Hello, my name is Spencer, and I'm a Christian.
I've been an atheist for 3 months now.
(Applause)
It took some time and serious consideration to begin my path to atheism. I wasn't sure who, if any, of my friends and family at the time would accept my beliefs. But then I asked myself if being accepted by my friends and family was more important than being accepted by myself.
There are some statements that have been made to me that I would like to respond to about atheism. These are some questions that have been asked by acquaintances when the subject of religion has been brought up, and they've found me out as an atheist.
This isn't going to be structured/presented properly or professionally by any means, because I am tired. Never the less, my fingers were itching to punch keys on this laptop about atheism in a blog that a bunch of strangers will unenthusiastically read.
How do you explain grace?
This person clarified by saying "grace" to him was an opportunity that has opened up that normally would not have been or by obtaining something that should not have been obtained.
It's hard to figure out a place to start when it comes to responding to a question like this. First, it must be determined why an opportunity would not have been presented otherwise or why I should not have obtained whatever it is we're considering in the first place? This is a classic example of selective observation. For whatever reason, some guy named Bob gets a pay raise he doesn't think he deserves and thanks Yahweh or Allah for the pay raise. Surely, some supernatural God out there would be interested in these kinds of things right? It's not all about blood sacrifices and killing infidel babies, is it?
Then, as a response, let's consider the opposite of grace. For lack of a better word, I'll use the term "Burden".
When asked this question, I respond, "How do you explain this burden?"
Most Christians will ask, "What burden?"
Well, the burden that is put on us humans for being created by an omniscient God that knew some of would go to hell for not believing that his son lived on this planet for a period of time but was then killed by pre-selected skeptics by this omniscient God to believe in this kind of nonsense to live eternally to praise this God who omniscientally put us in this position in the first place.
Why don't you believe?
I know, I know, this sounds like a very common and silly question to address, because every atheist has a different answer but I think it's a fun question to acknowledge.
I usually will respond by explaining why I DID believe in the first place.
I believed because as a young child my parents and my parents' parents and my friends' parents told me I was going to suffer an eternal life burning in hell if I didn't believe. That was terrifying to hear as a child, and so I tried to convince myself to believe.
I believed in Jesus most of the same reasons I believed in Santa Claus. My parents and most of the people I was surrounded by growing up told me he was real and that he did miraculous things for me if I was a good boy and believed in him and sacrificed my cookies or my cows.
But if I had to directly answer why I don't believe, I would try to do it. I would explain that it's very disappointing and depressing to me that the majority of humans on this Earth that God supposedly created would be tortured for eternity because they didn't know if a God, and if so which one in particular, created them. So I choose to have faith that it isn't true.
Religion does more good than it does bad!
What do we mean by religion? If you mean believing that a certain event occured and stating with absolute certainty without any proof that it did happen is religion, then you are mistaken. If someone can explain to me how believing in something for no reason other than fear of damnation does more good than bad for a society than bad, then I would like to hear the reasoning behind such a theory.
If religion means to gather and agree about and/or discuss certain ideals with fellow believers in those ideals, then sure we could make a case that this is healthy for us humans and society. But I would call that democracy or political parties rather than religion.