what do you believe?

i have a friend. though some would certainly say, “i know seekingintongues and there's no way he anyone would be his friend,” sal paradise has demonstrated that he is my friend.

mostly, we debate one another on political matters. sal refers to himself a neo-communist; i am a libertarian. sal believes in spreading the wealth. i believe in capitalism. sal thinks ronald reagan was a criminal. i believe he was the greatest president since jefferson(save his necessarily pragmatic ties to the religious right). sal likes the pixies. i like the beatles. okay, he likes the beatles too, but you get the idea.

point is...we don't agree on much of anything.

my initial rendition of “god has a purpose for me” was written for an online support community. sal was a frequent and celebrated contributor to that community. as a man who has embraced atheism, he responded to “god has...” by explaining the way in which atheism has made his life meaningful. those are my words not sal's

sal is a fantastic communicator and though i disagree with his opinion on a lot of stuff, i love to read the stuff he writes. he bills himself as an “anti-everything enthusiast.” classic. he's funny, sardonic, irreverent, logical, intelligent and almost always sickeningly “on.” he's like dr. gregory house on steroids...and opioids.

i asked sal paradise to contribute a piece on “the virtues of atheism,” because i thought it might stir some discussion related to peoples' beliefs.

here is sal's response, which can also be found on his blog, daydream nation. (sorry, no caps sal.)

enjoy...

On Atheism; Part One

"...there almost certainly is no god..."

-Richard Dawkins

What it is that gets me about that fantastic sentence is the word "almost".

Recently, a friend emailed me (someone that I respect tremendously), and asked if I would write for them something regarding the "virtues of atheism".

I am an atheist. So the request made complete sense.

I read the email and was flattered to have received such a request. I jumped on the idea of having an opportunity to share what I perceived to be the "virtues of atheism" with the general public, especially when the request was coming from such a valor source.

So, I responded to this email with an amiable agreement to do precisely what had been requested:

"I would be happy to write something up. Just give me a couple of days and I'll send something to you..."

(that's paraphrased, I'm sure...)

It's been WAY more than "a couple of days."

The reason it's been "way more than a couple of days"...is because once I received the request and so hastily responded to it, I was almost immediately faced with task of having to begin thinking about what indeed were the "virtues of atheism".

Here's something about atheists:

When you ask an atheist, "what are the virtues of atheism?", what you have done is you have unwittingly and almost certainly without malice (but quite unfairly, nonetheless) triggered a series of cerebral events...a series of events that are neither interesting nor worth going on about in this essay.

What ends up being interesting and actually worth sharing, though, to be sure...are the consequences of having asked an atheist such a question...

First of all, there isn't any such thing as any sort of "virtue of atheism".

I wrote:

"There are no 'virtues' of atheism. That would be a misnomer, at best. Atheism is nothing more than a personal declaration to remain within the boundaries of reason...Atheism neither demands nor is defined in any way by what anyone would ever consider to be a 'virtue'..."

Now, that's one hundred percent true, right there. Seriously, that's an honest statement.

People find and live by morals and virtue (with AND without religion!), everywhere. Those that live by moral values and virtues are represented thoroughly in this world by:

Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhits, Wiccans, Christians, agnostics, Satanists, Outer-Space-Teacup-ers, 12-steppers, Mormons, Scientologists, Catholics, and...believe it or NOT...atheists! (not to mention the countless OTHER religions, questions, beliefs, non-beliefs, creeds, races, cultures etc....)

SO...there's good guys, right?...I mean, just look at Mohammed Ali, Stephen Spielberg, Gosāla Maskarin, Buddha, the guys that put together "the Blair Witch Project", Jesus, my brother 5 years ago, Ozzy, ????, Doctor Bob, .5% of the Salt Lake City Population, John Travolta, Robert DeNiro's character in "Sleepers" and...believe it or NOT...Thomas Jefferson! (not to mention representatives of the countless OTHER religions, questions, beliefs, non-beliefs, creeds, races, cultures etc....)

Unfortunately, because of to what degree the above paragraphs are TRUE, you must also consider that those that stray away from a life of any sort of morals or virtue are also well represented thoroughly in this world by:

Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhist, Wiccans, Christians, agnostics, Satanists, Outer-Space-Teacup-ers, 12-steppers, Mormons, Scientologists, Catholics, and...believe it or NOT...atheists! (not to mention representative of the countless OTHER religions, questions, beliefs, non-beliefs, creeds, races, cultures etc....)

SO...there's bad guys, too...Just look at Osama Bin Laden, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Ranvir Sena, Tiger Woods (just kidding!...lol), Godsmack, Jerry Falwell (not kidding), Dave Matthews, Peter H. Gilmore, Glenn Beck, Bill W , 99.5% of the Salt Lake City population, Tom Cruise, Pope Benedict XVI, and...believe it or NOT...Josef Stalin!

The one thing that all of the above have in common is that they each have very little in common...

...the only thing they have in common is that every one of them feature some of history's biggest assholes...

...and some of history's biggest heroes.

Not one comes close to cornering any market in terms of either "virtue" or "sin".

And for me, it takes understanding that before any understanding of atheism can be realized.

Basically, the point here is, that there's no evidence that believing in anything makes anyone on Earth any less of an asshole. Those fuckers are EVERYWHERE.

So let's first toss out completely the ridiculous idea that some kind of religion or otherwise structured belief in a "god" (and of course, what I mean by that is, "whatever it is according to whatever it was that YOUR parents indoctrinated you into believing"...[if you haven't gotten offended yet, now's the time!]) is required for anyone anywhere to be a GOOD or a BAD person.

All jokes aside...

-32-

daydream nation