Frequently Unanswered Questions

1. Why are you an atheist?
2. Why are you not a theist?
3. Why do you identify yourself as an atheist?
4. Why did you make this page?
5. Why do you hate God?
6. Do you worship atheist gods?
7. Doesn't it bother you that you are going to go to hell?
8. Did you have a bad experience with religion that made you an atheist?
9. Do you hate Christians?
10. Don't you think there is a place for religion?
11. Are you a Darwinist?
12. Why do you only make fun of Christianity?
13. If you don't believe in God, how can you be moral?
14. What is your political affiliation?

1.  Why are you an atheist?

I know there have been tons of "Why I am an atheist" essays written over the years and there is really nothing new to add there.  The answer to why I am an atheist is actually rather simple…  I am an atheist because I don't believe in God.  Perhaps that seems to be stating the obvious, but to some people it is quite a difficult concept to grasp.  You see, when I look at myself in the mirror I don't think of myself as an atheist.  An "atheist" is not really what I am…  the term does not define me. "Atheist" is just a label I apply to myself to tell you what I am not.  I am not a theist.  Yet when asked to classify myself on religious terms, "atheist" is naturally the most applicable. Now, perhaps the questions that would yield more informative results would be "Why are you not a theist?" and "Why do you identify yourself as an atheist?"

Back to questions.

2.  Why are you not a theist?

In other words, "Why don't you believe in God?"  For me, the idea of God has always been quite a silly one.  I really find it no more believable than the idea of Humpty-Dumpty or The Little Engine that Could.  It is like religion is incompatible with my personality and my cognitive processes.  As far back as I can recall, God was always just a superstition to me.  I was born an atheist.  Why break the habit of a lifetime?

Many non-atheists (now there's a double negative) think that all atheists declare with absolute certainty that "there is no god."  I have never done this.  I don't know there is no God epistemologically speaking.  I just strongly suspect that there isn't.  I think there is no Jehovah, just as I think there is no Quetzalcoatl.  This amounts to non-belief, which makes me an atheist.  Just because you haven't proven definitively that something is non-existent, that doesn't mean you should believe in it.  There are plenty of mythical beings whose non-existence I cannot physically demonstrate, but if I believed in them all I would be a raving lunatic.

On the other hand, I am willing to say that the Christian God, as portrayed literally in the Bible, does not exist.  Can I prove it?  I doubt it.  I've never tried and I don't really care to.  It's just that to me the God literally portrayed in the Bible so utterly absurd that it is obviously mythology.  I am sorry if that upsets you.  The ludicrousness of the figure gives me as much certainty that he is fictitious as I have that Batman is fictitious.  This is not to say that a God portrayed figuratively or allegorically in the Bible is impossible, nor does it mean some non-Christian god is impossible.  But then an allegorical God could be just about anything.

The fact still remains that I do not currently, nor have I ever, believed in any Gods.  This is simply not a matter that preys upon my mind.  I do not sit around thinking about God's alleged non-existence.  Given this, you might ask the next frequently unanswered question.

Back to questions.

3.  Why do you identify yourself as an atheist?

Given that "atheist" doesn't really describe who I am and that religion has never particularly mattered to me, it might not seem to make a lot of sense for me to refer to myself by the religious epithet "atheist."  I really prefer the term "rationalist," but it sounds a bit arrogant and most Xians probably wouldn't know what it was innate of.  The answer is that my choice to call myself an atheist really has little to do with me.  It is more relevant to the society in which I live, currently the United States of America.

It is the overwhelming religiosity in this country that causes me to identify myself as an atheist.  When the average person meets you, they automatically assume you belong to some kind of religion.  The possibility that you belong to no religion rarely crosses their minds.  "Atheist" signifies that I am not what they automatically think I am.  I am not religious.  My atheism is not particularly important to me.  It's not like a religion.  If it weren't for this assumption of religiosity and this natural curiosity everyone has about everyone else's metaphysical beliefs, I would not feel compelled to identify myself on any religious terms.  It would simply be the case that for me the question, "What is your religion?" would have no answer.

