Rant on.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The title of this post may sound like a contradiction to some, particularly to those who follow some form of organized religion.\u00a0 However, it is not a contradiction.\u00a0 Everybody believes in…well, I am not going to say something<\/em> because the truth is everybody believes in a lot of things.\u00a0 By that I mean everyone believes in the existence<\/em> of many things.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In fact an Atheist is, technically, defined by what he or she believes.\u00a0 Specifically, an atheist believes no deity exists.\u00a0 That does not mean an atheist must deny the existence of all thing supernatural, although many do.\u00a0 Some may even claim one cannot hold any supernatural beliefs and be a “true” atheist, but this is as bad as any organized religion pushing a specific creed and not accepting any who believe even a little differently.\u00a0 The word “atheist” is formed from two parts: “a” as in “not”, similar to amoral (not to be confused with immoral) or asexual or asocial (not to be confused with antisocial), and “theist”, meaning a believer in a deity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Some feel that atheists are amoral or immoral.\u00a0 There is an important distinction between the two:\u00a0 Amoral is having no morals, no sense of right or wrong.\u00a0 An immoral person knows what’s right or wrong and specifically chooses to do wrong things.\u00a0 An amoral person, if such a person could exist, would go through life with little care about the consequences of their actions.\u00a0 It’s a little harder to give a specific example of an immoral person because morals are such a personal thing.\u00a0 For example, many religious folks feel homosexuality is immoral, but other religions’ do not.\u00a0 Some creeds justify murder in some cases, although most find it immoral (to say the least).\u00a0 Morality is a very personal definition, then.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That being said, most atheists fall within the bounds of moral, ethical people.\u00a0 Some atheists get just as holier-than-thou as some religious folks, stating things like they don’t need the promise of heaven or the threat of hell to be good people.\u00a0 In the strictest sense, this may be true, but it suggests religious folks are good only to get to heaven or avoid hell.\u00a0 That atheists are good without such motivation means anyone<\/em> can be good just because it’s the right way to be.\u00a0 So religious folks can be the same way with heaven as a bonus for being who they would be anyway.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So it all comes down to a question of what one believes to be true.\u00a0 I am an atheist, so I believe there is no such thing as a deity.\u00a0 I am keenly aware this is a belief<\/em>, not something proven one way or another, so I could be wrong, and there could, in fact, be a deity or deities out there.\u00a0 However, corollary to my atheistic belief is I believe if there is a god, there is no way any human can really wrap their mind around the way that god thinks.\u00a0 Such a being would certainly be near impossible to write a book about.\u00a0 Language would simply fail to be an adequate means of communication.\u00a0 This, too, is a belief, and it could be wrong.\u00a0 The problem is, most religious folks, as well as quite a few atheists–at least by my observation– reject this line of thought, believing (there’s that word again!) their point of view is the only possibility, ignoring the definition of belief, which requires faith, not proof, and as such can be incorrect.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The thing about faith, I suppose, is that it’s hard to dissuade, regardless of the facts.\u00a0 This is why some people still believe the Earth is flat.\u00a0 Evidence to the contrary has been acknowledged since before Christ.\u00a0 As I have phrased it before, nevermind the facts, I have my own opinion!\u00a0 That aside, I believe (there’s that word again!) there’s room for many different beliefs in this world.\u00a0 So I accept that I may be wrong and respect others’ belief in what I consider to be fiction.\u00a0 I could argue my point of view, but I am unlikely to convince anyone.\u00a0 Such attempts are more likely to cause friction and emotional pain than resolve anything.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So I ask any who might read this:\u00a0 Accept my beliefs as being mine, and I will accept yours.\u00a0 I promise to not try to show you the flaws in what you think if you have the same respect for me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rant off<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rant on. The title of this post may sound like a contradiction to some, particularly to those who follow some form of organized religion.\u00a0 However, it is not a contradiction.\u00a0 Everybody believes in…well, I am not going to say something because the truth is everybody believes in a lot of things.\u00a0 By that I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=720"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":721,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions\/721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.shadowkatmandu.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}