the proper care and concern for people as human beings. The term is what you are hung up on, and how early America treated “slaves.” But in the Bible, they were more like employees under and employer. If the employer treated his employees improperly, it was a violation of morality. Even in that relationship, proper morals were upheld.

Here’s an easy explanation as to how this applies to you. If you do not follow proper guidelines of morality you will become more and more corrupt. If you support immorality, you are only harming yourself and the society you are apart of. It may not be tomorrow that immorality comes to sting you, but rest assured degeneration will occur and chaos will ensue. God is trying to prevent that. His word is seeking to guide your attitude and actions for your own good. For our own good. Again, you can not be a law unto yourself. Your actions affect others, others actions affect you. Who can guide us in such a way that we do not harm each other when we do not see eye to eye. God and His word.

Should we praise the criminal who is faithful in his criminality? The serial killer who is methodic in running amuck? Just because they show some faithfulness to their system does not mean their system is good. Just because homosexuals choose to be monogamous to their partner, does not make homosexuality good. The act of homosexuality is against morality to begin with. Homosexuality goes against the natural function of sexual organs. Eventually, their passion will degenerate into vile passions.

The anus is not a sexual organ, its for defecation. Man in his corruption has made it so. The vagina is for procreation, not for the insertion of strange objects. 

The sexual organs are brought up to show how homosexuality is immoral, by going against the natural use of the body. But also, how these unrestrained passions, which have led you to do the unnatural, will lead you even further into bestiality, pedophilia, sadomasochism, transsexualism, etc. All these are actually associated with each other. They are a family of explicit sexual immoral acts.

God is wanting to save us from such pain and torment. Stay true to nature. Restrain your passions. Sex is allowed in marriage between man and woman. Love is demonstrated by both, and into child bearing. This is the natural order of things and will bring happiness.

Bottom line. Good without God is impossible. Every immoral act can be reduced to causing pain and creating a worse society.