A good way to clarify this is the fact that I don't believe in Santa Claus.  Fortunately, this is also the case with almost all American adults.  So it would be futile to identify myself as an non-santaclausian.  However, if 90-95% of the adult public did believe is Santa Claus, then the label "non-santaclausian" would become relevant.  In and of itself, my disbelief in God is no more significant to me than my disbelief in Jolly Saint Nick.  However, in a social context, my atheism becomes relevant because it is in contrast to the norm.

Back to questions.

4.  Why did you make this page?

This is logically the next question.  If atheism isn't very important to me, why would I devote so much time and energy to make a web page about it?  The answer primarily relates to my sense of humour.  I am undoubtedly a cynic.  I enjoy targeting that which others deem sacred.  From political philosophies to religions, nothing is particularly safe from ridicule.  You will notice (if you are not a fundamentalist Christian) that most of BlasphemyVision is satirical and obviously meant to be humourous.  This FUQ is probably the most serious section so far.  I have been writing humour for many years.  Much as I am an atheist by nature, I am also a writer by nature.  I don't really think I have any choice but to write.  I'm driven.  So put together…  writer + atheist + cynic…  and what kind of a page do you think I am going to put on the WWW.  "Flora and Fungi of Botswana?"  No.  BlasphemyVision, of course.

Back to questions.

5.  Why do you hate God so much?

I know many other atheists on the net have already tackled this one, so I'll just say:  If you have ever asked this question of an atheist, you are a fucking idiot.

Back to questions.

6.  Do you worship atheist gods?

This question is rarely put so succinctly and is usually masked within a mess of drivel and saliva.  Publius is one of the masters of this, but I have heard it in varying degrees from numerous sources.  It usually comes from people who have a difficult time with the idea that there are actually some who don't worship any deities.  So they claim that atheists substitute scientific or pagan type gods in lieu of the Christian deity.  I do not presently nor have I ever worshipped anything, nor would I.  I would consider it demeaning.  Perhaps I am too arrogant.  We have already established that I do not believe in any gods, so it necessarily follows that I would not worship them.

One totally unrelated point that I would like to make involves how some religious people have started arguing about the gender of God.  Most Christians insist he is male while more gentle religious people insist she is female.  The logic goes that if there was a God, it would be female because it is females who give birth (create life).  I will say this only once:  If there is a single God, as monotheism requires, it is neither male nor female.  Please take a rudimentary biology course.  If this God is indeed the only one of its kind, it is exactly that… an it.  Gender exists only where sexual reproduction exists.  Polytheists who believe that Gods and Goddesses procreate have every right to attribute genders to their deities, but monotheists should get it straight.  A solitary God that engages in no sort of sexual reproduction (in other words, it doesn't have sex with Mrs. God who then has a bunch of little baby gods) does not have a gender… period!  If you believe God is literally a He, then you must be a closet polytheist.

Back to questions.

7.  Doesn't it bother you that you are going to go to hell?

This is another incredibly stupid question.  I would be pleased if pompous, vapor-cephallic fundamentalists would stop using hell as a threat.  Not because I find it scary, but because I hate having to try to explain to them (using the simplest wording I can) that I don't believe in Hell.  And usually they still seem to miss it.  If you write to me, don't bother telling me I am going to hell.  First, it's not very Christian to gloat (actually, it is!).  Second, it has absolutely no effect.  You might as well tell me that the Martians are going to come and take me to Oogie-Boogie Land where they will insert hot spoons up my nose and make me listen to Bon Jovi.  Actually, the latter is probably more likely to occur.  I feel relatively confident in saying that hell does not exist.  I will go so far as to say it is an utterly idiotic idea.  I am astounded that anyone in the 20^th century can believe such ridiculous mediaeval nonsense.  Since I don't believe hell could possibly be anything but a silly superstition, threatening me with it is futile and foolish.

