Let me clear the air for a moment. There's alot of people (me included) who have in the past kinda had the outlook of "Atheism is evil. Mrgrgr..." Atheism is actually, aside from the assertion that there is no God/gods/afterlife/etc, is simply secularism. I've likewise seen plenty of the opposite "Religion is evil. Mrgrgr..." I'll get to that but first we will talk about secularism.
(The "Mrgrgr" thing is from Bravely Default. It's a meme. Bascially, angry sounds)
Atheism as a viewpoint, is actually none of my business. If Joe Stone over there wants to not believe in evil spirits, it is not up to me to tell him not to. Which leads to the second issue, equivalency. I would assume good faith on your part, and that you won't badmouth my religion. Let's agree to disagree.
On the other hand, I'm gonna talk about secularism. Secularism is the idea that there is a clear-cut birth and death of all living things, that only the physical world matters, and silly superstitious nonsense is for the birds. There may also be some Zen-like "live for the moment" stuff, but devoid of any inner focus or purpose. There are some social, moral, and political issues with secularism. Ostensibly, it's popular because if there is no outside "higher power" telling them what to do. There is an increased belief in logic and reason, and that the world we see is all that is real. Which is fine, but as a belief set this is called empiricism. We also have a belief in evolution, which is fine (aside from the fact that it is in fact a plan of sorts, so calling it random chance is screwy logic, but we won't dwell on that), but also a strong belief that our DNA controls much of who were are, not some God. Combine this with several ideas about his discrimination is inborn "privilege" and we get a sense of fatalism. All of these are ways that humans can cop out of taking responsibility for their own lives. As I say, all this makes secularism popular. But there is a problem. As people point out from various religions, without God people have no moral authority. This is incorrect, the secular world has two authorities. Shame and the state. If you notice any secular society, it is about how productive you are, how much money you make, how pretty you are, etc. This are all signs of a heavily meritocratic system, where worth comes from being one of those people. Those who do not belong to those people are shamed. Only, to be one of the privileged people, you fall under a very narrow margin, the people with the most stuff that are sorta white but not white enough to have white privilege, who make enough, who don't say unpopular things, who are cool, who don't have embarrassing social or medical issues. How do we enforce this? With the state. As countries get increasingly secular, they tend to become increasingly statist. Mesopotamia, Rome, Nazi-era Germany, USSR, and China, all of these were secular (I say secular, not atheist, because while the latter three were atheist, the former two had gods. But their culture promoted gods as something to be bought, owning trinkets and statues rather than seeking personal enlightenment). All of these as a result of strong state, are naturally autocratic, dictatorial, and above all oppressive.
Let me clarify this. It is possible to be a secular Christian. You believe in God, but essentially share the mindset of a fatalistic rules lawyer. This would place you usually in the fundamentalist mindset, where wrath of God is more important than the
love of God. One that holds Hell over people's heads, as something to happen if you don't follow said rules. In fact, the combination of this and heavy atheist presence (who are ironically at odds with each other), are part of why this country is becoming more secular and statist.
The state's power is fear. You are "free to do what you want" but there is an undercurrent that if you do not make enough, work hard enough, you will die. They count in fact on your lack of belief in an afterlife to instill a sense that if you do not measure up, the only life you've got will be lost. Not only that, but if you become a criminal under their increasingly narrow and oppressive laws, you will die. I shouldn't have to point out that this is a bad thing. But I apparently do because people don't get it.
This is fear.
I'm also going to talk about religion, mainly because it seems like while statistically atheists know more about the surface-level background (I've seen the religion test for the survey, I pretty much got a perfect score too), they have the essential notion that either "all religions are basically the same" or "Christianity claims it is the only right religion, so they must think all others are going to hell." One, no they aren't, and two, only certain Christians think that. World religions are similar, but let's see if I can make this make sense...
Let's start with the meaning of religion. Religion means to "Re:Connect" (re -> again, ligere -> connection (from the same word root as ligaments, the muscles that hold bones and stuff together)). Despite numerous problems of religion, this is the goal of religion. It is a matter of having good leaders and good goals.
