_”Having no faith in a God” whether Atheist or Agnostic is a religion too, it just lacks moral fiber. It requires way more faith to believe in a world without a divine Creator, evolving by chance over billions of years from “Primal Soup”: that is pure lunacy!_
In order of points raised:
Sure, I’ll count ‘Atheists’ and ‘Agnostics’ as a ‘segment of faith’ provided we’re talking demographical statistics. (Interestingly enough, the segments showing the most growth, which gives me faith in our secular future.) Otherwise they are, by definition, not religions. (Seriously, the religious would do themselves a great service to get their heads around the very concept of religion. Did you know you have to be a cult before you can be a religion? Its an evolutionary thing as more and more people coalesce around a particular doctrine. Atheists and agnostics can’t come to that party until they first decide on a doctrine, at which point they are no longer atheist or agnostic. Oh, and I first learned that in Sunday School.)
I will grant that religion is a source of moral fiber. It is not, however, the only source of moral fiber. To be godless, as it were, is not to be automatically without moral conviction. It’s somewhat surprising how many anti-christian-establishment people share the fundamental moral fiber of the Christianity. Religion is one strategy to find a moral compass if you’re lacking. Its just not the only strategy. Its an easier path, I wager, than building your own compass. Buy a holy text, get a free moral compass! Right?
By and large they’ll steer you right, but only if you apply them wholistically and consistently. This is, however, counter to your very nature as a human being. You’re a situational creature. You act accordingly. You also find that because you’re using what was handed to you, you don’t know it as intimately as you should to have it be a full and comprehensive guide to the volatile and unpredictable thing that is life.
What is far more impressive, in my mind, is the person who can build a strong moral compass, maintain the conviction to wield it, and do so of his or her own accord, without relying on the crutches of what one’s religion tells one is morally correct. These others, of the non-faith, understand something those who rely on religion for moral fiber often do not. Morals are personal, not shared. They come from within, not without. Where the godless may lack in faith, they make up for with courage.
Its those who seek to have no moral compass at all that you should be concerning yourself with. There are plenty who claim something other than Atheist or Agnostic and lack moral fiber as well. (Not to be confused with those who simply possess a very different moral outlook than what is ‘mainstream.’) Its a condition thats human, not religious (or lack thereof).
Speaking of faith, the religious would do themselves another great service in getting their heads around that concept too. More faith to believe in a world without a divine creator? Well the world does not require faith. It is. It was before there were people to believe in things and if our current tragectory holds, will still be long after the beliefs and the people that held them have ceased to. So the world is, so the world was, and so the world shall be.
Sure atheists have rejected the notion of a divine creator (and some like to tell you how silly you are for considering otherwise). That’s not a product of having a stronger faith in something else though. It’s that they are people who don’t deal well in the subjective. They need truths that hold true for everyone, all the time. Things that are objective, or at least as objective as the human condition allows. Faith simply does not serve them (although many experience it nevertheless, just in other things). Agnostics, on the other hand, hold no strong opinions. This also isn’t the product of a stronger faith in something else. Most Agnostics are practicing atheists (in that they aren’t practicing any religion), they just tend to be more open minded to that which the spiritual know as the ‘unseen’ world.
There is a distinct lack of reliance on faith all around for those who are godless. They’re secular people, who prefer to focus on that which they can know is true without having to rely on faith to make it true.
So no, it doesn’t take more faith to be agnostic or atheist in this world, but I’d wager it does require a great deal more courage on their part. Afterall, they have no holy book to fall back on; no god to forgive them their trespasses. They have to fully and wholly own themselves, their thoughts, their actions, and their consequences.
Which, incidentally, should also illustrate to the atheists and the agnostics of the world why people coalesce around religion. You know yourself the difficulties in finding the answers you seek. Not everyone is yet as brave as you to undertake that journey alone, with no guide. Far more difficult, albeit more rewarding, to build your own compass than to just buy one in your local sporting goods store. Is a _moral_ compass really all that different?
Science suggests random evolution over the few billions of years this planet has been around. Science also knows, however, that we have no direct observations for the bulk of that time, only inferred data. Prevailing and widely-accepted theory doesn’t mean bonified fact. Science knows this. Do you, when science talks to you, understand that? Educated guesses based on that which fits _all_ observation to date. Then ruthlessly attacked by one’s colleagues and peers. Whatever is left standing is what becomes the prevailing theory…until it too can be challenged. (In a way, science seeks to unknow what it knows, to make darn sure it knows anything at all.)
The only lunacy on either side of this is when minds become closed. Science gets it wrong, owns up to it, and moves forward in rapid succession. Religion, on the other hand, has a tendancy of spending centuries knowing better before sheepeshly acknowledging they were wrong.
Plenty of conviction to go around. Courage?
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