Speaking of hell, one thing that has always annoyed me about fun-dementedists (fundamentalist Christians) is that they believe anyone who accepts Jesus Christ as their savior will go to heaven, even mass murderers like Adolph Hitler.  Yet anyone who does not accept Christ as their savior, even if they are otherwise benevolent, will be sent by God to be tortured for the rest of eternity in Hell.  The thing that annoys me is that they still have the balls to turn around and say that their deity is good and forgiving.  Their fatuous way of explaining it is that God gave us free will.  A prime example of this Christian idiocy is The Cutting Edge.  The CE was a page on the WWCW.  Though I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, the WWCW has discontinued it (presumably because it was embarrassing them).

Now back to the subject of Hell. The Cutting Edge includes the following quote:

"In human terms, we are given a finite number of years to live. For some like George Burns, this may be a long period of time. For most, we have 60-70 years that God gives us. During that life-span God asks us to say just one word, 'Yes.' If you spend your 60-70 years, or however many you have, and you can't get that one word out of your mouth, then you deserve whatever God gives you after this life. You see, He doesn't SEND you there, you CHOOSE it by living your whole life and rejecting Him at every turn."

It is amusing that these asinine cretins actually fall for their own rhetoric and believe that their God is loving and forgiving.  They shan't allow reason to interfere with their inane beliefs.  Bluntly, the Cutting Edge is arguing that because atheists are choosing of our own free will not to worship God, it is therefore good for God to torture us forever.  In fact, not only is it good, it is MERCIFUL!

Let's put this into perspective, shall we?  Let's say I have a wonderful girlfriend whom I love with all my heart.  I would die for her.  I would do absolutely anything to keep her safe and happy.  So, one day I ask her to marry me.  All I ask is that she says "Yes," one little word.  But instead she says "No."  So, I take this girl that I love with all my heart and torture her.  For this act to be equal to what God supposedly does, I would have to torture her for the rest of eternity!  Now, I would say that if I did this, I would be a sadistic madman worthy of the gallows.  I would never do this to any person, much less someone I loved.  I wouldn't even do it to a person that I hated.  But when the Christian deity does it, loons like those at the Cutting Edge think that It (God) is being loving and merciful.  The same reasoning has been the justification for countless killings throughout the ages.  Frankly, I hope I never become a victim of this particular brand Christian mercy.  That would be the most agonizing death I could imagine.

By the Cutting Edge's logic, it would be okay for me to torture my girlfriend if she turned me down because it was SHE that CHOSE of her own free will to turn me down.  I didn't make her say "No," so it isn't my fault that I am torturing her.  It would be her fault.  This logic is bullshit, of course.  Another example I have use is this:  An Allied soldier is captured by Nazis and tortured for information.   If he gave the interrogators the information they wanted, they would stop torturing him.  Is it therefore his choice to be tortured?  Christians expect Atheists to convert because of this kind of extortion... convert or you will be tortured.  Their God is no more respectible than any Nazi interrogator.  They fail to realize that it was their "loving" God who made hell and made the rule that people would be sent there to burn forever (ergo, It is sending us to hell).  Regardless of my free will, the twisted mind of the evil monster they worship devised my torture.  I will not take the rap for the evil perpetrated by the Christian deity.

What these poor dullards are really showing is that they are too dense to understand weighty concepts like logic, compassion, love and mercy.  I don't see how anyone with an ounce of love or compassion in their mind could agree with these people, much less take joy in the idea that others are going to be tortured.  My atheistic idea of love and compassion dictates that I never ever under any circumstances harm or hurt the ones I love.  The Cutting Edge's primitive idea of love seems to allow this, at least of their deity.  I pity their spouses if they emulate the being they worship.  Or perhaps they're just really stupid.

Back to questions.