The Purpose of Religion | WaheguruNet
All religions have different belief sets, whether there is one God, many gods, no gods, one afterlife, no afterlife, and what each consists of, and how to get there. So let's start with Judaism, then Christianity, Hinduism, and Taoism.
Judaism holds "
Sh'ma Yisra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad." Or, "Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one." This is shown at weddings too, breaking a glass to symbolize that creation was originally One, and has been broken into pieces, but much of their lore involves a dream to unify these parts back into a perfect creation. It was influenced by a number of other teachings, and developed its afterlife theory from basically a place of darkness where everyone goes to more of a real afterlife.
Christianity comes from Judaism, but in some ways is completely different. Jesus was originally known as Emmanuel or "God with us" and much of his teachings reflect this. Now, on the surface, it looks like Jesus at some points is trying to promote a religious monopoly when he says "no one can enter the kingndom of heaven but through me." But, first, not all religions believe in the same Heaven, and second recall who Jesus is. Jesus is "God with us," the idea being that God shares essence with his creation (see Judaism and Oneness). Anyone who treats others with love, who helps people in nursing homes, who is in the business of doing good work for social justice or freedom or anything of value, is a follower of Jesus. Even if they stay the hell away from church or belong to another religion entirely. This is the meaning of the sharing of the bread and wine. Imagine the whole bread and whole wine (then recite "
Sh'ma Yisra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad" for added fun), and envision each person living in this world as a piece of this one bread. Otherwise, you've missed the point of Christianity, it's not about being a "good Christian" that's the secular mentality, it's about our intrinsic worth as humans, as part of the whole that is God.
Next Hinduism. Ostensibly, this is completely different, being polytheistic, having an afterlife that is mainly reincarnation, etc. But, not so fast. This week I've been read Deepak Chopra's
Life After Death, and it elaborates on the astral plane (which is essentially a merge-up of Heaven/Hell in a single location). And among scholars of Hinduism, there are numerous deities, then there is a trinity of sorts (with each being an aspect of existence), and then finally, there is just Brahman.
Finally, Taoism. In some ways, Taoism is very much a compatible religion with atheism, but not all. It is very much a "deity optional" religion, owing more interest to concepts of Yin/Yang, how to rule a state, and the nature of reality. It also lacks a normal "afterlife" per se, spending more effort discussing immortality. I can try to explain this in depth but "the Tao that can be named is not the true Tao." There is a parable about a butterfly.
Quote:
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One night, Zhuangzi dreamed of being a butterfly — a happy butterfly, showing off and doing things as he pleased, unaware of being Zhuangzi. Suddenly he awoke, drowsily, Zhuangzi again. And he could not tell whether it was Zhuangzi who had dreamt the butterfly or the butterfly dreaming Zhuangzi. But there must be some difference between them! This is called 'the transformation of things'.
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The sense that real and unreal are two sides of a coin, and we cannot have a fixed perception of "this is real", and "
this isn't real." All things are potentially either.
I could do Buddhism too, but this is already long. Basically, similar to Taoism and Christianity.
Put 'em together, and whatta ya got? (Bibidi Babidi Buu) A religion that accepts the Oneness of the universe, that accepts the indwelling of this in all living things, a religion that sees many manifestations of the same truth and an afterlife that is largely based on the person (as Deepak Chopra puts it "Ironically, someone who has been a skeptic in this world will likely be a skeptic in the astral planes; he won't realize he's in the very place he doesn't believe exists"), and finally the Yin/Yang and an idea very similar to what is shown in the Matrix. Each of these religions are very different, but they meld together to form a larger picture.
This is hope.
Taoism states that "hope is as hollow as fear." When explained, it mentions that many of these keep you from seeing the truth. That they create false perceptions. The false perception here is that there is a difference between life and death, that the world we see is an accurate representation of the real world.
This is Good News, not because all of us Christians can get their special cloud Heaven. But because if we don't need a specific hope and we don't need to be afraid, we can truly go where we want and do what we want. Not "after life". We have no way of knowing that this is not the afterlife in disguise. If we already died, we have nothing to fear from death.
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