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Friday 19 December 2008

informing your atheism

i'm on the atheist blogroll so i suppose i might as well tell you why. most atheists, i'm sure, have good reasons for becoming atheists (aside from being born one, of course). unless they are atheist for the simple reason that everyone around them is, not that i have a problem with that, it worked for religion long enough.

the reason i am an atheist is primarily twofold. reason number one i discovered thanks to a medical condition. now before you all jump down my throat, i'm not angry with my creators for my condition, my parents could not have known it would happen anyway (boom, boom). but, what my diabetes did open my eyes to is what happens to you when you die.

the fact that none of us like the idea of ceasing to exsist is basically religions sole selling point - the old 'it makes you a better person' schtick loses its strength with every holy book-inspired death. i believe i've talked before about experiencing death before, for those who missed it: knock yourself out. suffice to say, it is not as exciting an experience as it is reported to be.

why i am so sure i have no eternal soul is my aforementioned medical condition. for those readers unaccustomed to the ins and outs of type 1 diabetes. i have to replace my insulin by myself (my pancreas having been 'taken out' by my own immune system). this can, on occasion lead me to have less sugar in my blood than is optimal. but wait, here's the rub: when my blood sugar levels drop i become a different person. and i aint just talking mood swing, oh no, i'ma talking diminished responsibility here folks; i change.

how does this inform my atheism? well just stop and think a wee mo, i am supposed to have within me an inviolable soul. a spirit, if you will, that not only makes up who i am, in a very deep and real sense, but also survives death. now, i asks ya, how can something that supposedly survives death not even survive a hypo(glycemic attack)? - i hope to follow this up by looking into diabetes vis-a-vis religious belief surely i'm not the only on to have reached this conclusion?

reason number two is a more ecumenical matter. and it is this: why would an all-powerful creator of the universe, creator of immovable objects and unstoppable forces, need to rely on emotional blackmail? aside from my firm belief that no relationship should be started (or continued) on the basis of emotional blackmail, why resort to it at all? i mean come on, this is the best you can do? hurl empty (and faintly ridiculous) threats and promises about?

what kind of a god worth praying to does that? what kind of a god creates a world full of evidence that contradicts his very own words and then threatens eternal punishment for the crime of disbelief?
it would be a very sick joke if it wasn't so funny and somewhat mirthful if it weren't so very ill.

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