8.  Did you have a bad experience with religion that made you an atheist?

I have had some bad experiences with religion but that is not why I am an atheist.  I was an atheist long before said experiences.  Most of the Christians I have met were wonderful, kind, compassionate people who tried to help others wherever they could.  But, the most unspeakably violent, abusive, racist, depraved, and perverted people I have ever known were also Christians.  This is why the idea that one cannot be moral without religion is so patently absurd to me.  It is astounding to me that anyone can believe such a glaring inaccuracy.  I am certainly not saying that Christians on the whole are immoral.  I'm just saying that the least moral people I have encountered were Xians.  I have a theory about this, actually.  I think people who are immoral, whether they are wife-abusers or child-molesters or whatever, need to find some way to alleviate the horrible guilt that accompanies their depravity.  Religion is a quick and easy way to do that.  Fundamentalist Protestantism in particular offers a way for wicked people to find forgiveness and to get into heaven.  This is because they think only repentance counts, not good works (all you have to do to get into heaven is repent to God).  I am not saying that this is the only reason why people become Christians, but it is a reason why child-molesters do.  Atheism offers no comfort for a child-molester.

If my bad experiences have done anything for me, they have made me more cynical about religion.  I don't feel I could be one of those very serious atheists who likes to debate with Christians about religion.  To be honest, I find Christianity both humourous and repugnant at the same time.  I have neither the interest nor the energy to consider the philosophical merits of the religion (which I consider to be negligible).  I do not, however, discourage discourse and if you want to take exception to something I say, feel free to start a thread on CyberBlasphemy.  I can't guarantee that my response will be polite, but if you are polite chances are I will treat you the same way.

Though I did have some bad experiences with Christians, most of my experiences with religion were actually quite positive.  It's just that no matter how much sweetness and silk knickers you dress it up in, religion still seems to me quite absurd.  I am proud that I am not religious.  I feel that this has freed me of many of the mental burdens that religious people carry.  I am free to live a happy life without a bunch of metaphysical gobbledegook plugging up my neural pathways.

Back to questions.

9.  Do you hate Christians?

I may hate religion and superstition, but I do not hate all religious people or all Christians.  While I may think the beliefs to be idiotic, it does not necessarily follow that the person holding them is an idiot (although in some cases they certainly are).  I have known many good and intelligent people who held illogical beliefs of one kind or another.  To people who have been raised as Christians or experienced life differently from myself, religion may make perfect sense.  I am not above empathy.  I have many friends who are Christians.  We disagree on theology.  But there is a lot more to life than religion and many things upon which we can relate.

I do, however, hate religion on the whole.  It has been used to fuel and justify so much violence over the years that it's detrimental effects far outweigh the good that it has done.  I would like to think we have reached a point where such psychological crutches and superstition were unnecessary.  Sadly that is not the case.

Back to questions.

10.  Don't you think there is a place for religion?

Dare I say... the lavatory?

I used to be polite and say "Yes, religion has its place."  It was always my desire to say that religion was an antiquated and outdated social mechanism that should have no place in a modern society.  I sometimes even wanted to call it primitive.  But whenever I would begin to move in that direction, people would scold me with things like, "You don't really mean that, do you?" or "Are you really so sure that you are right and that I am wrong?"  I'm not really sure that I am right, but I am pretty sure that Christians are wrong.  I feel that they have every right to believe as they do, silly as it may seem to me.  But I also have the right to my beliefs, which hold that religion and other kinds of superstition are relics of an ancient time that haven't had the common decency to die off.

It could still be argued that religion has a big part to play as a psychological crutch.  I've known some otherwise skeptical people who turned to mythological beings of one sort or another in times of great need.  When you're down in the dumps, believing in magical solutions helps to keep you from getting too depressed.  Religion also drives many people to charity, which I consider to be one of the few and possibly the only merit of organized religion.  The problem is that with any good religion does, there is also a lot of damage it causes.  From wars to racism, from gay bashing to Pat Buchanan supporting...  religion is the motive behind much of the world's stupidity and violence.

To sum up, I would be pleased if everyone would wake up tomorrow and decide they didn't need religion any more and that it was time to face reality and stop fighting.  That will never happen.  I suspect that religion as a support mechanism is too important to most humans and is probably a necessity for the species at large.  Without it, the more unbalanced among us might run rampant and plunge us into chaos.

Back to questions.

11.  Are you a Darwinist?

I have begun to tire of Darwinism and atheism being synonymous.  I will admit that I have enjoyed the joke behind the Darwin fish, mostly because it pokes fun at a Christian symbol while at the same time desecrating that symbol (and they are not supposed to engage in idolatry).  But the Darwin fish doesn't really have anything to do with atheism.  Many atheists sport the Darwin fish because they also happen to be scientifically oriented.  They have an interest in evolution and the theories about how evolution works.

The reason I think the Darwin fish is a bad symbol for atheists is twofold:  1.  Atheism, as I have said, does not require belief in any specific thing.  It relates only to the quality of not being a theist.  An atheist does not have to believe in evolution.  They can believe in spontaneous generation if they want to.  They just can't believe we were created by gods (they would then cease to be atheists).  2.  Though Darwin was a ground breaking scientist, he neither discovered evolution nor did he definitively describe it.  The idea of evolution had been passed around the scientific community before Darwin so eloquently put it on paper.  And since Darwin's time, the idea has been elaborated, improved upon and even re-examined.  Contrary to stupid popular opinion, Darwin's theory was not the "theory of evolution."  It was the theory of "evolution by natural selection."  Since then, biologists like Stephen Jay Gould have proposed additional theories for the mechanisms of evolution (punctuated equilibrium).  There is no "theory of evolution."  There is the phenomenon of evolution and then theories as to how this phenomenon actually occurs.  At the very least it would be "theories of evolution".  So, when people say "Evolution is just a theory", they are talking bollocks.  If they say, "Punctuated equilibrium is just a theory," they would be on the mark.  But then, most of the people in question wouldn't understand a word I am saying.

So, the Darwin fish doesn't even really represent evolutionism, much less atheism.  Atheism is mostly unrelated to evolutionism.  There are some religious people who believe evolution was driven by divine intelligence.  So, theism and evolutionism are not necessarily mutually exclusive.  Yes, I guess you could say I am an evolutionist, but that does not prey upon my mind.  I am an evolutionist in the same way I am a gravitationalist.  I would rarely define myself by either term.  Unless I was in a room filled with people who didn't believe in gravity.

I think the primary reason that evolutionism is often used interchangeably with atheism is because of Christians.  Because atheism doesn't really have any set of beliefs universal to all atheists, it is difficult to attack (you can't dispute beliefs which don't exist).  When Christians argue with atheists they do one of three things:  1) Apologetics.  2) Blind insults.  "You're going to hell and I'm not, nya nya!"  3) They attack science, including evolution and the big bang.  The latter is often heard on alt.atheism.  Christians post messages which they think are attacks on atheism.  But they are actually attacks on science.  Belief in evolution and the big bang are not prerequisites to becoming an atheist.  There were atheists before either of these ideas came about.  But if Christians truly want to argue against atheism, they either have to resort to obscure and sometimes fallacious apologetics or they must use straw men.  Most commonly that straw man is evolution.  Even if they could disprove evolution, that would have no effect at all upon atheism.  For some reason, Christians never seem to grasp this.

Back to questions.

12.  Why do you only make fun of Christianity?

The gist of this question is, "Why do you only make fun of my religion when there are so many other religions like Islam and Judaism?"  Well, I don't really know all that much about Judaism and I don't make fun of Islam because I enjoy life and don't want to get blown up.  But those two reasons are actually really minor.  The reason I ridicule Christianity should be obvious, particularly with the information that I am living in the United States.  Christianity is very strong, one might say over-powering, in America.  I don't make fun of other religions because those other religions don't come to my door trying to infect me.  I don't have to hear drivel about Allah all over the television and radio stations.  I am not constantly accosted on the street by semi-sane individuals telling me to accept Buddha into my life.  Christianity is the most prevalent and most obnoxious religion in America.  That is why I make fun of it.  If everyone were to convert to Shinto tomorrow, I would start ridiculing that instead.  Hopefully that doesn't happen, because there is a wealth of comedy inherent in Christianity.

Back to questions.

13.  If you don't believe in God, how can you be moral?

I already touched on this above.  Most Christians don't believe that atheists are incapable of being moral, but some of the particularly thick ones do.  Take another example from those kings of the imbeciles, The Cutting Edge.

"Some might even say we have become 'punchy' fighting in the trenches every day with the likes of Atheists and Liberals and other such immoral types."

Firstly, war metaphors are overused stock material if not clichés.  Secondly, their morally-holier-than-thou attitude is archaic and callow.  Many people who ask this question are not asking it maliciously (though that could not be said of The Cutting Edge).  They honestly believe it is impossible to have morals without religion.  They are very stupid, but not necessarily mean.  I still despise them.  There have been many well meaning bigots throughout the ages.  Stupidity or ignorance is no excuse.

This is one of those questions I rarely answer because I tire of having to explain it so repeatedly.  So, here goes.  Just like Christians, and in fact just like everyone, my moral standards are based upon social mores.  Much like any Christian, I was raised with these mores and they are now a part of my character.  They didn't have to threaten me with imaginary monsters (like the Devil) to convince me to accept these ethical standards.  I accepted them because I am civilized.  The morals are a part of my civilization and my society.  As a member of that society, I respect and abide by its mores.

In my experience, Christianity (fundamentalist Protestantism in particular) provides easy loopholes around morality.  Unlike Catholicism, fundamentalist Protestantism dictates that if you accept Christ as your savior and proclaim love for Him, you get to go to heaven.  It doesn't matter what you have done.  If you have lived a good life and obeyed every moral rule but you are an atheist, the loving God sends you to writhe in agony in eternal hellfire (if you ask me, this God is the most unspeakably evil monstrosity imaginable).  People who accept Christ and ask forgiveness for their sins can do virtually anything and still go to heaven.  As my character Reverend Henry Wood says, "It's like a ticket to do anything."

I realize that nothing in this answer will really convince fundies that atheists can be moral.  They are too rigid, shallow, stubborn, ignorant and superstitious to really ever accept that they are not necessarily superior.

Back to questions.

14.  What is your political affiliation?

I don't really have any official political affiliation.  Some conservative religious people make the mistake of assuming that all atheists are left-wingers.  I consider myself neither left nor right wing.  Such a classification system leaves many people undefined as moderates.  I am generally a libertarian.  I am socially liberal and economically conservative.  I think I am closer to being a conservative than a liberal politically.  But the moralistic big-strong-government attitudes of the religious right prevent me from supporting the republicans, who I feel are semi-conservative at best.  With the possible exception of Pat Buchanan, they are conservative when it comes to economics, taxation, foreign aid, etc. Or at least they pretend to be conservative on these issues, even though their policies don't always follow (Pat Buchanan doesn't even pretend to be conservative). Yet, when it comes to creating massive bureaucracies to regulate and enforce religious moral standards they are really quite liberal.  There should be no such thing as a big-government conservative (like Pat Buchanan).  That should be an oxymoron.  I don't want the government telling me what I must believe, which words I can use, which books I can read, which movies I can watch and which consensual acts of love I can entertain in my own home.  I don't want politicians speaking down to me as if I was a child and telling me what is best for me.  The less the government interferes with my business, the better.  And for crying out loud, those wankers have no say about what goes on in my bedroom.

I am as cynical about politics as I am about religion.  I have no faith in God and very little faith in politicians.  I am registered to vote, but I have not yet decided if I will actually go through with it this November.  If I vote, it will be for Harry Browne.  I could not in all good conscience vote for the Trial Lawyer Party (Democrats) or the Tobacco-Theocracy Party (Republicans).  I know Harry won't win because most people who are libertarians don't know it.  Few people in the general public know that the Libertarian Party exists.  But at least my vote will be in principle.  I refuse to settle for the lesser evil.

And finally, I am a capitalist and not a socialist (I say this for the benefit of those thick cretins out there).  The reason I say this is that many Christians, in particular the spectacularly stupid ones, think that atheism and communism/socialism are somehow the same thing (or they think all atheists are also socialists).  They are so stupid that they don't know the difference between an economic system and religious classification.  I am a capitalist to the bone.  I'm sorry if that conflicts with your imaginary world-view and causes you to have a mental meltdown.